Hi. I’m a senior in high school who wants to pursue a DVM degree. I audited BIOL101 with lab this Spring at a local college and did very well. I’m planning on auditing CHEM101 and Intermediate Algebra in the future. I’m currently gaining animal experience by working on my family’s small farm and volunteering at the local Cornell Cooperative Extension Farm.
My original plan was to attain a 4-year vet tech degree at SUNY Canton and then apply to vet school, but have heard from people that this might not be the best plan. I spoke to admissions at Cornell, and they said that this path is unusual. You need to complete the prerequisites at an upper level, (300-400, junior/senior). But at Cornell, admissions only looks at 5% the quality of academic program. Thoughts? Why couldn’t I still do this degree? Canton is a 4-year school, so it would have some of the upper-level courses. http://www.canton.edu/sci_health/vet/
My second plan was to get an AS degree at Canton, then transfer to Cornell’s Animal Science department for a Bachelor’s, and then apply to Cornell’s vet school. But after considering the cost of attending Cornell for 6 years, I’m thinking this is not the best plan financially.
And my third plan… Getting an AS degree at Canton, then transferring to either SUNY Cobleskill in their Animal Science, or Stony Brook in their biology department for my Bachelor’s, and then apply to vet school.
Thoughts? If I were to do my third plan, should I do animal science or biology? And are these schools what vet schools are looking for? Are there any other SUNY schools that have what I’m looking for?
Potential vet schools I want to apply to:
-Cornell University
-PennVet (University of Pennsylvania)
-Tufts University
-University of Georgia
Can you apply directly to the Cornell Ag school? Run the NPC to see whether it’d be affordable, but if you have the grades to get in, it’s likely your best bet. Cornell’s. CALS is THE college for animal science.
Cobleskill is another best net. For science, geneseo, Bing, and stony Brook are all good. Also run the NPC on Dickinson, Muhlenberg, Denison, Wheaton Massachusetts, or St Lawrence, Ithaca, and Skidmore.
For vet school, you want a science major and lots of experience with animals. Not a technical major. They’ll want to see classes in inorganic and organic chemistry, biology, physics, biochemistry classes as well as English, bioethics and/or philosophy, Nutrition, biostatistics, physiology or animal science, psychology, microbiology, communication.
I was thinking the same thing as the previous poster…if you are a NYS resident apply to Cornell’s ag and life science college. The cost will be wonderful and given that you live on a family farm in NYS it should help you. There are other things you can do to help your admissions such as getting involved in 4-H and your Cooperative Extension office. SUNY Cobleskill does have a path but it is not a “guaranteed transfer” but none-the-less it would be worth talking to them as a safety.
I’d also suggest Purdue.
Good luck! You sound like a wonderful, focused young person and I’m sure you will do great things!
I will offer a little different viewpoint. Attend the least expensive undergraduate college or university that will: fulfill the requirements of admission to veterinary schools, allow you to attain at the very least a 3.7 range GPA, a high GRE score and allow time for direct animal care, (most vet schools will require a LOR from a vet). This is what the majority of vet schools look for. I will list a link to Cornell.
Your instate schools, SUNY’s, will give you the required courses at in state tuition. If you were to attend the SUNY Canton vet tech program, you would be short of the course requirements for vet school, (physics, biochem, micro).
There are only about 30 US veterinary schools, some are private and some are state funded. The state funded programs offer the largest number of places to their instate students, then to other out of state students that they have an articulation agreement with, then lastly the other OOS students are considered. There is also a huge difference in COA an OSS school. Of course, the private schools applicants are on equal footing for admission and tuition is the same.
I would suggest that you look at the SUNY schools where you can take all of the pre-req vet school classes, and start to work with a veterinarian.
Thank you all for your advice! I went to a Pre-Vet tour at Cornell recently and during the Admission’s presentation, they listed undergraduate schools that the incoming class had attended and several SUNY schools such as Geneseo were listed. As I understand, Cobleskill has articulation agreements with Ross University and Ontario Veterinary College that “guarantee qualified students entrance into their veterinary programs.” Which I am not interested in…
Unfortunately I can not take AP classes to help with college courses now, as I am home-schooled. But although auditing college courses doesn’t gain me credits, I still get the knowledge and contacts that I can refer too. As for veterinarian and animal experience, there are many local vet clinics, stables, and dairy farms around that I can gain experience from. I am hoping that I can shadow our vet too. My goal is to be a mixed practice vet that specializes in small ruminants. I also really enjoy parasitology.
Minimizing college debt is a big factor also… So my theory is, which might be wrong, if I can do all the upper level prerequisites at a SUNY college and maintain a high GPA that will agree with Cornell, I should do them there, as much as I’d like to go to CALS.
Again, thank you for your comments and advice! They have been very helpful! If you have any more, please comment!
Cornell has excellent financial aid, so don’t think they’re more expensive - CALS is a contract college (sorta suny) so NYS residents have priority and pay less than students from OOS.
Will the college classes you audit be listed somewhere on your transcript? They really should, even if they’re only indicated pass/fail.
If a SUNY ends up cheaper what you say is very reasonable - but many students have found that Cornell ended up cheaper than their state school. Although that was before the Excelsior scholarship I think you should apply to CALS to see (after running the NPC).
Bing, geneseo, stony Brook, and Buffalo are the stronger universities academically in the SUNY system.
Alright, I will research Cornell’s financial aid policies some more.
When you audit classes, you’re saying that you will not receive any formal grade or recognition. But the faculty can grade your work if they so choose, it just won’t show on your transcript. The class itself will be on the transcript, but marked as audited, therefore no grades. The professor of the course graded my work, and sent me the grades via email, along with some comments on my performance in his class. We might be able to use this in the future.
Not to sound naive, but when you say “NPC”, are you referring to the National Planning Corporation?
No, net price calculator. Each college has a different formula to calculate what financial aid you will get and how much you will pay, so you need to run the NPC on every college to see if it’d be affordable. To find it type the name of the college + NPC.
We were thinking SUNY Delhi for my daughter for vet tech 2 years, then transfer to another college for Bachelors in Animal Science, pre-vet…might that work?
Vet tech would lengthen the time at the four-year though. Pre vet has general education pre-reqs that aren’t the same as vet tech (in a similar way that votech doesn’t prepare you for engineering). An AS in science would likely work better.
I know SUNY Canton’s 2-year vet tech program is extremely intense. You take at the most, 8 vet tech classes per semester, with almost no electives/GER, so you would not be able to take the GER classes needed. http://www.canton.edu/sci_health/vet_tech/
My plan is to attend SUNY Oneonta for their four year Pre-Vet program while majoring in Biology (their Pre-Vet program requires a primary major). But I am still applying to SUNY Canton and SUNY Delhi just incase I don’t get in to one or the other and have to take the long route,