<p>Are there any experienced folks out there who can give us an idea of good undergraduate schools to prepare a student for vet school? We really liked Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, but my daughter would rather be closer to home in the mid-west. Any help would be appreciated!</p>
<p>Where in the midwest? Are you able to afford OOS tuition?</p>
<p>Most of the flagship schools will provide a good pre-vet foundation. If you’re looking for something smaller, UW-River Falls is well known for it’s pre-vet/animal science program.</p>
<p>We are in Indiana. She wants to go to a smaller school than Purdue for undergraduate. Really loved Cal poly, size and program, but is worried about the distance from home.</p>
<p>You’re in luck that Indiana participates in the Midwest Student Exchange Program so she may find a school on the list that would discount the tuition cost. You do really have to look at the programs available as they change from school to school.</p>
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<p>In Wisconsin UW-River Falls has a great program and is a much smaller school than UW-Madison. It does have it’s drawbacks though. Many local kids go home on the weekend though the school does provide activities to do. If she had a car she would be close enough to go to the Twin Cities and there is a livestock (horses) auction house not far.</p>
<p>My daughter is following a pre-vet curriculum, and while that does not make me an expert–at all–on the subject, I will share her conclusion while doing a college search: think first about which vet college you will be applying to, and then look at their web site to see which schools they have accepted students from in recent admissions cycles.</p>
<p>Some public vet schools–which is most of them–accept very few students from outside their own state, or states with which there is an established consortium. Even within their own state, there may be very few undergraduate programs represented. In our state, the flagship campus is where the vet college is located, and the large majority of admits are graduates of that same campus. Even the well-thought of public LAC, which includes a pre-vet program, had ZERO admits last year.</p>
<p>If a student is really outstanding, with top test scores and gpa, along with an impressive animal work record, it may not matter a lot. But if a student is running with the pack at admission time, it might be helpful to have had very good pre-vet advising, a pre-vet club, and the recommendations of professors known to the admissions committees.</p>
<p>At any rate, that sort of thinking is what led my daughter to enroll at the large public flagship, even though in some regards a different kind of school would have been her preference. So far, so good; her summer job (already begun) is as an animal tech, part of an externally funded research program, and she was directed to the job via the pre-vet program. The hours will count toward the all-important ‘animal work’ prerequisite for vet school admission at many, if not all, vet schools.</p>