Best choice for pre-vet undergrad

Your daughter has been accepted to multiple very good universities. Congratulations! I can understand how this is a tough decision.

DVM programs have quite low acceptance rates and it is hard to know just why one student is successful when another is not. It is indeed hard to get good information. A lot of experience dealing with animals in a veterinary and/or research environment seems to be important, along with a very good GPA. The programs that I have looked at have accepted students from a rather wide range of undergraduate schools. Our older daughter has been accepted to several DVM programs at schools that are not in the same part of the US as where she did undergrad and this does not seem to be an issue. She does have a huge amount of veterinary and related experience.

You are wise to look at affordability. We are seeing in-state costs on the order of $60,000 per year for DVM programs (total cost) and so having some $$ left for the DVM program is important. Out of state or private schools can cost more than this and prices tend to go up over time.

Colorado State, Texas A&M, Purdue, and Kansas State all have very good DVM programs. I think that some of the other schools that you have mentioned do also but I am not familiar with all of them. U.Mass does not have a DVM program (the only DVM in New England is at Tufts) but it does have a very good animal science program.

You might want to ask schools about programs that students can use to work with animals for example over the summer, and also ask about internship opportunities. Here are a couple of links that I found in our corner of the country:

https://www.uvm.edu/cals/asci/cream

I think that your daughter will want to participate in something sort of along these lines if at all possible. I would look for something similar at each school that you are considering.

I might also look at how your daughter’s GPA and SAT (if applicable) compare to the average of incoming students at the schools you are considering. It is not a bad idea to be in the top 10% or at least 20% of incoming students if you want to stay in the top 10% or at least 20% of students once at university. Pre-vet classes are going to overlap with premed classes and there will be quite a few very strong and very serious students in these classes, with very tough exams and homework. Our pre-vet (soon DVM student) daughter described organic chemistry as “the most difficult B in her life”, until she took a veterinary specific course that was just as tough.

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