Former SDN lurker, questions about KState

[tinykiwi]

Hey everyone!

I'm really considering KState for vet school. I've been doing research and like the curriculum and think I could live in Manhattan for 4 years while in veterinary school. But I stumbled upon this article (http://cjonline.com/news/2013-03-10/dean-k-state-veterinary-school-discusses-enrollment-numbers) which basically says that Kansas favors more OOS applicants vs. their IS because fewer of their IS qualify for positions than the number for OOS. I'm NOT saying I believe this; my basis relies solely on this article. So my concern is, if somehow it is true that KState (I'm not saying that all are from KState, they could be from any other Kansas college, but good a number of them could be) does not produce as many applicants whom the school feels are prepared for veterinary school, does this at all impact their veterinary program? Another way to phrase this is, can the "fewer numbers of qualified IS applicants" that the schools produce, reflect how good their vet school is? I could be wrong, but this is how I interpreted the article.

I would appreciate any advice. Current KState students, please give me your honest opinions on the school, lifestyle, professors, curriculum, etc. What are your favorite things about Manhattan/campus life? And do you have any input on my question? If you had acceptances elsewhere, why did you choose KState?

Thanks in advance!

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[twelvetigers]

Maybe there are just less people living in Kansas that want to be vets. They may just get a smaller pool of IS applications every year than some other schools do.

Just posing a theory - I have no idea.

 

[tinykiwi]

Maybe there are just less people living in Kansas that want to be vets. They may just get a smaller pool of IS applications every year than some other schools do.

Just posing a theory - I have no idea.

It's probable

 

[k80rigs]

I got accepted to 2 other veterinary schools during my application cycle, and decided on K State. I liked how much "amenities" are truly for students versus other programs (study carrels in lab, mailbox, locker, tablet computer, microscope, second year and fourth year mentors, etc) and I enjoyed how the lab/lecture program is laid out. I also liked the fact you can begin to take electives in your first year, first semester. Haven't yet gone there (Class of 2019), but I am excited to begin.

 

[battie]

Kansas is my #1 OOS choice and I have been waitlisted and then "waitlisted to be waitlisted" (weird story). Several reasons would be the smaller city (not a town, definitely a city), collective atmosphere, the comfort I felt at the interview, and the fact they are the only school to give me any love (including my IS).

That being said, I agree with your summary of the article that the dean is basically saying that the state of Kansas isn't producing as high a quality of student compared to other states. However, how many people who went to K-State for undergrad apply for vet school compared to everywhere else? I have no idea and don't even know where to find those numbers. For their C/O 2019 announcement, 50 kids in the class are from Kansas, and quite a few list Manhattan as their hometown, making it a fair guess they went to K-State for undergrad. In addition to the 50 KS residents in the c/o 2019, there are 14 California, 2 North Carolina, 1 Maryland, 8 Texas, 2 Florida, 1 South Carolina, 3 New Jersey, 2 Pennsylvania, 1 South Dakota, 2 Oregon, 4 Massachusettes, 3 North Dakota, 1 Wisconsin, 1 Virginia (I think), 1 Montana, 2 Illinois, 3 Missouri, 5 New York, 1 Nebraska, 2 Michigan, and 1 Maine resident(s). Looking at those numbers, there are plenty of students attending K-State that have schools in their own state (Californians have 2!), but they are going to K-State. Yeah, for some it might be that Kansas was their only option; but I would pick K-state over any other OOS school if I was accepted to two or more. K-State is a quality school. I don't think deficiencies in the undergrad programs would have a major influence on the professional program. They're two completely different worlds.

What I think is probably going on is in where kids want to go in their lives and what they want to do. More and more people are realizing how bad of an idea going into vet med is financially. There are only about 3 million people in Kansas as an entire state, so there are much fewer people to be even applying to their in state school compared to a lot of states. My home state of Colorado has 5.5 million people and a vet school, and the seats reflect that with 75 going to instate students. That's pretty proportional right there. There are only 73,000ish non-farm businesses in Kansas compared to Colorado 155,000ish (double!). The median income in Kansas is 51,000 versus 58,000 in Colorado. The average vet salary nationwide is about 55,000, so is it worth it for a Kansas resident to go get an expensive education to make 4,000 more a year? The average salary for a vet in my area of Colorado is 65,000.

So all the numbers seem to be comparable. Honestly, it seems that Kansas kids don't see the point in leaving the world they know (seemingly farming) to spend a bunch of money for an education and be riddled in debt to make a little more money than they would have had they not gone to school in the first place (and they wouldn't have all the debt!). I don't think it's K-State producing bad undergrads. I think it is that there simply aren't a lot of Kansas kids wanting to be vets compared to out of state.

 

[twelvetigers]

(Californians have 2!)

Western doesn't count, though. No one is in-state at Western. And just about anywhere OOS is cheaper than Western.


Juuuuust sayin.

 

[DVMDream]

The article is saying that there are many more OOS candidates that are more qualified than IS candidates. It isn't saying the schools don't prepare the students well. It is saying that when looking at applications, there are some IS applicants that are highly qualified but there are a lot of OOS applicants that are also highly qualified.

The job of the vet school admissions is to admit students that will successfully complete vet school, not to appeal to IS students just because they are IS. If you aren't qualified or the school doesn't feel you'd make a good vet student or vet, it is ridiculous to expect the school to still admit those students just because of their residency. Why should they accept an IS student who might do ok in vet school but could possibly struggle when there are 3 OOS students that the admissions committee feels would do really well in vet school?

It would make sense that the OOS applicant pool which is generally 3x or more the size of the IS pool has more numbers of highly qualified applicants than the IS pool. That's all the article is saying. What the Dean at Kansas has decided is that instead of taking 10-15 of those borderline IS applicants, they are going to take on the more highly qualified OOS applicants.

That has no bearing on the vet school producing good vets.

 

[Country_roads]

Undergrad at KState, CVM class 2019

I love KState. I grew up on KState (so I might be a little biased. ) but I'm going to try to be straight-froward.

My undergrad curriculum was not hard. Obviously I had to put in the time for studying and etc, but the only class I ever REALLY struggled in was OChem and even then I got a B (should have got a C, but there was a 6% curve). I was an AnSci/Pre-vet major.

At one of my internships (last semester of senior year), my reviewer noted that I was not very well versed in scientific writing/researching. I 100% agree with that, I had no idea what I was doing.

That said, I learned a lot in my classes. KState is very ag-focused which was what I wanted/needed so it worked out splendidly for me and the ag classes are great (in my opinion).

I believe that you must supplement your classes with work experience (whether internships, working w/ a professor, at clinic, etc.) to really get a full education. KState provides a lot of opportunities to do that, at least for Ag kids. Maybe since there is a small % of students who want to be LA vets, and KState is such an ag-centric school, the stats are skewed?

Regardless of all what I've just said, once I interviewed at KState I knew immediately it was the vet school for me. Way more LA focused than Illinois (also accepted there). Way more friendly than what I experienced at Illinois. I love the atmosphere of Manhattan, and I'm excited to go home.

I also do not believe that an undergrad program suggests anything at all about the vet school. KState is a very well-known vet school. When I attend conferences, there's always someone from KState presenting. However, these are all focused on LA.

So my interpretation is that KState is as good a school as most for small animal (obviously some programs will be better). It's a damn good school for LA, especially beef.

 

[battie]

Western doesn't count, though. No one is in-state at Western. And just about anywhere OOS is cheaper than Western.

I included Western because it is 49,635, which is slightly cheaper than K-State's 50,463. And Washington, Arizona, Colorado, Missouri, Minnesota, Tennessee, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Michigan are all more expensive than Western (OOS; not factoring in changing residency). Illinois, Virginia-Maryland, and Louisiana are right within 1,000 of Western. So I think it is fair to count Western for tuition purposes.

 

[twelvetigers]

Western is under $50k for all four years? I thought it went over $60k at some point. Hm.

Also, cost of living in Pomona is more than Kansas, at least. But really, I just thought it cost more...

 

[battie]

As far as I know, it is the 49,something K a year. But that might because I haven't seen any different. Of course you are entirely correct that cost of living is higher. But it seems that Western is about middle of the pack as far as tuition goes (again, not considering residency changes).

 

[twelvetigers]

So I was going off the bottom numbers here:

http://www.westernu.edu/financial/financial-budgets/financial-budgets-veterinary/

I forgot that they included CoL. That's my bad, yo.

 

[battie]

So I was going off the bottom numbers here:

http://www.westernu.edu/financial/financial-budgets/financial-budgets-veterinary/

I forgot that they included CoL. That's my bad, yo.

It's all good. lol. I take all the COL numbers with a grain of salt, honestly. I can live super cheap if I have to. I'm one of those people willing to live off chef boyarde (spelling? lol) and mac n' cheese indefinitely. I can live without cable and such. If I have a library card, I can keep myself pretty entertained if I want to. My boyfriend on the other hand is more spoiled than me.. He said he wants to move to vet school with me if/when I get accepted. The only way that is happening is if he has a job cause I'm not taking loans out for cable and such. And I know he'll want cable and such.

 

[twelvetigers]

It's all good. lol. I take all the COL numbers with a grain of salt, honestly. I can live super cheap if I have to. I'm one of those people willing to live off chef boyarde (spelling? lol) and mac n' cheese indefinitely. I can live without cable and such. If I have a library card, I can keep myself pretty entertained if I want to. My boyfriend on the other hand is more spoiled than me.. He said he wants to move to vet school with me if/when I get accepted. The only way that is happening is if he has a job cause I'm not taking loans out for cable and such. And I know he'll want cable and such.

I never get the mac and cheese thing. You can buy a large bag of elbow pasta and a brick of velveeta for how much? And it comes out so much better than the snot+cheese powder thing. Maybe it's just me.

 

[Frozenshades]

I got accepted to 2 other veterinary schools during my application cycle, and decided on K State. I liked how much "amenities" are truly for students versus other programs (study carrels in lab, mailbox, locker, tablet computer, microscope, second year and fourth year mentors, etc) and I enjoyed how the lab/lecture program is laid out. I also liked the fact you can begin to take electives in your first year, first semester. Haven't yet gone there (Class of 2019), but I am excited to begin.

Sorry but I'll be a downer and say, eh yes and no. Choice is nice, but for first and second year more of the electives than not I could think of better ways to spend my time and money. There were some good ones, but the third year selection is a lot better.

K-State was one of four school options, no regrets there.

 

[Country_roads]

Sorry but I'll be a downer and say, eh yes and no. Choice is nice, but for first and second year more of the electives than not I could think of better ways to spend my time and money. There were some good ones, but the third year selection is a lot better.

K-State was one of four school options, no regrets there.

Is there a list of electives for first years somewhere? I haven't enrolled yet so I'd like to take a peak at my options and I haven't got anything yet saying "here are your core classes, here are your elective options"

 

[Frozenshades]

Is there a list of electives for first years somewhere? I haven't enrolled yet so I'd like to take a peak at my options and I haven't got anything yet saying "here are your core classes, here are your elective options"

There are elective lists on the website, but I'm thinking they're on the intranet. So until you have your vet med email and login information I don't think they will be accessible to you.

 

[battie]

I never get the mac and cheese thing. You can buy a large bag of elbow pasta and a brick of velveeta for how much? And it comes out so much better than the snot+cheese powder thing. Maybe it's just me.

Oh, I can't stand velveeta. It tastes super icky to me. I am a super couponer, so I normally get mac n' cheese or the ravioli stuff for a dollar or less per box/can.