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ClaudeandLola

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Hi guys, new to this forum. I just submitted my Tufts application (ah!) and am happy to be almost finished with the application process (minus Wisconsin supp and interviews and overall stress)...

Anyway, my big question is about the necessity of owning a car. I am a NYC resident and haven't had to drive in years. I'm guessing wherever I end up I will probably need a car, except for maybe at Penn and RVC.

Thoughts on this current vet students? Anyone else looking to buy a car just for vet school?

I am applying to Cornell, Wisconsin, Penn, Tufts, RVC, Ohio, CSU, and Davis. Any thoughts from people at those schools would be fun to hear!

(I recognize this is probably not an important thread, I am just having fun thinking about life as a vet student)
 
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Definitely not really needed at Penn. My roommate has her's here and we've used it only a couple of times. She uses it a bit more frequently because she goes home more frequently (she lives 45 min away). The public transportation is pretty easy to use and a lot of people bike back and forth between their apartment and campus. Plus, parking is a pain in the a** most of the time or can be costly.

You might want one at Tufts for if you ever want to go into Boston but I believe there is a light rail station right by campus that can get you there pretty easily. For Cornell, I personally would not want to deal with that hill in the winter. But that's all I really know about those schools. The rest, I'm honestly not really sure about.

You probably won't need one if you end up at RVC, at least based on my experience in the UK. Public transportation in the UK is wayyy better than it is over here. However, I know you switch campuses in your 3rd year (??) so I'm not quite sure if it would be needed then if you wanted to stay closer to the city. I didn't apply to RVC so I'm not 100% sure how that all works out. Plus, you'd have to do the whole testing to get the appropriate license and whatnot. And car insurance over there is supposedly ridiculous from what my friends told me when I was abroad.
 
For Cornell, it depends how close you want to live to the school. The bus system here is really reliable and I know a number of people who only use the buses (or walk). That said, the closer you live to campus, the more expensive housing will be. However, a parking permit is over $700, so it depends on what your priorities are. I personally like having a car, even if the permit price is terrible. The hills do get icy here, but the response time for plowing/salting is excellent.
 
I'm probably going to be getting a new car for vet school (would be keeping the one I learned to drive with, but all of its tires suddenly went flat and the key decided not to turn, despite the fact that we'd already paid to fix that 🙄). My thought was that you'll probably need one to get to the large animal hospital once you start clinics, at least.

Of course, I'm hopefully going to be relatively close to home and using my car for a few weekend trips, too.
 
You don't need one for the first 2.5 years at Penn but I think it would be really hard to do LA block (if you want to do that), rotations at new bolton, or externships without a car. You could work it out but it would need a lot of planning and friends-with-cars. My compromise was to buy a car between second and third year 😍
View attachment Photo on 2012-08-17 at 17.37.jpg
 
I'm not a vet student (yet) but I have lived in the Madison area (Wisconsin) most of my life. If you live near Campus/Downtown there are buses that will take you all over the city. If you live in the suburbs you need a car since there is not a lot of buses that go outside of Madison. If you live in Madison but don't live Downtown/Campus area you may want a car since in order to go grocery shopping, get to Campus, etc depending on where you live you may not have a bus line that goes where you need to go or have to switch bus lines multiple times.

Madison is a big biking city so biking is always an option if you live relatively close to Campus. It can get pretty snowy/cold in the winter so about 1/4 of the year bikes don't work too well.
 
How do y'all buy groceries without a car? I buy way too much to carry lol
 
NYC resident here who hasn't driven in 7+ years. When I did Tuft's AVM program over the summer it because quite clear that you would need a car in North Grafton. It's a very rural area. The students there also suggested getting a car with decent traction/snow tires/4-wheel drive since it snows a lot, and school is often not cancelled for it. One student was driving a subaru outback.
 
felinelvr44 said:
NYC resident here who hasn't driven in 7+ years. When I did Tuft's AVM program over the summer it because quite clear that you would need a car in North Grafton. It's a very rural area. The students there also suggested getting a car with decent traction/snow tires/4-wheel drive since it snows a lot, and school is often not cancelled for it. One student was driving a subaru outback.
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😱 Glad I didn't apply to Tufts! I love snow, but I could not deal with driving in it.
 
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wolfspeaker said:
I love all the comments about how unstable it is, falling forward when they push it and it hits a crack in the sidewalk. TURN IT AROUND AND PULL IT THEN, GENIUSES. 🙄 :laugh:
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Lol...wow! I didn't even look at the reviews. I pushed it forward all the time because it always weighed enough so that wasn't a problem. If it didn't weigh enough...I didn't need to be taking it!! When it was empty I kept it folded up and dragged it behind me....
 
Wish I didn't have a car (or 2), or a motorcycle (that is another story).

One more thing that goes wrong and sucks your time and money when you can least afford it.

At Penn you mostly don't need it, and I would recommend renting or zip cars for the few times you do need it. It will work out A LOT cheaper.
 
Emiloo4 said:
How do y'all buy groceries without a car? I buy way too much to carry lol
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You go like every two weeks. It doesn't bother me that much since I had to go almost every week while in England cause all I had was a mini fridge and freezer. But since my roomie does has a car, if she ever decides to drive out to get groceries, I just go with her. Otherwise the closest grocery store is only like 4 blocks or so from my apartment. Also, the grocery stores will either deliver for a fee or for free if you buy over like $60 of food.


And I might consider bringing my car once I start clinics but we'll see about that.
 
You don't really need one in Davis until 4th year as long as you live in Davis and like to dodge undergrads with your bike. We have the bus system too, but that's not included in vet school fees....it's not that expensive though.
 
Highly recommend a car from Tufts. Campus parking is generally decent and the passes are cheap--I remember $5-10/year. Campus, housing and grocery stores are spread out enough that biking could be fine in good weather but rather miserable in winter! The T does have a stop a three minute walk from campus if you wanted to live in Framingham etc and commute in but the service is a bit limited (especially weekend/evenings).
 
At Ohio most students have a car. There are a few who bike or walk to school and if you live close enough, the campus shuttles run every 5-15 minutes. There are also students who bike/walk to campus and have a car but didn't buy parking passes. So it's not impossible without a car, but most of us have one. But even those with cars/parking passes carpool fairly often 🙂
 
I know a girl that doesn't have a car here at CSU and she definitely has to work harder for her daily activities. Depending on where you live there are buses that can take you to campus, and you can probably catch one to the grocery store. She rides her bike everywhere, but I think she will be miserable when it starts to snow. She also has to catch rides on the weekends when she wants to go to any of the club activities. I would say having a car definitely makes your life easier here, but if you do a lot of planning you can manage without one.
 
If you were talking about UGA, I'd think you were talking about me. Minus the vet school part. Having a car makes life so much easier. Even if you don't plan on using it all the time.
 
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