Strong First-year Class Joins the Tommie Network

The first-year class maintains St. Thomas’ recent record-setting academic profile, with an average high school GPA of 3.6 and a mid-50^th percentile ACT range of 24-29.

The 1,640 students are also coming to campus well-prepared with college-level learning: 615 (37 percent) of the students in this new cohort bring Advanced Placement credits with them.

Overall, St. Thomas welcomed 2,809 new degree and certificate-seeking students to the St. Thomas community, bringing its total head count to 10,035. This includes the 119 new students from the Dougherty Family College, 1,640 new first-year undergraduates, 187 new undergraduate transfer students, and 863 new graduate students.

The overall students-of-color population has increased steadily in recent years and this fall stands at 20 percent, up from 18.4 percent last year, 16.8 percent in 2016, 16.4 percent in 2015, and 15.5 percent in 2014. This year’s incoming first-year class includes 15.7 percent students of color.

The diversity of our student body is further enhanced when international students are included. St. Thomas does not use the race of students from other countries when calculating the overall percentage of its students of color. This fall St. Thomas welcomed 573 new and returning international students (174 undergraduate, two DFC and 397 graduate), with the undergraduate class representing 28 different countries.

As colleges and universities across the country are enrolling more women than men, the St. Thomas female-male ratio continues to show a near-even split. The percentage of students who are women is:

• 48.9 percent overall
• 46.3 percent for undergraduates
• 52.6 percent for graduates

Total undergraduate enrollment is now 6,212. Enrollment at the graduate level is 3,640, with the largest numbers enrolling in Opus College of Business (908), School of Engineering (849), College of Education (548) and School of Law (507).

With its two cohorts, the Dougherty Family College now has 183 students, 114 of which are women.

The total of undergraduate and graduate credit hours, which represents the number of courses students are taking, is 121,929.5, an increase of 3.03 percent. Dougherty Family College has 2,928 credit hours this year. Undergraduates make up 62 percent of all students, but account for 76 percent of credit hours.

The breakdown of the new 863 graduate students is as follows: 30 percent Opus College of Business, 19 percent School of Engineering, 24 percent School of Law, 10 percent School of Social Work, 5 percent School of Education, 5 percent Professional Psychology, 4 percent College of Arts and Sciences, and 4 percent School of Divinity.

Our graduate head count is down only slightly (-39) and credits are up (246) from last year. This increase in credits while experiencing a decrease in head count is due to a slightly higher count of full-time graduate students. Additionally, we continue to increase our population of graduate students of color: This year’s total of 24 percent is an increase from 22 percent last year and 20 percent in 2016.

Here’s the graduate-level enrollment, and the percent change from last year, for St. Thomas’ colleges and schools:

*With the transition of College of Education, Leadership and Counseling to School of Education, several programs have moved into other areas of the university, resetting this head count for the 2018-19 year.