This year the College of Veterinary Medicine & Biomedical Sciences welcomes the largest class of veterinary students in the country
Texas A&M College of Veterinary Medicine & Biomedical Sciences
Texas A&M University College of Veterinary Medicine & Biomedical Sciences (CVMBS) welcomes 180 freshmen to its Doctor of Veterinary Medicine (DVM) program, making the Class of 2025 the largest class of veterinary students in the country.
In addition to the 162 students starting their classes at College Station, the first day of the DVM classes also marks the start of the 2 + 2 program, which includes 18 veterinary students who will spend the first two years of their curriculum on the new veterinary education . Research and Outreach (VERO) facility on the West Texas A&M University campus in Canyon.
Under the 2 + 2 program, the 18-member cohort will return to college for the final two years of their education, including fourth year clinical rotations at Texas A&M Veterinary Medical Teaching Hospital (VMTH), the state’s only veterinary teaching hospital .
“We have had a standard of excellence set for over 100 years,” said CVMBS Dean John R. August. “We have taken the time to carefully build this program, hire faculty who are not only great educators but also experienced veterinarians, and ensure that these students receive training that meets these standards.”
The start of classes at VERO reflects Texas A & M’s commitment to increasing the state’s supply of rural and veterinary veterinarians and is the culmination of Texas A & M’s efforts to expand its state-rated veterinary program to the Texas Panhandle and High Plains regions .
The new 22,000-square-foot VERO building, which opened earlier this year on the A&M campus in West Texas, includes state-of-the-art classrooms and labs in the heart of the panhandle.
What is unique about the program is that the faculty on the VERO campus are also CVMBS faculties that belong to the same departments as their colleagues at the College Station, which makes it easier to collaborate on curriculum and research. The CVMBS faculty will also support student learning by teaching to teach in both locations throughout the year.
Texas A & M’s Doctor of Veterinary Medicine (DVM) program has trained 8,621 aggie veterinarians since its inception in 1916.
In the DVM class of 2024, who entered Veterinary School in the Fall of 2020, 88% of Texas A&M’s veterinary students are from the state of Texas. This represents the largest percentage of in-state students for any veterinary school in the nation.
Texas A&M Veterinary students also graduate with the lowest median debt in the nation.
The CVMBS’s updated curriculum, introduced in 2017, builds a solid foundation of scientific knowledge, provides experiential learning to master clinical and professional skills, and develops the competencies required for a novice veterinarian in any career path, while also encouraging students to explore areas They may have been little known before, such as innovation and entrepreneurship, service learning project development, small and large animal rehabilitation, medical Spanish, and exotic and wild game medicine.
Texas A & M’s success rate in the North American Veterinary Licensing Examination (NAVLE) is well above the national rate and has continued to increase with the introduction of the new curriculum.
