do you have to go to best schools?

<p>My d would like to become a vet. Does she have to go to the best schools available. Can she go to a decent school with pretty good biology and maybe get full ride tuition. If she applies to top schools and gets in probably no merit money because so much competition. Any suggestions of good schools in northeast. Any size school is fine. She seems to like med to small. Any help would be appreciated. She has 1260 sat and 4.25 GPA. Other thing is she wants to play volleyball at school if she can.</p>

<p>No, she doesn't have to go to the best schools available . . . in medicine it doesn't matter unless someone plans to have a academic med career, and considering she wants to be a vet it really doesn't matter. I don't know much about veterinary schools though. Is the 1260 out of 1600 or 2400? It's a bit low to be competitive.</p>

<p>I think it depends on what you would classify as a good/decent school. You should look at University of Pittsburgh, they offer very good scholarships, although your D should try to get her SAT up a little. I think 1350 is the requirement for the full tuition scholarship.</p>

<p>Simple answer is: Yes, schooling matters. In most cases. </p>

<p>IF you went to the 'southern medical school for hicks' i'm sure they would notice that your stabbing the patient through the heart to help her breathing... </p>

<p>However, that is only for around 10% of the med schools out there, around 80%, it really doesn't matter where you came from too much, but the other 10%, schooling certainly matters, to get a job at a really good hospital. </p>

<p>so, in case you didn't catch it. I'll put it in an easier format for the rest of you mortals. </p>

<p>10% - School matters because the school is so terribly pathetic.
80% - School is within the average level, and therefore, competition is standard. and chances on getting a job are normal.
10% - School is great, and chances on getting a good job are higher.
= 10+80 + 10 = total of 100%. give or take a percent or two. </p>

<p>That being said, go to John Hopkins. That's where I'm going. If you get in, i'll even give you a free cafeteria stamp.</p>

<p>cynicalbastard, you obviously have no idea what you are talking about.</p>

<p>Every single medical school in the country (all 125 of them) do a phenomenal job of putting out able and qualified doctors - in fact I'd say that every single graduate of a US Allopathic school is competent. Schrizto is correct that academic medicine is really the only place where which med school you went to matters. Even then, it's not that big of piece of the pie.</p>

<p>As for admissions to medical school, the undergrad instituion is not that important. You must be successful anywhere you go in order to be competitive for admission. I assume, in regards to the OP, that vet school is the same. Go to a school where you can be successful and achieve a good GPA, GRE (for vet), and appropriate extra/co-curriculars.</p>

<p>CynicalBastard, if you are in Medical school surely you would know the difference between "your" and "you're". Did you get your undergrad degree in the mail? Also, if you were actually attending Johns Hopkins I think you would not have made the common mistake of leaving the "s" off of "Johns".</p>

<p>I think it is more likely that you are a teenager who gets kicks pretending to be someone else on the internet.</p>

<p>You do realize that on the internet, people do not focus all of their time on grammar, thus the evolution of words such as "leet" "r0xors" "u" and many others. </p>

<p>Therefore, I use 'your' in the place of 'you're' sometimes. However, ocasionally there are slips. </p>

<p>Your lack of belief in me is about as impacting on my daily routines as stepping on an ant. </p>

<p>So you just joined the forums this month, I see. Two posts, I see. Strangely enough, both of which were in threads I wrote in. Judging by the way you posted, feeling comfortable enough around to say how humorous my posts are etc....I would assume your a previous member, perhaps one who is afraid to use his real account to attempt to 'de-fraud' me. </p>

<p>Maybe you should use your real account.</p>

<p>Jamison, please realize that you should have at least 5 posts before feeling comfortable to comment on others...</p>

<p>Yes, I am a new user. CB's first ever post on this site was five days ago and slammed another user for their opinion. I thought if CB was going to slam others for their opinion someone should ask him why he can't spell the name of the institution he claims to attend. A typo would be one thing but leaving the "s" off Johns is a common mistake by people not familiar with the institution. Furthermore, I am not the only one to question whether CB is just blowing smoke.</p>

<p>Hey man, it's alright if you don't want to show your real name. I understand the need for cowardice in this situation, I mean... forums are so deadly that everyone in the right mind should be afraid to show their e-identity....</p>

<p>It's one thing to pick on something that was said, if you feel there is a legitmate arguement there. Picking on grammar is pretty asinine and considered poor message board conduct on most boards I post on, unless the errors result in making a post extremely difficult to read. I AM in medical school and routinely type your instead of you're simply out of speed and b/c I know that they don't affect the readibility. Same thing with there, their and they're.</p>

<p>While I know that CB is wrong in his assessment of medical schools, he wins this arguement over Jamison b/c Jamison resorted to picking on grammar. And who the hell calls someone a fraud b/c of grammatical errors?!?</p>

<p>I am actually skeptical that CB is a real medical student.</p>

<p>The grammar and such annoys me, but doesn't attract my attention. The misspelling of his supposed school does. </p>

<p>Let's face it: most kids who came on here making up a medical school would pick Hopkins or Harvard. That's not to say that people don't actually go to the twin H's (my term), but simply that the odds of fraud are higher for H-kids than, say, kids who claim to be from UC Davis.</p>

<p>I could be wrong. And I'm sure he'll tell me that he doesn't care. But I think the burden of proof is on somebody who enters, misspells his (very famous) school's name, is extremely rude, and repeats several erroneous conceptions about medical school.</p>

<p>


</p>

<p>Why fuss around a single letter? It may be a common mistake to leave off the "s" in JHU, but it's also even more common to mistype a word without its last letter. Just because someone does, it doesn't mean that they are uneducated. CB isn't writing a formal research paper. Stop being such a nitpicker.</p>

<p>Have you ever been at school, with only a limited amount of time to write? I'm sure you have been. </p>

<p>Have you ever accidentally said something like "that was the breast food I ever had!" when you were really trying to save 'best', however, the voluptuous breasts infront of you made you have a Freudian slip? I'm sure you have. </p>

<p>Have you ever been doing two things at once, say talking about umbrellas, but then in your mind, you think of something else, and replace the word on accident, with what you were thinking? I'm sure you have. </p>

<p>Spelling John and Johns is a pain when you have a friend who's name happens to be John. Sometimes i write Johns when i'm meaning to mean John, sometimes its John when i'm meaning to say Johns. </p>

<p>Mistakes happen. Freudian slips happen. Your/you're happens.</p>

<p>OK, CB and Big Red, I concede that my grammar comments were nitpicky. I cringe when I see simple errors but I suppose that does not always mean that the person does not know the correct way, a conclusion I drew too quickly. The "John" was the comment that really alerted me and I sort of piled on. Looks like someone at Duke agrees that is in fact significant and someone from Weill does not (but did rip the <em>content</em> of CB's post).</p>

<p>CB, My ID actually does give away my real name among other things, so easy on the cowardice comments when your name applies to most of the country.</p>

<p>I'm starting to wonder if you have any other thought patterns. Every single one of your posts is basically the same as the other. At least change it up a bit, throw in some spice, origionality, or something. </p>

<p>Oh no, the errors! they make me cringe! Maybe you should go on the vocabulary forums then, you nazi. You're not a serial killer are you? I can see the news broadcast already : 'the Vocabulist' strikes again, killing three innocent children for spelling the word 'the' as 'teh'. His whereabouts are unknown. </p>

<p>Oh, and about your name (since you didn't catch on), I was referring to the fact that i'm suspicious that you are not a first time member. I think you just created this name to keep your other name free from attack, or cowardice. </p>

<p>"CB, My ID actually does give away my real name among other things, so easy on the cowardice comments when your name applies to most of the country." </p>

<p>Ohh, the irony. You realize that by calling most of the country "cynical bastards",makes your view on people pretty cynical, thereby making you cynical, thus, making you cynical and just like the rest of the country. Welcome.</p>

<p>I'm glad CB caught my joke about most people being cynical...I thought it might be too subtle. I did read your post about me being someone else, but I really don't see the point. Besides, if I am really another user then how do you know all my posts are the same?</p>

<p>Speaking of grammar - do they actually teach the difference between "to" and "too" in school today? At one point the schools taught that by 4th grade</p>

<p>Even when corrected, most kids seem unable to understand the difference</p>

<p>Marion1, </p>

<p>Since it doesn't appear that any of the replies to your post really answered your question, I'll take a crack at it since my daughter also wants to be a vet and we've done all the research. First, it's difficult to know what you mean by the "best schools" in this context. If you mean the Ivy League, the answer is no -- your daughter doesn't have to attend an elite school in order to become a vet, anymore than she would have to attend an elite school to become an accountant, a lawyer, a physician, or any other professional. What DOES matter is her academic performance at whatever college she chooses. A doctorate in veterinary medicine is one of the most challenging professional programs available and gaining admission to veterinary school is very, very difficult -- many successful applicants apply several times before being admitted and many applicants never get in at all. Part of the reason for this is that there are only 28 schools of veterinary medicine in the United States -- by way of comparison, there are 125 allopathic medical schools in this country. If your daughter is serious about veterinary school, the following three factors are most important in the admissions process:</p>

<ol>
<li><p>Academic performance. Most successful applicants to veterinary school present an average undergraduate GPA in the 3.5-3.6 range and equally strong standardized test scores (most commonly the GRE, but some veterinary schools require the MCAT). Strong undergraduate performance in the sciences is essential. Virtually all veterinary schools require undergraduate courses in inorganic chemistry, organic chemistry, biology, physics, microbiology and biochemistry as prerequisites for admission. In addition to these courses, most veterinary schools require a substantial number of other prerequisite courses from a variety of disciplines (common examples are English composition, genetics, calculus and/or statistics and animal nutrition, among others). As such, it is important for your daughter to (a) identify the veterinary schools that she is most interested in applying to early on in her undergraduate program, (b) check the admission requirements for those schools, and (c) plan her undergraduate course work accordingly. If possible, it makes sense to attend an undergraduate institution that also has a veterinary school, as the preveterinary advisors at such schools will be well versed in preparing applicants for admisson to veterinary school. Although no specific undergraduate major is required for admission to veterinary school, most applicants have majored in either animal science or biology as undergraduates, so it is best to find undergraduate institutions with strong programs in these areas. Most of the veterinary schools are located at land grant universities and many of the strongest animal science programs are located at these same universities, often in the university's college of agriculture or life sciences. </p></li>
<li><p>Residency. Virtually all veterinary schools give strong preference in the admissions process to residents of the state in which the veterinary school is located. There are three types of veterinary school applicants: in-state (residents of the state where the veterinary school is located), contract (residents of states that do not have their own veterinary school, but which contract with a state that does have a veterinary school for a limited number of seats in the admission cycle) and at-large (applicants who come from states without veterinary schools and which do not have contracts with states that do have veterinary schools). At-large applicants are at a VERY significant disadvantage in the admissions process as only a few (out of more than 1,000 applicants at some veterinary schools) are admitted. As such, many at-large applicants improve their chances for admission by establishing in-state residency for a given veterinary school before applying -- usually this means moving to the state in question, working for at least a year before applying, and establishing all of the other prerequisites for being classified as a resident. </p></li>
<li><p>Work experience with animals. Virtually all veterinary schools will want to see a significant amount of work experience with animals from their successful applicants in a variety of areas (i.e., large animal/farm animal, equine, exotics, small/companion animal, etc. Many veterinary schools have specific requirements including the number of hours of experience that they expect applicants to have. Again, check with the veterinary school in question. </p></li>
</ol>

<p>As for your daughter's choice of school, there are three veterinary schools in the northeast: Cornell (NY), Tufts (MA) and the University of Pennsylvania. The majority of the veterinary schools in the United States are in the midwest, with a number of schools also located in the south and west. Here's a link that your daughter can use to gather more information about admission to U.S. veterinary schools: <a href="http://www.aavmc.org/%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.aavmc.org/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>In short, your daughter will need to work hard, plan carefully with regard to state residency, gain work experience with animals, and be persistent. It's a tough road, but it can be done. Good luck.</p>

<p>I would like to add something else. Just as american medical students go to foreign schools, american vet students can go to foreign vet school (for example: sgu.edu. The training may not be as good as an american school, I doubt that the patients will ask what school she went too.</p>