Financial Question

[DVMGoals77]

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I’m hoping some current or former veterinary students will chime in. It’s been my understanding that most vet schools do not offer scholarships or grants to new students (money that doesn’t have to be paid back - I know we can get loans).

On the AVMA website it shows tuition costs for accepted students and then shows percentage of students receiving aid (scholarships, grants, etc).

Without asking personal questions, is it common to receive an acceptance with some financial assistance like this ? I thought it was very rare but for some schools it shows 50% or higher receive some aid.

As you can tell, the financial aspect of things is on my mind 🥹

Thanks everybody!

 

[Quigly]

8 years ago, a fair percentage of students received some scholarship aid at my school. Rough numbers, maybe close to half of the class got something, usually not more than a couple thousand dollars in a year. A very small number of students received significantly more. I would not count on a signficant amount of scholarship money, you could get a little but not enough to make a huge difference given overall cost.

 

[PetVet23]

Current 4th year here! Scholarships do exist, but they can be tricky to find and usually pretty competitive. My school (Virginia-Maryland) has a scholarship foundation that opens up applications once a year, some are generic/open to everyone, others specify geographic region/area of interest/class in vet school/etc. I have gotten a couple of these and while any amount helps, I wouldn't plan on relying on scholarships to make much of a dent in the overall cost

 

[katiemcat]

Schools like to be able to brag that they offer aid to a lot of students, but to be able to do so it is often extremely small (like $100 small). So no, not many students receive significant “aid” that is not loans. My school offers a few other (like $1-5k) scholarships you can apply for a year, but only one person usually gets each and it’s usually the person in the most debt.

 

[DVMGoals77]

Schools like to be able to brag that they offer aid to a lot of students, but to be able to do so it is often extremely small (like $100 small). So no, not many students receive significant “aid” that is not loans. My school offers a few other (like $1-5k) scholarships you can apply for a year, but only one person usually gets each and it’s usually the person in the most debt.

This puts it in perspective! Thank you!

 

[battie]

Very few first year students get scholarships initially. I got some scholarships, but they were specifically linked to the activities I did at the school (animal welfare club, Omega Tau Sigma, etc) and I didn't get them until third and fourth year. Total I received about 7k. Definitely worth applying for! Just don't expect much

 

[Viscernable]

I think it’s common at Purdue; I had 6k first year and 7k second and I’m nothing special.

 

[EB73674]

I received a recruitment scholarship for $10k from Ohio State, and I know Penn gives out recruitment scholarships to really impressive first-year candidates. But those are the only ones I'm aware of.

 

[puppydogtor]

Midwestern has a scholarship based on community service, it's 40k total. They only give it to 3 students and they have to be US citizens. Your only requirement to maintain the scholarship is to do 24 hrs of community service with specific orgs a year. Really easy to accomplish as most students want to volunteer on the mobile clinic for the surgical experience anyways. They'll send out emails about applying for it in the spring before you start. You just have to write a short essay & have two letters of rec from people you do community service with.

All other scholarships I've seen are for only about $1000 and don't apply to me yet - they're for current 1st years so I'll be able to apply in the spring for those

 

[britzen]

Most scholarships at VMCVM range from a few hundred to a few thousand dollars. I got maybe $5K over all 4 years? Not a lot but it's something. There may be a few that are higher than that. Many of them have specific requirements (preference given to people from a certain county or interested in a certain type of practice, etc).

There's was also one full tuition scholarship at VMCVM while I was there, but only 1 student out of the 500 total got that, and once they got it it was their's for all 4 years so no one in any other class could get it.

Some states / state vet associations also have scholarship money. NJ and ME have particularly nice scholarships I think (students at my school had them). MD and VA have smaller ones.

 

[WildZoo]

I’m hoping some current or former veterinary students will chime in. It’s been my understanding that most vet schools do not offer scholarships or grants to new students (money that doesn’t have to be paid back - I know we can get loans).

On the AVMA website it shows tuition costs for accepted students and then shows percentage of students receiving aid (scholarships, grants, etc).

Without asking personal questions, is it common to receive an acceptance with some financial assistance like this ? I thought it was very rare but for some schools it shows 50% or higher receive some aid.

As you can tell, the financial aspect of things is on my mind 🥹

Thanks everybody!

UTCVM offers several small scholarships every year, so that most people by the time they graduated got something, but it was rare to get a significant amount.