Vet schools outside the U.S.?

I am an alumna of the University of Glasgow and I am a Californian through and through. I graduated July 1, 2006 and am currently doing a private practice small animal internship (in California).

Vet school abroad (at Glasgow at least) is DIFFERENT from what you might expect from a US vet school. You learn the same things as you would in the US (except you learn more about UK/European diseases rather than specific state-associated diseases) - but you learn them through a differently structured system in a different cultural environment. The students in the UK (and Australia) are 17-18 years old on average when they begin their veterinary degree. For *us* Americans, we must have a first degree (thereby earning ourselves the title of "graduate students") in order to apply to vet school at Glasgow (not sure of the requirements elsewhere).

If you want to know more about my experiences, visit my website where I kept a journal throughout my 5 years at Glasgow. http://www.all-animals.net

I had a great experience and I would do it over again if given the choice.

Hello. I am a 3rd year student at the University of Melbourne, which just received AVMA accreditation this year. Our course is a 4 year degree. Murdoc requires 5 years. I'm not sure about Sydney or Massey. Australian students who apply to the Veterinary Science course here are required to do at least one pre-vet year, making many of them 19 years old when they are first years. Our year, however, has many mature students, I would say the average age of students starting first year was around 25. The range was 17-33! Our class also has many more students than a typical US vet school. We started out as 90 students, we are now 82, I think. I can't speak for all the schools, obviously, but here we have the first 2.5 years in lectures and practicals/labs. You deal with live animals pretty much from day one, though they are not "clients animals". The final 1.5 years are in the Clinic and Hospital, with the last semester of that on four 3-week long extramurals as a "trainiee veterinarian" which can be done anywhere in the world.

It is my opinion that any school that is AVMA accredited has the exact requirements that are necessary to make you a successful veterinarian, no mater where you decide to practice. Of course, I am also bias, seeing as how I attend one of the said schools! The only thing that I would choose to change, if I had the chance, would be to have more exams. Yes, I said it. More. We pretty much only have final exams every semester. I find it difficult to adequatly demonstrate my knowledge in one 3 hour written exam per subject+ or- an oral exam. It also doesn't help that most of the exams here are all written. No short answer or fill in/MC of the sort I was used to in the States. So that took a lot of getting used to, fewer exams in a different format. It makes you grades a lot more subjective.

As far as the actual information, we learn a lot about "exotic" diseases here since Australia is free of many of the diseases that are common in the rest of the world. But we do learn about them even though we won't actually see them in the hospital or necropsy room. The only other thing that is sometimes frustrating is that, while the Genus of a particular parasite may be the same, in many cases the species is different. Oh and I almost forgot about drug trade names! They are also different in many cases. So basically, as long as you remember that there are differences and can keep them straight, It's good.

As for large animals, a lot of the management practices are different simply because the weather is different. For example, it doesn't snow in the areas that dairy cattle are raised, so they have a pasture based system all year round, while dairy cattle in the US are largely indoors. We do learn about how certain things are not as/more important in the other systems, but it is not the focus. Again, something you need to do research on in your own time, especially for sitting the NAVLE and in practice. The good part about that is that pretty much all the textbooks are North American based, so it isn't hard to find the information. And I know craploads about sheep, more than I will ever need to know living in most areas of the States!

Feel free to ask any other questions that you may have, either here or through PM.

Oh, I forgot to add, I didn't apply to any US vet schools after my undergrad, I just came straight on over since I wanted to have the experience of living abroad! Im not sure if it matters, but in case you were wondering

Hello,

I have applied to Edinburgh and Glasgow so I am curious to learn more about going abroad as well. I really want to go but I am worried about how I would pay for everything since you can't get federal loans if you go to school abroad. Can anyone shed any light on this problem? How did you pay for school abroad?

Acctualy, you can get US federal loans for most AVMA accredited schools. I know you can for Murdoch where I'm going. I'm not positive about Edinburgh or Glasgow but I think you can there too. I'd email them and ask before getting to disscouraged.
~Marie

sdb9 said:

Hello,

I have applied to Edinburgh and Glasgow so I am curious to learn more about going abroad as well. I really want to go but I am worried about how I would pay for everything since you can't get federal loans if you go to school abroad. Can anyone shed any light on this problem? How did you pay for school abroad?

Click to expand...

sdb9 said:

Hello,

I have applied to Edinburgh and Glasgow so I am curious to learn more about going abroad as well. I really want to go but I am worried about how I would pay for everything since you can't get federal loans if you go to school abroad. Can anyone shed any light on this problem? How did you pay for school abroad?

Click to expand...

I funded my education with US federal Stafford loans and supplemental private loans (I used these 3 loan companies: Sallie Mae, TERI/IEFC, and CitiBank). I am in major debt but am happy with what I am doing. A trade off! My debt is $200k plus from vet school.

If the school you're interested in has a US federal education number (look it up at the FAFSA website), you qualify for Stafford loans.

Thanks for the info. One more question. I have my Glasgow interview in January and I was wondering if you Glasgow could tell me what to expect, how to prepare and what kind of questions they will be asking?

sdb9 said:

Thanks for the info. One more question. I have my Glasgow interview in January and I was wondering if you Glasgow could tell me what to expect, how to prepare and what kind of questions they will be asking?

Click to expand...

Sorry, I didn't have an interview in 2001 when I applied. I don't really know what they ask nowdays, but it might be a good idea to study a bit about Foot and Mouth Disease (FMD), Scrapie, and BSE (Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy).

birdvet2006 said:

Sorry, I didn't have an interview in 2001 when I applied. I don't really know what they ask nowdays, but it might be a good idea to study a bit about Foot and Mouth Disease (FMD), Scrapie, and BSE (Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy).

Click to expand...

It also might be a good idea to look up a bit of info about bird flu, just in case

Katie

thelarson said:

Can someone help explain the process that an international student would go through to get a BVSc? For instance, I am working on my BS in Zoology in the U.S. right now, so is this a standard requirement for entrance to the BVSc program for North American students? If not, what is? I understand most BVSc programs are also five years in length... why is it a year longer than the DVM programs? If I have a BS does that qualify me to "skip" a semester or two of the BVSc program?

Sorry for my naive questions.... I only recently started considering vet school abroad.

Click to expand...

In Australia and the UK (probably elsewhere too), the native students (citizens of those countries) start vet school right out of high school. The thinking is that their "high school" (secondary school) is more advanced than ours in the USA, qualifying them for specialised training right away. However, their vet programmes are longer because the students need to first "get used to" college in general (first year was really easy for me). Starting in second year, the course was much more challenging (third year being as bad as it gets, but 4th and final years being just as difficult).

Being from the US, we are required to already have a degree (or most of one) in order to start in a UK/Australian vet school. This is because our high school education is not adequate to prepare us for their vet programme.

Another thing to try and understand is that not all foreign degrees are "BVSc". Some are BVSc, some are BVMS, some are BVM&S, and even some are MVS or something like that (Dublin has a degree starting with a M but I can't recall it). It really depends on what school you are looking at. The degree name often identifies where you graduated from; think of VMD in the USA - it is synonemous with a Penn grad. BVMS in the UK is synonemous with a Glasgow grad.

Birdvet, as someone who has successfully completed veterinary school outside of the US and returned to the US for further training what are some of the highlights and strengths of the veterinary programme at Glasgow? What are some of the differences when you compare your training to your US counterparts?

US students don't necessarily need a degree to go to vet school here. I did a degree at Melbourne uni before studying vet science in sydney and I remember a first year vet from the US who was just out of high school. You wouldn't need a previous degree to attend Sydney uni either, but all the entry requirements vary.

See

www.vetsci.usyd.edu.au

www.murdoch.edu.au

www.unimelb.edu.au

www.uq.edu.au

Azawakh said:

Birdvet, as someone who has successfully completed veterinary school outside of the US and returned to the US for further training what are some of the highlights and strengths of the veterinary programme at Glasgow? What are some of the differences when you compare your training to your US counterparts?

Click to expand...

To be honest, here goes. Well, I don't really like the structure of the final year. The rotations are too short (5 days each for internal medicine, oncology, soft tissue surgery, anaesthesia, orthopaedics, radiology, radiography, PDSA (charity)) (2-3 days for neurology, exotics, ophthalmology). The case load is also not very high, so you're not seeing much volume (one can argue, though, that you work up those few cases very well). In my opinion, we get too many slave labour rotations (2 weeks of "hospital care" just doing nurse stuff! And 2 weeks in the summer of the same) that I learned basically nothing in (except how to or how not to get along with your classmates!). Let's see...emergency medicine was almost non-existent. We got some critical care during our slave labour rotations (had to sit in ICU for long periods of time, caring for those patients).

But you know what? I still feel like I got a good education. It's just that the final year structure was quite different from the US vet schools. You get a lot less of everything. However, you do also have to know about other species. No tracking at Glasgow. You do either 8 weeks of equine (which I loved 100%...the learning aspects of it) or 8 weeks of food animal/epidemiology/herd health. Everyone does 4 weeks of public health. So 12 weeks of small animal rotations, 12 week of everything else. Quite balanced. But I think the emphasis in the US schools is on small animal, so you get a lot more of that there.

The other thing about Glasgow that's different from most US schools is the surgery thing. We don't get to do surgery on client-owned animals, and we don't get to do terminal surgeries. We spend one half day at the SSPCA and get to do half a spay. We get to scrub in on surgeries during our 5 day rotations in surgery (I scrubbed in on an exploratory laparotomy w/kidney biopsy, and a TECA-LBO). If you're lucky in exotics (2 days), you get to do some surgery (I did half a chinchilla castration on a staff-owned animal). So the surgical experience we get in school is much less than at US schools. However, we do have 26 weeks of extramural studies required, in which we can do as much surgery as we're allowed to do. I did several cat spays and neuters and also some dog neuters. I helped with cow Caesarian sections and a uterine prolapse. I helped with equine surgeries (scrubbed in). I participated in a RAVS trip in the US where I did some partial spays and complete neuters. So doesn't it all balance out in the end?

At Glasgow, I feel like I got a lot of good education on ALL the major traditional veterinary species. I think with the tracking going on at a lot of US vet schools, the students are pretty weak in farm animals. But that's just speculation.

Just my two cents on my education,
Cindy

birdvet2006 said:

To be honest, here goes. Well, I don't really like the structure of the final year. The rotations are too short (5 days each for internal medicine, oncology, soft tissue surgery, anaesthesia, orthopaedics, radiology, radiography, PDSA (charity)) (2-3 days for neurology, exotics, ophthalmology). The case load is also not very high, so you're not seeing much volume (one can argue, though, that you work up those few cases very well). In my opinion, we get too many slave labour rotations (2 weeks of "hospital care" just doing nurse stuff! And 2 weeks in the summer of the same) that I learned basically nothing in (except how to or how not to get along with your classmates!). Let's see...emergency medicine was almost non-existent. We got some critical care during our slave labour rotations (had to sit in ICU for long periods of time, caring for those patients).

But you know what? I still feel like I got a good education. It's just that the final year structure was quite different from the US vet schools. You get a lot less of everything. However, you do also have to know about other species. No tracking at Glasgow. You do either 8 weeks of equine (which I loved 100%...the learning aspects of it) or 8 weeks of food animal/epidemiology/herd health. Everyone does 4 weeks of public health. So 12 weeks of small animal rotations, 12 week of everything else. Quite balanced. But I think the emphasis in the US schools is on small animal, so you get a lot more of that there.

The other thing about Glasgow that's different from most US schools is the surgery thing. We don't get to do surgery on client-owned animals, and we don't get to do terminal surgeries. We spend one half day at the SSPCA and get to do half a spay. We get to scrub in on surgeries during our 5 day rotations in surgery (I scrubbed in on an exploratory laparotomy w/kidney biopsy, and a TECA-LBO). If you're lucky in exotics (2 days), you get to do some surgery (I did half a chinchilla castration on a staff-owned animal). So the surgical experience we get in school is much less than at US schools. However, we do have 26 weeks of extramural studies required, in which we can do as much surgery as we're allowed to do. I did several cat spays and neuters and also some dog neuters. I helped with cow Caesarian sections and a uterine prolapse. I helped with equine surgeries (scrubbed in). I participated in a RAVS trip in the US where I did some partial spays and complete neuters. So doesn't it all balance out in the end?

At Glasgow, I feel like I got a lot of good education on ALL the major traditional veterinary species. I think with the tracking going on at a lot of US vet schools, the students are pretty weak in farm animals. But that's just speculation.

Just my two cents on my education,
Cindy

Click to expand...

Cindy, i think you have covered the comparison quite well.

I am a Glasgow graduate and had the opportunity to be an exchange student (4th yr), during our summer hols, at Pen uni's large animal Bolton centre.

In my opinion , I found the TEACHING (ie the delivery/dedication of the lecturers I had) at Glasgow more thorough . Since I was at the large animal centre at Pen uni , I can say that the thru put of cases was substantially more than at Glasgow. The equine med and surgery was superb ; even Argentina referred their equine cases to Pen !

By discussing with US students , I discovered that the thoroughness at Glasgow in medicine, path, parasitology and microbiology was quite noticeable.

A couple of other interesting facts about Glasgow vet school :

1. The late prof Weipers et al set up and developed vet education in most
of east Africa .

2. Under prof Jarret ( Path) , Glasgow vet school was the first to produce an irradiated larval(D.viviparous) vaccine against Bov pleuropneumonia .


Hope info its useful.

sdb9,

I got wait listed by Glagow today. Just curious, when did you receive your notice to interview? When did you submit your application? When are interviews and where are they this go 'round?

Back then (2001), we didn't have VMCAS applications. We had to apply via UCAS (the UK university application service). There were no real interviews (unless you opted to visit - they would meet with you) from what I could tell, for overseas students. I applied in mid June and was accepted around July 3rd, 2001 for the class starting in September 2001. Most of my communication was via e-mail and I was accepted even before they received my application.

Bellai,

I was contacted by Glasgow in late October for an interview. They are visiting San Francisco, New York City, and Washington D.C. to conduct interviews. Since I live in Seattle, I am going to SF in the last week of January. I turned my application in about three weeks before the deadline.

Did you get waitlisted for entrance without an interview? I thought they wanted to interview everyone. That's really weird. I wish they'd explain their system better!

sdb9 said:

Bellai,

I was contacted by Glasgow in late October for an interview. They are visiting San Francisco, New York City, and Washington D.C. to conduct interviews. Since I live in Seattle, I am going to SF in the last week of January. I turned my application in about three weeks before the deadline.

Did you get waitlisted for entrance without an interview? I thought they wanted to interview everyone. That's really weird. I wish they'd explain their system better!

Click to expand...

No interview at all. They actually said:"you have been placed on our waiting list in the meantime, and we will contact you again in March." So, I'm not sure what would happen if they decided to move forward. Would they just offer admission without an interview? I need to call them to get clarification on the interview process.

Good luck on your interview!!

I think the best thing that pre vet students can do is to gain as much experience with a small/large animal practice as they can. The Vet i worked for always had work experience boys - two long term whom both have now been accepted into Glasgow. He let them observe operations, attend farm calls and generally be involved in the practice. I'm certain that the experiences both lads gained was very helpful. Infact, there was a boy on long term work experience a few years back who has now graduated. It looks great on record when you attend an interview especially if you have references from a qualified vet.

Linda

Quote:
Originally Posted by sdb9
Hello,

I have applied to Edinburgh and Glasgow so I am curious to learn more about going abroad as well. I really want to go but I am worried about how I would pay for everything since you can't get federal loans if you go to school abroad. Can anyone shed any light on this problem? How did you pay for school abroad?


American students who are attending vet or med schools outside the US can get NO FEE Stafford Loans thru www.StudentLoanInternational.com. I also got a private loan thru them because the Staffords don't even cover my fees...and it has no caps. The best around!

I am Going to be moving to Au and will be applying To Brisbane Universary in Qld. I am also going to be staying and living there. I am working out my final details now with my perm residency Visa. I ahve done all of my Pre Vet and I am also a Vet Tech right now. I am also a NP. Ya I know that is alot of Med training. I have allways loved animals and I was working on going through Vet school but stoped. I went to Vet Tech school and Np school. bacasue I had planned on working my way through vet school with people and animals. Well now I will be working in Au and living. I mad up my mind in Sept. When Steve Irwin died. Something in my heart just is calling me there to go and live and work and work with the wildlife there. The Austraila Zoo is going to be starting construcion on there new Wildlife Vet hosp because they have now out grown there other facilitys. It should be in the same area and incorperate the old facilitys there. Which are not very old. I know it probly sounds crazy and stuped but I have allways wanted to live there from really little. And it was not till Steve Died that it has kicked me in the butt to go for it and just do it. I live in Ca now and I am sick of ca. Has anyone applied there. I got a really nice letter from them. And they keep hounding me to apply there to come there. BUt I would like to get my prem visa first then get my Perm residency that way I dont have to pay so much. I can work in either human or animal field now. Although I much rather work with the wildlife. I would be interested in hearing from anyone going to e going to that school in the next year or so.

Angi

Hello,

I am bumping this thread in the hopes that someone can help. I just applied to veterinary schools all over the U.S. I did not apply to any out of the country. I now wish I did. I was wondering if anyone knew about any schools outside the U.S. that accept applications all year round? I would plan on starting vet school next fall and be with class of 2021. Thank you.

The only school I know of that you can apply to all year round is Ross. I am hoping some other schools do the same. Any in Australia, Germany, England, Canada? Please let me know. Thank you!

Adogloveralways said:

Hello,

I am bumping this thread in the hopes that someone can help. I just applied to veterinary schools all over the U.S. I did not apply to any out of the country. I now wish I did. I was wondering if anyone knew about any schools outside the U.S. that accept applications all year round? I would plan on starting vet school next fall and be with class of 2021. Thank you.

The only school I know of that you can apply to all year round is Ross. I am hoping some other schools do the same. Any in Australia, Germany, England, Canada? Please let me know. Thank you!

Click to expand...

St. George's University is accepting applications until November 15. University of Melbourne is also accepting them until some time in December, but I was told that international admission is based on a rolling system so the faster you submit them the better the chances you have. Also, I think university college Dublin is also accepting until much later so also check with them.

Estherson said:

St. George's University is accepting applications until November 15. University of Melbourne is also accepting them until some time in December, but I was told that international admission is based on a rolling system so the faster you submit them the better the chances you have. Also, I think university college Dublin is also accepting until much later so also check with them.

Click to expand...

Thank you so much for your response!! I really appreciate it. This is great.

Do you know if any of the other vet schools in Australia do all year round? I couldn't find any others.. Any in Europe? Otherwise I will just have to research and look up each one.

Thank you!

Adogloveralways said:

Thank you so much for your response!! I really appreciate it. This is great.

Do you know if any of the other vet schools in Australia do all year round? I couldn't find any others.. Any in Europe? Otherwise I will just have to research and look up each one.

Thank you!

Click to expand...

If you are looking for AVMA accredited schools, I do not think there are any schools that accept all year round. I know that the deadline for U.K. schools have passed (I know because I missed it!). There is a school called Utrecht University in Netherlands that is AVMA accredited but I doubt they study in English. But I may have missed some schools so you should definitely look further into it!

Estherson said:

If you are looking for AVMA accredited schools, I do not think there are any schools that accept all year round. I know that the deadline for U.K. schools have passed (I know because I missed it!). There is a school called Utrecht University in Netherlands that is AVMA accredited but I doubt they study in English. But I may have missed some schools so you should definitely look further into it!

Click to expand...

Both Ross and SGU have programs with multiple start dates and both are accredited..,

Estherson said:

If you are looking for AVMA accredited schools, I do not think there are any schools that accept all year round. I know that the deadline for U.K. schools have passed (I know because I missed it!). There is a school called Utrecht University in Netherlands that is AVMA accredited but I doubt they study in English. But I may have missed some schools so you should definitely look further into it!

Click to expand...

Thank you!!

I was hoping more schools did more than once a year besides the few some people have mentioned

I applied to quite a few US schools this year, and have yet to hear from any of them so far. I was just getting nervous!

Would be great to be able to actually go somewhere else now though instead of staying in the states! I hadn't thought about it previously in much detail but now I wish I had!

jmo1012 said:

Both Ross and SGU have programs with multiple start dates and both are accredited..,

Click to expand...

Perfect, maybe I will apply to St. George!

jmo1012 said:

Both Ross and SGU have programs with multiple start dates and both are accredited..,

Click to expand...

Sorry one more question.. I understand that Ross does about 2.5 years at Ross physically and then the last year in the US. They also go all year round without breaks in the summer. That is one reason why I didn't apply to Ross, someone who travels and likes breaks I don't know if I could survive that!

Does St. George do the same?

Any help would be great thank you so much!

University College Dublin is still accepting applications for Fall 2017

Adogloveralways said:

Sorry one more question.. I understand that Ross does about 2.5 years at Ross physically and then the last year in the US. They also go all year round without breaks in the summer. That is one reason why I didn't apply to Ross, someone who travels and likes breaks I don't know if I could survive that!

Does St. George do the same?

Any help would be great thank you so much!

Click to expand...

No, we are a traditional curriculum like the us, so 2 semesters a year for 3 years then a year of clinics.

Also important to know that the 2.5 years pre-clinical at ross 7 semesters (an extra as compared to traditional curriculums)

jmo1012 said:

No, we are a traditional curriculum like the us, so 2 semesters a year for 3 years then a year of clinics.

Also important to know that the 2.5 years pre-clinical at ross 7 semesters (an extra as compared to traditional curriculums)

Click to expand...

Thank you! I know some people that go to Ross, but I was just wondering if St. George was the same having classes all year around. Glad to know they're not!