Chance me (Rising HS Senior) for Cornell, Tufts, etc. for Animal Science

I have a daughter who will be starting a DVM program in September. We have gone through this. I will assume for this response that getting into a good DVM program is a very serious concern for you.

If you are even remotely serious about veterinary school, then you need to budget for a full 8 years of university. The last 4 years will be expensive. You should take ABSOLUTELY NO DEBT AT ALL for the first four years (ie, for your bachelor’s degree). Leaving money in the college fund would be far better.

Being a veterinarian is a very good profession for someone who is totally committed to this field. However, a veterinarian does not make enough money to pay off loans which cover the cost of veterinary school (and forget about additional loans for your bachelor’s degree). You absolutely need to take the cost of university into account.

There are large numbers of universities in the US that are very good for prevet programs. If you look at the universities where students got their bachelor’s degree before going to a highly ranked DVM program, you will find that the students are coming from a very, very wide range of undergraduate universities.

I see that you are from Arizona. This is a WICHE state. This is huge. Absolutely look at the various WUE schools. Also keep in mind which schools have WICHE DVM programs. The public ones are Colorado State, Oregon State, and Washington State. I would put all three of these on your list probably above every single school on your existing list except for probably ASU. Some other WUE schools will have very good prevet and animal science programs even if they do not have a DVM program. Again, students will be going to these DVM programs from all over the place. Each of the WICHE states will be subsiding some students to attend DVM programs at these three public WICHE programs (as well as the one private WICHE DVM program).

Just to give you one take on the extent to which “prestige” is going to matter for DVM acceptances (which is not at all): The last time that I looked Colorado State was ranked 153rd in the US overall. However, Colorado State has the 3rd ranked DVM program in the US and the 4th ranked DVM program in the world. It has a superb animal science undergraduate program and a superb veterinary school. There are large animals on campus. Oregon State and Washington State are also excellent. The overall ranking of the university does not matter. Having a very good animal science program does matter.

Your prevet classes will overlap with premed classes. This means that there will be very, very strong students in your classes at any “top 200” university in the US. There will be tough classes and tough exams.

My daughter was quite successful in DVM admissions (4 acceptances including 2 “top 10” schools). Academics helped. However, I think that what really mattered was the amount of experience that she had working with animals in a variety of veterinary, social, agricultural, research (no animals harmed), and emergency situations. She attended an undergraduate university that was NOT ranked in the top 100 universities overall, but that has a very good animal science program. Really, do not look at overall rankings. They do not matter.

Look for things such as the opportunity to work with animals. Here is an example of a program that the University of Vermont offers potential prevet students:

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

Similar programs may be available at other universities. In the UVM case the cows shown in the picture are not very far from the middle of campus. You can be reaching inside a cow one morning, and in a math class that afternoon (hopefully after washing your arm).

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