It seems that a main area of complaint is live animal experience besides 4th year. While I'm sure this isn't necessary, it is nice to see a live animal every so often to remind you why you are going to school and break up classroom time. Can anyone tell me about the animal experience at either school.
There is a small animal clinical foundations course fall of first year -- you spend a few hours every week learning how to restrain dogs, do various types of physical exams (general, ortho, neuro, etc.), auscultate, draw blood, etc. There's a survey you complete beforehand to determine your clinical comfort level, and groups are arranged to contain people with a ton of small animal experience + some + none (note: this may have changed since I took it in 2009). There's also a 1-week large animal clinical foundations elective course that is held immediately after spring semester and immediately prior to fall semester; it is held off-site at the Great Plains Veterinary Educational Center in Clay Center, Nebraska. I didn't take it but I've heard it's a good introduction to working with production animals.
There isn't really any hands-on animal experience second year; you're basically trapped in class or lab all day, every day. Third year, you've got junior surgery (required in fall, elective in spring) and various electives (bovine palpation, exotics, etc.).
With that said, there are a ton of animal experience opportunities for all years in most clubs in the form of wetlabs. Examples -- equine handling, equine castration, equine dentistry, cat handling, small mammal handling, etc. There are also opportunities through the Feral Cat Alliance (in the form of monthly or so spay/neuter clinics), foal watch, cow/calf watch, equine ICU, small animal ICU, and the Wildlife Care Clinic, to name a few.
Is there anything fun that students do in the summer, boating, lakes etc??
Sorry, this made me laugh a bit. It depends on your definition of fun, I guess -- if boating/lake access is really important to you, I've been told that Iowa's lakes are rather disappointing if you're big into that sort of thing. With that said, there are a few lakes with boat access (i.e. anything larger than a canoe or kayak) in/around Ames, but that's really as far as I can comment on that.
Otherwise, a lot of people (especially OOS'ers) tend to go home over summer, work, do research (especially through the Summer Scholars program), take some sort of veterinary trip (RAVS, study abroad [ISU offers a number of very good trips], VIDA, etc.), find an internship/job/shadow in their area of interest, and so on. It really just depends on what you want to do (work or relax) and what you consider fun summer activities.
How about the profs at the school, are they interested in how the students do/ try to make classes as fun as possible (I know the main reason we are here is still to learn!)
Some of the professors go out of their way to help us succeed, most do want us to succeed but don't necessarily go 'that extra mile', some don't seem to care, and some really don't care. Some of the classes are super fun (at first) and others are a necessary evil, even with a really good professor. I think you'll read similar things about professors/classes at every other veterinary school.
Lastly how about the people. Everyone in Texas seemed super friendly, but I didn't get to spend really any time in Iowa. Are the people pretty outgoing and friendly there overall.
It's extremely hard to quantify an entire population; there are both super friendly and not-so-friendly people here, just like anywhere else I've visited -- in the U.S. or abroad. With that said, I've heard (at interviews and from OOS classmates) that Iowans are friendly in general. Just keep in mind that Ames is a college town, with a ton of undergrads and graduate students from all over the country/world, so everyone you meet (nice or otherwise) isn't necessarily an Iowan.