Thomas Aquinas College

Private · Moderately Selective · CA

Photo: Ken Lund from Reno, Nevada, USA (CC BY-SA 2.0)

School data & stats

TypePrivate

LocationCA · West

SettingRural

Undergrads566

Student:faculty11:1

Outcomes

4-yr grad rate82.6%

6-yr grad rate84.3%

Drop-out rate8.4%

Study abroad—

Cost

In-state tuition$30k

Out-of-state tuition$30k

Application fee—

Community

Racial diversity36.2%

Gender diversity50.5%

International6.7%

IdentityRoman Catholic

Overview

Thomas Aquinas College is a Catholic Great Books college in Santa Paula, California, built around a single required curriculum rather than a choice of majors. Every student follows the same four-year sequence of seminar discussions on primary texts, with no lectures and no textbooks in the conventional sense. It also operates a second campus in New England.

Academics

The entire course of study — literature, theology, philosophy, mathematics, and the natural sciences — is taught through original works: Euclid and Newton for math and science, Plato and Aquinas for philosophy and theology, rather than modern textbooks summarizing them. Classes are small, Socratic discussion seminars led by tutors rather than lecturing professors, and every student takes the identical sequence; there are no majors or electives to choose.

Campus & student life

The campus is small, rural, and deliberately residential, with traditional Catholic devotional life — daily Mass, a chapel at the center of campus — woven into the daily rhythm rather than offered as an optional activity. Community is tight, given that every student shares the same curriculum.

Getting in

Admissions weighs genuine fit for an unusually demanding, entirely fixed curriculum more than a typical academic profile — essays and often an interview probe intellectual seriousness and interest in the Great Books method specifically, since there is no easier track to opt into once enrolled.

After graduation

Graduates disproportionately pursue law, graduate study in the humanities and philosophy, teaching, and religious life or seminary, aided by a small but tightly connected alumni network built around shared intellectual formation.

Worth knowing

There is no course selection at any point in four years — this is the defining fact of the school, not a footnote — so students should be certain they want an entirely integrated classical curriculum before applying.

thomasaquinas.edu ↗

Admissions

Acceptance rate83.1%

Enrolled mid-50%SAT 1220–1400 · ACT 28–33

Test policyrequired

Rec letters1

Deadlines (2026–27 cycle)

Applying