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Portfolio Submission

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Optional Portfolio Submission

At Thomas Jefferson University, our faculty have a long tradition of developing the design perspective of each of our students. Jefferson’s history is one where great success is achieved by advancing the design capabilities of each of our students through teaching, mentoring and recognizing our students as designers on Day One. Our students are then able to hone their craft while immersing themselves in the expanded knowledge of their discipline.

Submission of a portfolio with the application for admission is optional for first-year applicants. Doing so will provide you the opportunity of having your work reviewed by Jefferson’s expert faculty. The portfolio will provide insights into your unique design lens and a more holistic presentation of your application credentials.

The process of submitting a portfolio is slightly different for applicants who apply to Jefferson via the Common Application vs. those who apply via the MyJefferson Application.

  • If applying via the Common Application: Once your Common Application is submitted, you will be instructed on how you can access your unique Jefferson application portal to track the progress of your application. At that time, you can choose to upload an optional portfolio directly into your application portal.
  • If applying via the MyJefferson Application: When submitting your MyJefferson Application, you will have the opportunity to upload an optional portfolio directly into the application system before completing the process. You may also choose to upload it later via your unique Jefferson application portal.

First-year applicants who opt to provide a portfolio may consider submitting:

  • Drawings–especially drawings from observation
  • Examples of computer-aided design work–3D CAD, Photoshop, visualization and presentation software
  • Form Explorations–sculpture, making, mechanics, etc.
  • Problem solving–this could take many forms, these are usually project examples

While 3-5 examples are generally sufficient, it is up to the applicant to determine how they might best represent their abilities. The examples may be from school projects and/or independent work that demonstrates a variety of skills, including:

  • to conceive, iterate and improve design concepts
  • to use sketching and computer-based tools to communicate and document these ideas
  • to make well-crafted objects in three dimensions

We support media files as large as 5GB, but please be advised that larger files will take longer to upload from your internet connection and may stall if you are on a wireless connection or one that cannot sustain a connection for the necessary period of time. Uploaded documents may contain no more than 75 pages. We support the following file formats:

Video: .avi, .flv, .m1v, .m2v, .m4v, .mkv, .mov, .mpeg, .mpg, .mp4, .webm, .wmv
Audio: .aac, .aif, .aiff, .iff, .fla, .m4a, .mpa, .mp3, .ra, .wav, .wma
Slide: .bmp, .gif, .jpg, .jpeg, .png, .tif, .tiff
Document: .doc, .docx, .odg, .odp, .odt, .pdf, .ppt, .pptx, .rtf, .wpd

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