The question becomes though which OOS can they afford because don’t forget, bet vet school might be another $400k.
That’s all.
You need to be prepared not just for undergrad but all 8 years. You and they should map out the possible 8 year expense so they go in eyes wide open.
W&M is a tough get - I hope it happens for you. But Va has such great publics -please check out the others.
Good luck.
When your parents went to college, Harvard was about 20k all-in and OOS tuition was not a big moneymaker for public universities, so things have changed a lot.
Make sure you know how much you can afford, per year, without parental loans. Thanks to your grandmother, you may have a lot of choices within budget - or you may be limited to instate universities (luckily for you, the VA universities are all excellent.)
Remember also that to have a shot at Vet School you need to be among the top students admitted, since you will need to have top grades, for which you will compete with other students. So you need to balance the university’s academic strength with your own. At the same time, odds are that you won’t go to Vet School (because most students discover new professional opportunities, change their minds or are weeded out of that track) - what university offers the best Plan B?
Any of the colleges in your OP will be fine for a potential veterinary school applicant.
Please discuss the finances with your parents. I think perhaps you need to also show them the costs to attend these colleges annually for them to help give you an informed decision.
You mentioned your grandma had a lot of money, but then put something about more than $25,000. $25,000 isn’t a huge amount spread over four years these days. It might seem like a lot to your grandma, but for out of state college costs, it just isn’t.
I would suggest you plan for four years of undergrad school costs. Even IF your colleges accept your credits, it’s very possible they won’t be able to be applied to your major. This happened to one of my kids. And check to see IF your college will accept courses taken after you matriculate at a community college. One of my kids…answer was a solid NO.
So, financially, plan for four years of costs. If you find you can graduate early it will be a happy surprise.
My daughter graduated UDel a year early as an exercise science major, but she came in with 9 AP classes and 2 DE classes, so 33 credits which equal 1 year.
It will depend on what the credits are and how many the college takes. Scores matter too (3,4,5 - not all take 3 as an example. Not all take Seminar or Research).
In my daughter’s case, several classes counted for the same.
Then there’s course flow - some majors are four years (or 3.5) regardless of what is brought in.
Some also recommend retaking classes in the major. Let’s just say college is harder than AP.
One more thing when considering graduating early is how it may impact the competitiveness of one’s vet school app. Those who graduate in 3 years may have less clinical and research experience (and other ECs) which could put them at a disadvantage.
The average age of vet school applicants/matriculants is creeping up like we’ve seen in med school apps…many students are taking a year or two to get more experience to make their apps stronger. That will make it even harder for a three year grad to compete right away…but that plan could cut down on costs and then give OP two years (or however long) to work/make money in jobs that will make their application stronger.
It depends on the classes, major and the university. Another daughter is graduating in May with 150+ credits, could’ve graduated last May. Another graduated with her masters in accounting in 4 1/2 years. All were public universities. I do not think they knew what credits would be accepted until after they committed.
Thank you for this insight. If I could graduate a year early I would probably work and live with my parents during what would be the fourth year.
A kind reminder that if you find yourself repeating talking points, it may be a good time to step away and allow others to contribute. Thank you for your understanding.
I think you’ve gotten lots of opinions and good suggestions. There are several pathways to becoming a vet, you may find yourself interested in small animal now and then become captivated by large animal down the road. Or perhaps the research side becomes relevant? Or you learn of opportunities to get hands on experience working with exotic species? Hard to predict now… I’ve got three vets in the family and all took different pathways in undergrad, DVM and post doc with THREE distinct career paths.
Though not universal you may want to ensure you’ve read the FAQs for VetMed admission at U of I…
Why? Because it clearly lays out the prerequisites, academic minimums and expectations for applicants to the DVM program.
You do not need a pre vet Major
You must have completed pre-reqs with a min GPA
Attending UIUC is not in any way an automatic advantage
A “pre-veterinary curriculum” is usually designed to simply provide the courses that are the required minimum prerequisites for admission. This design may be very useful, but really is not mandated in any way. Following the required prerequisites can provide the same guide for undergraduate choices as a student moves toward admission
Good luck!
(1) Go to the least expensive option you can construct for Undergraduate.
(2) Make certain you research the prerequisite courses for the 5-8 Veterinary Schools you would ‘like’ to consider. Make certain you take these courses or their equivalent.
(3) Make certain your college GPA is above 3.6, and your science GPA is that high or higher. A 3.8 would be better.
(4) Make certain you understand the contact/experiential hours requirements for the different programs application minimums.
(5) Go to the least expensive option you can find for Veterinary School - which is generally going to be instate. You can use VIN / VIN Foundations Cost Calculator to look at the Cost of Attendance Estimates.
(6) Most importantly, put some significant though into what alternative career path you would consider IF you do not get accepted into Veterinary Schools or decide you aren’t going to pursue Veterinary School. Understand the more ‘flexible’ your undergraduate major, the more options you will have.
Be very careful about taking on Debt for your undergraduate degree in pursuit of a DVM. And be very careful about going to out of state, private for profit, out of country DVM programs as the debt stacks up. The number of Veterinarians who have taken on 300-400-500k in debt, on a starting salary of 100-125k (and it’s not like it doubles after you’ve been out a couple years) continues to rise… and those folks find it impossible to pay the -interest- on their loans, much less pay down on the principle.
I would also argue that there is some benefit to NOT using your AP course credits to advance your progress - so you start at a higher level of math/science etc.
There is a strategy behind retaking the base level science and math courses you already took as AP in High School in yoru first year or two of college… earning some nice fat 3-5 hour A’s in those classes, so you can spend more time (resource management) also getting A’s in the courses you havent been exposed to before. You will have the opportunity to take the more rigorous courses later on… but if you don’t have the GPA to be highly competitive, then it’s a much slimmer path to gain entry.
If your veterinary experience and references are superb, and if you took a very rigorous course load, you might be okay with a GPA slightly below 3.6, but with the emphasis on the word “slightly” (and maintaining a high GPA in the required pre-vet/premed classes is tough).
One thing that I wondered about for a while: I have consistently heard that admissions to DVM programs is even tougher than admissions to MD programs. However, the average GPA for all students admitted to DVM programs is slightly lower compared to the average GPA for all students admitted to MD programs (again with emphasis on “slightly”). I wondered about this until after seeing my daughter apply to DVM programs. GPA and course rigor are very important. However there are other things that are also very important for admissions to DVM programs. Having experience that makes it clear that you can handle the blood and guts, you can handle being bitten and pooped on, you can handle seeing beautiful animals die, and you don’t mind reaching inside a cow or horse multiple different ways, also matters for admissions. I think that it also helps to have both large animal and small animal experience.
I think that this is a very good idea.
A quick Google search suggests that 16.6% of recent DVM graduates have a debt over $300,000. For a career with salaries only a bit over $100,000, this is terrifying. Fortunately we are not in that situation.
This has floated around for 40+ years.
It likely originated from how Veterinary School Applications were entirely school specific (no common app) - and rather poor cooperation between Veterinary Schools (individually and collectively) in reporting to common data sources. Individual schools would report they had 6 or 8 or 10 applications for every seat. The reality is that if you looked at the -total number of discreet individual applicants versus the total number of available discreet seats - it wasn’t nearly that ‘tough’. Many students applied to 6-8 schools. Once the AAVMC (American Association of Veterinary Medical Colleges) finally got most of the schools to report, and the use of the common application process for most of the schools - they have been able to really revamp the total number of applicants versus the total number of seats. And now with the total number of seats basically doubling in the past 25 years (and perhaps add another 50% on top of that in the next 5-10 years) - I think you will see the AVG GPA of admitted students go down (even in the face of grade inflation), especially at the highest cost and or ‘less desirable’ locations.
Truthfully, since experiential hours are basically required at most if not all of the reputible programs, I don’t feel like it’s a defining feature of an application. My SWAG (scientific Wild Ass Guess) is that those kids who barely meet the hours requirement, with realitively low ‘quality’ hours of engagement, are also like lt to be students who probably are at the lower end of the GPA spectrum - and therefore, aren’t really competitive in either GPA, Course Rigor or hours. Sure, they met the ‘minimum criteria’ but they simply aren’t competitive. From almost 30 years of working with prospective applicants - its a pretty obvious bi modal distribution of applicants. One cluster is high GPA, Course Rigor, Extracurriculars, Excess Hours of high quality experience(s) and serious letters of recommendation and the other group is what would otherwise be decent GPAs, variable course Rigor, minimal qualify experiential hours or lessor quality (unless they know they don’t have the grades, then they try to max out hours…which in my observation doesn’t seem to help) and letters of recommendation which aren’t all that strong.
With admitted student GPA Averages of 3.75-3.8 for what I consider the Core Traditional Programs (I’m speaking of established 25+ years with AVMA accreditation), it’s GPA, GPA, GPA, Course Rigor, then references and once your in that qualified pool, it’s going to be GPA again (though many schools deny that GPA is used as a second cut feature again) and interviews.
I don’t think the weather at UIUC, UMass and Penn State are really appreciably different in that they all can be cold, snowy and cloudy.
This is from chatGPT but tracks to me:
UMass Amherst (Amherst, MA)
• Sunny Days: About 188 days per year – roughly 52% of the year show at least some sunshine.
• Precipitation Days: Approximately 133 days per year (~36%), meaning on about one‑third of days there’s measurable rain, snow, or mixed precipitation.
• Snowy Days: While the Data Book lists an annual snowfall of around 63 inches, that translates roughly to around 30–35 days with measurable snowfall (≈10% of the year).
UIUC (Champaign–Urbana, IL)
• Sunny Days: Estimates suggest roughly 180–190 days per year (around 50–52% of days with clear or partly sunny conditions).
• Precipitation Days: Typically about 105–110 days per year (roughly 29–30% of days with measurable precipitation).
• Snowy Days: In the winter months, you might expect around 25 days per year with snowfall (roughly 7% of the year).
Penn State (State College, PA)
• Sunny Days: Historical data point to around 190 days per year with appreciable sunshine (about 52%).
• Precipitation Days: Approximately 115 days per year (around 32%) see measurable precipitation.
• Snowy Days: On average, State College experiences roughly 30 snowy days per year (about 8%).
Virginia Tech (Blacksburg, VA)
• Sunny Days: Historically, Blacksburg sees roughly 180 days per year with at least partly sunny conditions—about 50% of the days.
• Precipitation Days: On average, there are around 120 days per year with measurable precipitation (rain, snow, or a mix), which is roughly 33% of the year.
• Snowy Days: Typically, Blacksburg experiences about 25 days per year with measurable snowfall (approximately 7% of the year).
If you were comparing U Denver, or UCLA or Miami or something that would be dramatically different.
OP not sure if this is still of interest but you do have options to borrow beyond the $5,500 government loan cap (without a cosign that is often mentioned) and or you can remove a co-signor down the road. It appears that depending on circumstances you could borrow $20,000 or more without a cosign from some institutions.
I am not recommending or judging this approach but you should be aware factually of these options and consider them versus the potential future burden they might place you under.
Yes but not every lender offers co-sign release so you need to check.
Yes but both options are available. That was my point of informing the OP. Some companies use these options as differentiators (that’s why I cut and pasted a screen shot from an actual company versus linking).
I wanted to stay within TOS so I didn’t provide specific vendors (I blacked out the name).
DM if you would like this loan originator.
