Opinions/Perceptions of Melbourne Vet School?

[tinyfalcon]

Hey everyone! I’m a current student at unimelb vet school. The University of Melbourne has a very highly regarded reputation in the Southern Hemisphere, but I’m interested to know what North American perspectives are (including if you have no opinion on the school). We have a high proportion of North American and other international students in our program which represents a major source of revenue for the school, so I am hoping that providing outside input on the perceived reputation and experiences of the school could help our student association advocate for improvements in the admissions process/communication/student life/etc.

I’d love to hear any and all opinions from people, whether it’s just from things you’ve read online, heard through the grapevine, or experienced first hand. If you’ve considered applying or have applied to unimelb, what contributed to your decision to apply, not apply, or turn down an offer of admission? If you'd like, I'd be interested to see where you would rank unimelb among other international programs in Australia, the UK/Europe, and the Caribbean.

You’re welcome to be as honest as you like and, as I mentioned above, I’d still love to hear feedback if you know very little about the school or have no opinion on it.

Thanks so much for any responses!

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[SnowJ]

Personally I don't know anything about it. TBH through vet school I haven't really encountered people discussing the reputation of one school vs another, except maybe that they have more exotics or food animal or XYZ specialty opportunities. The exception is when accreditation is on probation or something, since that has the largest impact for the students' education.
International schools aren't discussed as often because they are out of reach for a lot of students to start with, whether for cost or support system reasons.

 

[MixedAnimals77]

I also know very little about Melbourne as well and agree with everything SnowJ said. I did go look up the school to see if it was accredited by avma which is a huge part usually of students decisions to attend if they ever intend on coming back to the states to practice. Melbourne is currently on probationary accreditation which if I were applying would make me less likely to apply to that school. I think overall the UK and Carribean foreign schools are more known among vet students because they participate in savma sending delegates to conference in the states so theres slightly more networking. I do think overall abroad programs are probably usually applied to less frequently by state students as a whole due to cost, moving internationally and visas, as well as abroad programs usually being 5 years vs the traditional 4 years in the US. In my experience theres not really any sort of comparison/ranking talked about in the states about international schools. Even within the state schools it's usually more of a comparison as snowj said about what a program offers. While not always the case there is a large community especially on here that highly encourages applicants to go to their cheapest option vs "ranking" considering here in the states vet school is quite costly and debt is a major issue for the profession since there is very little government sponsorship of students and our salaries often do not match the average graduate debt load.

ETA-I think what might be useful to gather more of the specific info you're looking for is to talk to the students from North America and get their experience and why they applied and chose Melbourne and how things could be changed that would've made it easier for them.

 

[battie]

Also no opinion on the school, and I haven't heard more established vets express an opinion either. I personally didn't consider any international schools due to cost and inconvenience of attendance. Likewise, knowing what I know now, probationary status for accreditation doesn't bother me too much since so many schools (all of them?) are put on probation at some point. However, applying students don't understand accreditation status for the most part.

Mixy has a good point of surveying NA students at Melbourne for their perspectives. They're also more likely to have had opinions of Melbourne given to them (solicited or unsolicited).

 

[SkiOtter]

If you'd like, I'd be interested to see where you would rank unimelb among other international programs in Australia, the UK/Europe, and the Caribbean.

Rank doesn’t even matter for schools IN the US so it won’t matter for international ones either 🤷🏻‍♀️ As long as it’s AVMA accredited no one cares where you went.

 

[max_wildlife]

@tinyfalcon
I think I have a friend who got her PhD there. I didn't consider it for vet school, just because I had an international option lined up for me that would've been more affordable as I'm a dual citizen over in Eastern Europe. So I guess that's something to consider too; like if people in NA have dual citizenships in other countries, figuring out if those countries take priority first.

 

[KCgophervet]

When I was looking into vet schools in undergrad forever ago I did consider the Australian vet schools. I think for me Sydney made the top of the list because they had a 4 year program (I believe, this was like 15 years ago when I was looking into it), and I think it was a doctorate degree - which appealed to me over a bachelors degree even though they can be considered equivalent. Then I studied abroad for a semester at Murdoch in Perth and seriously considered applying to their vet school - but instead left the vet career path after undergrad and by the time I came back to it was no longer feasible to go international for financial reasons (and because at that point I was more mature and understood the implication of finances a bit more).

So... degree perception might be a thing, accreditation is definitely a thing, and finances are a huge thing.

Agree with others who said to poll the current NA students as their opinions will likely be more relevant.

 

[WonderingStudent]

I did not consider Melbourne for vet school when applying (I believe due to pre-reqs) but did apply to USydney and considered attending. At least for Sydney, I chose not to attend due to hearing that they don’t teach for the NAVLE (for obvious reasons as an international school with not a ton of North American students) and for fear that I would have to teach myself a lot of the information for that exam. Being able to prove to North American applicants that students that attend Melbourne pass their NAVLE (ie NAVLE pass rates for the school) and that there is something set up to help with this study process/that we learn the needed info tested on the NAVLE in the classes would be extremely helpful for pre-vets.