I probably wont be applying until next cycle or the one after that. I'm interested in research, but haven't had a ton of experience in it so I'll try to get more before. I don't think I want to do a dual degree program, but then I would apply for a dual program if I do in fact like research in first year of vet school. So which schools have the reputation for being really research oriented? I was thinking davis, colorado, and maybe penn from what I've read so far? Can anyone compare these and suggest what types of research each one is known for?
Thanks for the help!
CSU has a really strong research emphasis and spends a ton of money on research every year. I'm pretty sure CSU is consistently in the top 5 of veterinary schools in terms of research funding. Many of the clinicians and professors are involved in research to some degree or another and are usually quite welcoming to having veterinary students in their labs.
We have a course first semester that discusses a lot of the research opportunities within the school for students to explore that I found pretty informative as someone with no research background. In addition to the summer research opportunities people talked about above, due to our 2+2 program with University of Alaska - Fairbanks there are also some opportunities to travel to AK and help on research projects with UAF faculty over the summers.
In terms of specific research, CSU does a lot of stuff with repro (especially equine, but there are a ton of food animal repro projects as well), prion diseases, cancer, epidemiology/infectious disease, etc. There are also quite a few branches of various government agencies located in Fort Collins itself (the big ones are CDC and USDA, though there are others), which usually make for good research partners and/or research resources.
Something I will caution you on with CSU is that you must have applied and been accepted into the dual degree programs when you first apply to veterinary school in order to do them. There is no way to decide after first or second year that a DVM/PhD is what you want to do and switch to that type of program - at CSU they accept 2-3 students a year for the DVM/PhD program (and about 5 each for the other dual degree programs) and students must complete those programs and cannot drop from them into just a straight DVM, for example. Essentially if you go to CSU just for their DVM program then that's all you'll do and you'll have to apply for a PhD (or other graduate program) after you graduate with the DVM.
I'm not sure if any other schools organize their dual programs this way, and from my understanding most don't. It has its pros and cons, but it's something for you to think about.
You'll also find that pretty much every veterinary school does research in most or all of the stuff discussed above. Unless your research interest is very specific/narrow or you have a very specific research advisor/mentor in mind I think you will be fine at pretty much any school and price tag should be a big consideration.
CSU's OOS tuition alone is close to ~60k a year and they don't let you switch to IS. If you get in to a dual program they will let you reclassify to IS, but remember these programs are huge time commitments (the DVM/PhD is 7 years, other dual degrees at CSU are generally 5) and very competitive to get into.
