The Texas A&M University College of Veterinary Medicine & Biomedical Sciences (CVMBS) is welcoming 180 first-year students to its Doctor of Veterinary Medicine (DVM) program, making the Class of 2025 the largest class of veterinary students in the nation.

In addition to the 162 students beginning class in College Station, the first day of DVM classes also marks the launch of the 2+2 program, which includes 18 veterinary students who will spend the first two years of their curriculum at the new Veterinary Education, Research, and Outreach (VERO) facility on the West Texas A&M University campus in Canyon.

Through the 2+2 program, the cohort of 18 will return to College Station for the final two years of their education, which includes fourth-year clinical rotations at the Texas A&M Veterinary Medical Teaching Hospital (VMTH), the state’s only veterinary teaching hospital.

“We have a standard of excellence that’s been set for over 100 years,” said CVMBS Dean John R. August. “We took the time to carefully build this program, to hire faculty who are not only excellent educators but experienced veterinary practitioners, and to make sure these students are receiving an education that lives up to those very standards.”

The start of classes at VERO reflects Texas A&M’s commitment to increasing the state’s supply of rural and large animal veterinary practitioners and is the culmination of Texas A&M’s efforts to expand its nationally ranked veterinary medical program into the Texas Panhandle and High Plains regions.

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The new 22,000-square foot VERO building, which opened earlier this year on the West Texas A&M campus, includes state-of-the-art classroom and laboratory spaces in the heart of the Panhandle.

Unique to the program is that the faculty teaching at the VERO campus are also CVMBS faculty who are part of the same departments as their College Station counterparts, facilitating collaborations on curriculum and research. CVMBS faculty also will support student learning by traveling to teach at both campuses throughout the year.

Texas A&M’s Doctor of Veterinary Medicine (DVM) program has graduated 8,621 Aggie veterinarians since its inception in 1916.

Within the DVM Class of 2024, which entered veterinary school in the fall of 2020, 88% of Texas A&M’s veterinary students come from within 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.

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The CVMBS’ updated curriculum, implemented in 2017, builds a solid foundation of scientific knowledge, provides experiential learning to master clinical and professional skills, and develops competencies required for an entry-level veterinarian in any career path, while also encouraging students to explore areas they may have previously had little exposure, 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 pass rate for the North American Veterinary Licensing Examination (NAVLE) greatly exceeds the national rate and has continued to increase with the implementation of the new curriculum.

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