What are your thoughts?

Employers? Academics? US News & World Report?

General thoughts: Not as many people know or care about A&M outside of our region as many current students would like to think.

academically speaking, yes.

We are highly regarded in our immediate region (read Texas and it's bordering states) outside of the region, we have decent name recognition in that a lot of people immediately recognize the logo/name and attach it with "good public school they've heard of" but know little beyond that.

Honestly though, given that our mission is the welfare of Texas first then the nation as a whole, I'm fine with it. Our standing within Texas is excellent as far as quality of education is concerned.

I can assure you most of what I hear here at UH are comparisons to TAMU and t.u.. I imagine other schools in Texas do this as well. Outside of our region not so much in many areas.

If we had facilities like A&M and Texas have . . .

Compared to A&M and Texas, our research is . . .

Here at UH we do X, and at A&M and Texas Y . . .

In the veterinary field A&M is very well respected in our profession nationally.

A&M is highly regarded in many areas - depends on the field. As a university, many people know about our taditions, our military history, and our passion. We have many nationally ranked programs, and in those fields among academics and employers we are very well known.

I have had many positive responses from people outside of the region about A&M...b/c they thought I was an engineer (unfortunately i am not.)


Most people know about it and that makes it a "good" school. It is obviously not on par with other big name public schools like Cal, Mich, or UVA...but you will likely hear good things in Texas and outside.

the vet school, engineering (all respected, some more than others), wildlife & fisheries, genetics, and agriculture are all very strong at a&m. there may be others, but those are the ones off the top of my head. our biological programs in general are very strong.

Don't forget our world renowned liberal arts programs.

Texas A&M is a definitely a national name when it comes to service organizations and student activities.

Big Event and Fish Camp specifically are well known organizations across the country.

In the 90s, I have heard "A&M? great football team!" from a cabbie in Boston.
Where I live, the Big 10 schools are big esp Notre Dame and U of I and Mich, but Tex A&M is a known name in many circles. People say "hmm! good school!".

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General thoughts: Not as many people know or care about A&M outside of our region as many current students would like to think.

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from what I've heard and experienced people know A&M is a great school and top notch in engineering

fyi - i live in st louis

Good friend of mine is Class of '08 and he runs a research lab at Georgetown (without a Masters) and he said that people in the DC area in the academic community at least are very positive about Texas A&M and the students that come from there, and have high respects for the University. He's from New York but he always says that he thanks God that he went to Texas A&M.

a&m is seemingly selected against at my medical school. there is the opinion that a&m is subpar academically. that said research oriented people regularly mention a&m as outstanding. in short undergrad a&m is pretty low ball. graduate degrees and research are, however, in the upper echelon.

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in short undergrad a&m is pretty low ball

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uh, no. what was your degree in?

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my medical school

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Don't know about Skipper's med school, but if you checked the records of the PreMed advisor you'd find we do very, very, very well putting our top grads into great medical schools.

If yours doesn't value Ags, it's their loss. And, remember, comparatively our med school is very young.

I've only heard bad things about our medical school, unfortunately. Of course, that's all based on reputation. Any good numbers out there to show true representation vs competition?

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in short undergrad a&m is pretty low ball

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Sorry you've had those effects. My experieces have been quite the opposite.

As previously mentioned, our med. school, as it exists now, is very young. They are growing and getting better every semester! It may not be on the map yet, but give the HSC 5 years and they'll rival that of Texas Tech and others.

Simply put, the few things A&M does well, we do really well. Engineering, Agriculture, Business. The rest of what we do is well .. yeah .. not as good.

I dont know about A&M as a name in the US, know one in Europe has any idea what Texas A&M is .. I have some nice charts to show them where our research budget compares with MIT, CalTech, Illinois and etc .. and then .. they are like "wha?" .. but yeah, in Texas, particularly in what we do well .. you will get respect, nationally .. still some respect .. internationally .. umm no .. not really. Then again if I told you the best schools here in Germany in my field .. would you know them? .. there you go.

[This message has been edited by Randy03 (edited 2/3/2010 6:15a).]

People from all over that Ive talked to have been complimentary of Mays. If you have to pick 2 things to do right, it may as well be engineering and business, in that order.

Aggies are widely sought after by schools across the world. There are some scary smart students enrolled at A&M. That said, I am told by folks in other states that they wish they had more Aggies at their programs, wish they could get Aggies to leave Texas. Why? In addition to being good thinkers, Aggies learn other things, like how to solve real-world problems, how to run programs, supervise others, think outside the box. But what I am most proud to hear, from employers and other academics, is that our students are the most courteous and respectful, and the least selfish. And they don't quit when going is rough.

Karen Severn, '83
Coordinator prelaw advising

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how to run programs

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Business schools were very impressed with my undergrad leadership roles from A&M.


Employers out of undergrad/grad were impressed, but not nearly as much as schools.

People in Oil & Gas know about A&M around the world and know it as a good school for engineering and the like.

My take? Engineering, Business, Ag, and Veterinary are all pretty well known and have good standing. Engineering hands down what people know us for in the academic world. In the business school, accounting/finance/PPA is what is highly regarded.

Our graduate school is also top notch, and I believe it has a much higher reputation than undergrad.

I see A&M as a 3rd or 4th tier school nationally and a 1st or 2nd tier school in the region.

We used to have a top 15 econ department 20 years ago. The banner in liberal arts is now being carried by Political Science which is a top 25 department.

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I see A&M as a 3rd or 4th tier school nationally and a 1st or 2nd tier school in the region.

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I dont think you understand the tier system very well.

Yes, he wasnt using Tier like US News does, A&M is one of only 3 "Tier 1" schools in Texas (tu, A&M and Rice). But he was ranking A&M more like what the LSAC does for law schools.

Clearly regionally we are much more competitive than we are nationally. Also it depends on what metric you decide to rate your school by. Reed College is a well respected liberal arts school, does that make it a good school? Well I guess if you are interested in that one thing, then yes, the same deal with Swarthmore College.

The thing that hurts A&M nationally is that we are a very focused school, as I said in the first post. We do a few things really well (things that people study when they want to make money and products), if someone wanted to judge a college on "well roundedness" of available courses of study and the quality of each, then A&M suffers. Not having a law school on campus and a very new medical school also hurts us. Whether we like it or not, those professions have historically been the standardbearers of universities and A&M has been denied politically the right to have those programs, much to the benefit of the UT System.

And Tech for that matter.

Why is that we are barred politically from having said programs? Hell, if we don't put more lawyers out, we will never be allowed to overturn it.

However, isn't the Aggie Lawyers association at Texas the biggest lawyer group there?

Engineering has an outstanding reputation. Good reputation for business and life sciences. Liberal arts - terrible.

We should not try to be UVA or UNC. Georgia Tech should be who we are targeting.

A hint to answering the question of the OP. Only one sitting president of a major research university applied for the presidency of TAMU, and that person took his/her name out of the running before a finalist was named. We are fair to middlin.

That has nothing to do with what people think outside of Texas about A&M. The draw of the university president is all on the board of regents and their decision on candidates. There were 5 final candidates last year.

That said, to answer the OP's retarded question. Yes.

And in my opinion, backed with real life occurances, I was in Munich, Germany last year and got 3 gig 'ems and 1 hook 'em in a 3 day span. With that distance away from the US, I'd say we get exposure and that exposure stems from Academic reputation and success.

[This message has been edited by Bob Kelso (edited 2/12/2010 4:23p).]