A&M students react to No. 1 college ranking

Texas A&M has been placed as No. 1 of The Wall Street Journal’s 2025 Best Colleges for the second consecutive year. On Sept. 5, the ranking placed the university at the top spot among all Texas institutions. 

A&M was noted as the No. 11 university among all U.S. public institutions and No. 28 overall in the WSJ ranking. A&M now leads the SEC, and the U.S. ranking is a 10-position jump from last year. Published annually since 2016, this year’s WSJ college list used new metrics that include the learning environment, campus diversity and student post-college outcomes.

The learning environment metric is based on learning opportunities, student satisfaction and learning facilities — 20% of WSJ’s evaluation. Public health junior Abby Twyman said the best part of her learning environment is the variety of study locations.

“I really like The Gardens,” Twyman said. “I like to sit out there and study. I feel like this helps me learn.”

On the other hand, Twyman said her learning environment is impacted by professors and how certain classes are set up. 

“My exams are 75% of my grade,” Twyman said. “That makes it horrible.” 

Coming from a small high school with a graduating class of around 30, public health sophomore Marie-Therese Ramsey said the large class sizes at A&M can be difficult, but professors’ accessibility helps the overall learning environment.

“I appreciate the willingness of the professors to reach out and their openness to meet us at office hours,” Ramsey said.

The Fall 2023 enrollment of 71,127 for the College Station campus is approximately 17,500 more students than Fall 2013, according to the 2024 Capacity Study Report released by A&M. 

Biomedical science sophomore Caroline Readinger said her learning environment depends on the people around her. 

“All the people are really focused on lots of different things,” Readinger said. “There’s lots of ways to get involved.”

At 10% of the overall evaluation, the WSJ defined diversity on campus as opportunities to interact with different backgrounds, ethnic diversity and student inclusion, according to WSJ. Twyman said with more than 75,000 people on campus, there’s a wide variety of opportunities for students.

“It’s pretty diverse,” Twyman said. “You can really create any org[anization] or any club that you want, so there’s a club or org[anization] for every single person to join.”

Journalism senior DJ Burton said he believes that because A&M has continued to admit more students in recent years, the campus has grown to have more “diversity in thought.”

“I feel like there’s a lot of people with different views and perspectives here, but we all seem to get along pretty well,” Burton said.

The majority of the ranking — 70% — is based on student outcomes and post-grad resources. Salary impact and graduation rate fall under student outcomes, according to WSJ. 

Readinger said she has easy access to resources such as the Career Center, job fairs and staff who help her prepare for her future education.

“There’s a pre-med office that you can go and meet with people for getting into med school, which is my further point of view,” Readinger said. “They’re really open to getting you involved in different things to promote you further on.”

Looking ahead to May graduation, Burton said that on top of campus resources, some faculty go the extra mile to help support students post-graduation.

“Every week, I receive emails from one of my professors with internships and job opportunities,” Burton said. “That’s been really helpful, especially since I transferred into A&M.”