I’ve been having a lot of trouble deciding what schools I’m going to apply to in the fall. How important is it that a school has a specific major relevant to my interests? Precisely, I’m gonna be pre-vet in college, and I wanted to major in animal science. However, this would essentially eliminate 90% of top schools from my list of compatible colleges. Animal science/veterinary medicine is something I’ve been very passionate about since I was young. If I weren’t to major in animal science degree, I would likely major in biology. Many of the people who think that the major is irrelevant have mostly used prestige as a defense of higher-rated institutions; for example, Harvard would have much better opportunities for networking than say, Cornell. Mostly what they tell me is that the social experience would be more significant at Harvard. Both are great schools, but they are on completely different levels. How strongly should I allow a desire for an animal science major to influence me?
I would start by reviewing the requirements for Vet School admissions. You do not need to be a pre-vet major or earn an animal science degree as an undergraduate to get into vet school. What you need is a math and science (biology, chemistry) intensive curriculum. Most of the 30 US Vet schools require the GRE. You’ll need a relatively high score. See: http://aavmc.org/testdeadlines.aspx
In practice you can prepare for vet school at most any university with a strong math and science curriculum.
@fogcity Yes, I’m familiar with vet school admissions prereqs. I know those would be able to be completed pretty much anywhere. I’m more concerned with people’s inputs on how their major impacted their college life, or how they think it will impact their college life; essentially, just other people’s ways of thinking on the matter, and what other factors they consider to be more important than one’s major.
If you want more flexibility with where to apply, you can major in biology… many of the larger departments will have subdivisions in biology, e.g. molecular biology, organism and evolutionary biology, etc.
The whole “networking” differences between say Cornell and Harvard are not as big as you think… and probably not even relevant if you are set on pre-vet.
I hope you aren’t deciding against Cornell (which has outstanding animal science) based off of “prestige”?!?
Animal science programs are very unique. It’s certainly possible to major in biology or something related at a Harvard or Yale but you won’t get quite the same experience. The Animal science majors here (a large state flagship) spend a lot of their time actually working with horses and cows. They help the department manage the barn and farm. Do you want to work with more domestic animals (dogs, cats, etc.), live stock, horses, or something else?
“Harvard would have much better opportunities for networking than say, Cornell”
Cornell is in the freaking Ivy League, so if you’re going to eliminate even everything Cornell and under as ‘not prestigious’, you’re left with less than 10 schools of the hundreds and hundreds. Cornell is great, and has a lot of ‘prestige’ (name recognition, status, USNews rankings, whatever you’d like).
Calm down - anything in the top 100 is very good, in the top 50 is great, in the top 25 is fantastic and very prestigious.
@Anonymoose3 I don’t recall ever saying Cornell wasn’t prestigious. Of course it is. One of the best schools in the country, and arguably, the world. However, it is not on the same level as Harvard. I was making a comparison of Cornell to Harvard, not an objective analysis of its prestige. If I hadn’t made it clear in my post, this post is only exploring theoretical options.
@harvardandberkeley No of course not! I love Cornell, it is one of my favorite schools! I was just offering what I’ve heard from other people as an opposing view. And that’s a good point to consider. What is the value in networking for me?
@Alexmer Yes, it’s so annoying! I wish more schools had animal science programs. I don’t necessarily want to focus on one group of animals, because I don’t know what I want and I’d like to have as diverse an experience (in terms of variety of experiences working with different types of animals) as possible.
For the field you are interested in, Cornell is arguably on a higher level than Harvard. Don’t just ignorantly parrot what other people say.
The value of networking for you is likely zero.
I think any perceived differences in prestige and networking between Cornell and Harvard are negligible and due to hypercompetitiveness amongst top/elite students. Harvard and Cornell are certainly on the same level, because if we were to subdivide Cornell and Harvard onto different “levels” then each level would be about 5-10 schools big, which is…too small to make any meaningful differences. Like @Anonymoose3 said above…you’ll be absolutely fine coming out of either.
Whether your major affects your social life depends a lot on the school you go to. I think there are certain majors that are time-consuming and demanding and do affect your social life - like engineering, and nursing. Other majors may tend to be insular at certain campuses and kids within that major/school are only friends with other people in that major/school - like some business schools may have that phenomenon. At my alma mater your major didn’t really dictate who you were friends with, and I had friends of all different kinds of majors.
Anyway, how much the major should determine which schools to rule out depends on how much you really want that major, and how important it is to you that you get it. If animal science is really, really important to you and you would want to work in the field even if you didn’t go to vet school, then you might want to concentrate more heavily on finding an animal science program. But if school environment is more important to you than major then you might prioritize great campuses and environments. You can always apply to a range of both and see what happens.
@PurpleTitan Agree to disagree. Thank you for your input.
@julliet All good points, thank you. You’ve given me things to think about and I’m definitely applying to schools that dont have animal science programs. There are of course a lot of variables at play here.
With regard to what PurpleTitan said, what are you agreeing to disagree? That Cornell is not on a higher level than Harvard for Animal Science?? It is just objectively true because Harvard doesn’t even have Animal Science.
Using my crystal ball, I peer into your future:
Freshman year: take Intro biology, get a C+. Intro Chem, get a C.
Intro Psychology, wow this is interesting, to heck with vet school, I want to study psychology !
Fortunately for you, I am an Archanan and this is just one of many possible futures. I don’t know which one will come to fruition.
But neither do you.