Hi I need help! I want to be a vet when I grow up and I need help looking for schools. Rising senior. I don’t want to go far from my home (live in New York). Any good colleges for that? My list currently includes Cornell, Ithaca College, Penn State, SUNY Binghamton, SUNY Stony Brook, UConn, UMass Amherst, and University of Delaware. Are any of these good?
Cornell has a vet school and is in-state for you.
UConn and UMass have good animal science programs, I am not familiar with the others.
Tufts has a vet school and is good for pre-vet with a very active pre-vet society, but no animal science major, so you might want to add it to your list.
https://sites.tufts.edu/tuftsprevetsociety/
UVM has a very good animal sciences program. Their CREAM program is quite good and is something you can do over a summer if you are a student there.
https://www.uvm.edu/cals/asci/cream
If you want to become a veterinarian, then you need to budget for eight full years of university. The last four will be expensive. Becoming a veterinarian is similar to becoming a doctor, except that your patients do not talk as clearly, they have a wider range of physical characteristics, and you do not get paid as well. This last part implies that you need to minimize or avoid debt as much as you can.
I would look very hard at your in-state options unless you already have $700,000 sitting in your 529 plan.
Also, I would run the NPC on Cornell and your private and out of state schools (including Tufts, if you want to consider it – it does have an excellent veterinary school).
The pre-vet students that I know have a LOT of experience working with animals, big ones and little ones. You too will want to do the same.
This is very important. Especially the part of large animals. Vet schools are very worried about students being afraid of the business end of a cow.
Rutgers University New Brunswick NJ
If you look at this list, it shows the undergraduate schools attended for Ohio State’s Vet School. It is a wide range. https://vet.osu.edu/sites/vet.osu.edu/files/documents/education/Class%20of%202022%20Profile.pdf
Delaware Valley University near Philadelphia is worth looking at to. https://delval.edu/
University of New Hampshire offers a BS in animal science. Just to let you know, you can major in anything as long as you complete the required science classes with the required grades and have the prerequisite number of hours of direct animal care under the supervision of a vet. That is a lot easier to do if you attend an undergraduate school that offers an animal science degree. Focus on your instate schools or others that offer merit to reduce COA to about what your instate COA would be as vet school will be very costly.
Thank you all for taking the time to reply to me! I’ll look into those schools that were mentioned. I saw some comments acknowledging the price of a vet education, and though I was previously aware of this I’m glad that you stressed this to me. Considering I’m in New York I don’t think I have many good in-state pre-vet options besides Cornell, and Ivy League tuition is trough the roof (as well as being highly selective)! My other in-state options are Binghamton, Stony Brook, or Ithaca college, do you guys think these are good schools for pre-vet?
Long Island does have a vet school opening this year too. Cornell is wonderful. Penn is also very good. Look up what all the prerequisites are for the colleges you may eventually apply to and make sure the school you go to offers them. You can find these on the new AAVMC Apply to Veterinary School website. The key is not where you go or what you major in. Keys are:
- Minimize Debt
- Take Necessary Prerequisites
- Go where you can get top grades
- Get animal, veterinary and people (leadership) experience.
My son is a first year vet student but not in the northeast so I can’t help more with your choices.
Is Ithaca College actually less expensive than Cornell CALS for an in-state applicant?
I wouldn’t have thought so.