Texas A&M’s upcoming fall graduation numbers break the previous record set in the fall of 2018.
Bryan Thigpin, assistant to the associate vice president for external affairs in the Office of the Provost and Executive Vice President, said there will be a total of five commencement ceremonies held on campus this semester. The first took place on Dec. 7, with three on Dec. 13 and the last one on Dec. 14.
The first ceremony was a doctoral commencement and hooding ceremony at Rudder Tower on Saturday. The other four will take place at Reed Arena for various master’s and undergraduate degree recipients.
According to data provided to The Battalion by Lesley Henton, director of university relations for Texas A&M’s Division of Marketing and Communications, this year’s fall graduation class breaks the previous record set last year, with a total of 5,334 graduates receiving diplomas this semester. The largest number of graduates will be from the College Station campus, totaling 5,230. Galveston will have 99 and the Qatar campus the remaining five.
The majority of degrees being awarded are Bachelors, with 4,022 in total. Master’s degrees will be awarded to 1,037 graduates, along with 265 doctoral degrees and 10 professional degrees.
There will be 704 graduates from the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. The College of Architecture will have less than half of that with 306 graduates. The College of Education and Human Development’s 743 graduates will surpass the 584 students receiving degrees from the Mays Business School.
The largest number of graduates from a single college will be from the College of Engineering, which boast a total of 1,391 graduates. The College of Geosciences will have 135 graduates, with the Bush School of Government & Public Service having a fourth of that amount with 36 graduates. The School of Law keeps a lower count, with 29 graduates.
The College of Liberal Arts will have the second-largest number of graduates from a single college. According to Henton’s data, 805 graduates will receive degrees. The College of Medicine will have five graduates, and the College of Nursing will have 31. The College of Public Health will have 61 graduates.
According to Henton’s data, the College of Science will have 204 graduates, and the College of Veterinary Medicine & Biomedical Sciences will have 194 graduates. The College of Dentistry and the Irma Lerma Rangel College will each have one professional graduate.
According to a November article from the Office of the Provost, graduation and first-year retention rates have been on the rise at A&M, particularly among first-generation students. That group saw an increase in graduation rate from 50.3 percent to 54.5 percent in the latest available data.