Boarding Schools  Thomas Jefferson School

Thomas Jefferson School www.tjs.org

Welcome to Thomas Jefferson School (TJ), a small but far-reaching co-ed boarding and day school for grades 7 to 12. We offer a core classical curriculum to students from St. Louis to Shanghai, Little Rock to Nowy Sacz. We are a community of diverse minds who share the highest standards and seek “to lift up the world with beauty and intellect.” Thomas Jefferson School gives its students the strongest possible academic background through a classical education. Within a nurturing community, students develop a responsibility for their own learning.

 Academics

We don’t want a previous weak and lopsided background in high school to decide which door in life you choose to open. We want you to be able to choose freely. Liberal education, after all, has as its root and end in freedom—freedom of the most important kind, intellectual freedom based on a head well filled and well formed. The job market will always be looking for that, and the world will always be better off for it.

A classical education involves more than just the best books and study materials. It requires the active, patient, inspiring, demanding mentorship of well-educated adults who look for the best version of you. Plato needed Socrates, Alexander the Great Aristotle, and Thoreau Emerson. It requires a community of lively, motivated peers similarly engaged in the pursuit of the best and highest things. And it requires lofty goals to keep everyone looking up and ahead.

 Special Highlights

Student Activities Committee. The Student Activities Committee (SAC) – comprising students of all ages, parents, and teachers – plans an annual roster of diverse activities. This group organizes trips to cultural and athletic events, including the school’s attendance at all six yearly productions by The Repertory Theatre of St. Louis. Some of these events are required; others are optional. In addition, the SAC organizes on-campus entertainment, such as Film Night, Superfun Game and Karaoke Night, Dorm Olympics, and workshops on crafts and games (juggling, cooking, stage makeup and lighting, papermaking).

Spring and Summer Trips. Every other year, in a tradition that goes back more than 50 years, faculty members lead a group of students to Italy, France, England, and sometimes other European countries. Students in grades 7 to 9 spend a week in London, and older students spend two weeks exercising their language skills and getting to know a few great places well.

 Top colleges attended by students

Loyola University, Northwestern University, Rhodes College, Emory University, Vanderbilt University, Washington University, Duke University, Harvard University, Johns Hopkins University, Stanford University

 What the school looks for in students…

“Our most successful students are self-motivated, independent learners who love to read. Class participation is an important part of our program.”