Suggestions? Horse geek not sure where to apply . . .

[eventualeventer]

Alright, please don't bite me if this topic has been done before. I searched and didn't find anything, so here goes . . .

I am having trouble figuring out where I should apply (besides my state school). I have a general sort of idea of where in the country I'm willing to go, but I have no idea about reputations -- who's good for what field. I would appreciate any suggestions or directions to where I should look. A bit about me:
* I'm a junior this year.
* I live in Maryland.
* I want to do equine, possibly in an academic setting (teaching and clinics, maybe triple threat). Not sure about medicine vs. surgery. I say this fully realizing that I could go into vet school dead set on horses and end up working on parakeets.
* My GPA isn't the best (the adjustment to college has been rocky, since I basically didn't have to work at anything in high school) but is improving -- 3.2 overall, 3.77 last semester.
* I haven't taken the GRE yet but, if I can say so myself, I tend to be good at that sort of test.
* I have 800+ and counting hours of experience at a small equine clinic, a mixture of shadowing vets and working (I love my little dummy foals).
* I have 200 hours as an undergrad research assistant (barn slave), but that was research in title more than experience. Hey, somebody has to muck out 16 stalls twice a day.

What I want from a school: strong equine program! I guess you could ignore all the blather about myself and tell me what schools have the strongest/biggest equine programs and have a snowball's chance in hell of accepting an out-of-stater with so-so grades.

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[cyrille104]

You should apply to any and all schools that accept a lot of out-of-staters, such as Penn, Tufts, and Illinois. I know you want a strong equine program, but vet school is hard enough to get into that we can't really be picky until we've been accepted. Any school you go to will likely be able to adequately prepare you to be an equine vet. Something a little less common (raptor medicine ) would be a different story.

That being said, you should definitely apply to Penn because of its strong equine program, but applying with a 3.2 is going to be a stretch at pretty much any school. See if you can improve it to a 3.3 by the time you apply, and make sure you get 780+ on the math portion of the GRE. Also I would suggest getting some small animal clinical experience this summer - they always want to see that you've been exposed to lots of different areas in vet med, and small animal is a staple.

Tufts has been criticized for its weak equine program on this forum, but they claim to have a signature program in equine sports medicine. Their equine facilities actually are very nice, so I'm sure you'd be fine there. I'm not sure about Illinois, but I would imagine their equine program is fine too.

I think Penn, Tufts, and Illinois are the big out-of-stater schools. There might be more, someone help me on this...

 

[mistifical]

I get the impression that Kansas seems to have a thing for out of staters too...

 

[ri23]

Ohio accepts a lot of out of staters too, and after the first year you can pay in state tuition.

 

[texlaevis]

western does as well, if i'm not mistaken... someone who applied there should correct me if i'm wrong, but i think it has no residency preference. cornell also accepts lots of out-of-staters, but they like to see phenomenal everything, so if you're worried about your grades they might not be the best.

i grew up a horse person in the area around tufts, and although i hear a lot of people bashing their equine program i can say confidently that it's a great facility with a great reputation in the area. people at my barn and the ones i work with when shadowing do not hesitate to send their prissy ponies out there when the going gets rough. i would say that if you're into equine it's a great place... i might hesitate if you're into cattle because there isn't a heck of a lot out there in terms of case load (although they have the plus of their own working farm...)

 

[eventualeventer]

Thanks so much for the tips! The list so far:
VA-MD (in-state)
Penn
Tufts
Illinois
Ohio
Western
Kansas

I noticed that Michigan accepts a lot of out-of-staters, too. Thoughts?

 

[silverelf]

first off, before you make a list, you need to make sure that you have all the pre-reqs done for that school some (ex. texas A&M) have odd pre-reqs like techinical writing. if you haven't done the pre-reqs, you'll be wasting your money. Second, although some of the schools you listed do accept a lot of out of state students, not all have a great equine program. i just got into tufts and in my interview i was talking to my interviewer about caseloads...he said the hospital has a good caseload during track season, but in the winter its crickets in the equine barn. So if you're looking specifically for horses, read around on websites and try to get caseload numbers and see if they have any "signature" programs

 

[Emio]

Alright, please don't bite me if this topic has been done before. I searched and didn't find anything, so here goes . . .

I am having trouble figuring out where I should apply (besides my state school). I have a general sort of idea of where in the country I'm willing to go, but I have no idea about reputations -- who's good for what field. I would appreciate any suggestions or directions to where I should look. A bit about me:
* I'm a junior this year.
* I live in Maryland.
* I want to do equine, possibly in an academic setting (teaching and clinics, maybe triple threat). Not sure about medicine vs. surgery. I say this fully realizing that I could go into vet school dead set on horses and end up working on parakeets.
* My GPA isn't the best (the adjustment to college has been rocky, since I basically didn't have to work at anything in high school) but is improving -- 3.2 overall, 3.77 last semester.
* I haven't taken the GRE yet but, if I can say so myself, I tend to be good at that sort of test.
* I have 800+ and counting hours of experience at a small equine clinic, a mixture of shadowing vets and working (I love my little dummy foals).
* I have 200 hours as an undergrad research assistant (barn slave), but that was research in title more than experience. Hey, somebody has to muck out 16 stalls twice a day.

What I want from a school: strong equine program! I guess you could ignore all the blather about myself and tell me what schools have the strongest/biggest equine programs and have a snowball's chance in hell of accepting an out-of-stater with so-so grades.

hi and welcome!

i'm doing equine, too! hopefully i can help you out....

like cyrille said, Penn takes 49% of its class from out of state and has one of the best equine programs in the country. CSU (while not the easiest for out of staters/WICHE-ers) also has a great equine sports medicine program, and while tufts is a small school, their equine SMP is truly good too (the vet i got to speak with at my interview had some great selling points for tufts for an applicant with equine interest). as an equine focused applicant, those were my top three choices, for those reasons. i think ohio and va-md have good equine stuff, too? i doubt you could go wrong applying to your state school with an equine interest. the 3.2 isn't going to help you at any of these schools, but if you nail the GRE (and penn doesn't even look at the analytical score!), that WILL help you out bunches. your recent gpa helps too... keep that up.

i'll also reiterate cyrille again and say you should broaden your experience. they definitely want to see you can work with horses, but they also want to know you want to be a vet, not just someone who works with horses. if you're anywhere near a zoo, i strongly recommend that, but at least crank out some hours in a small animal hospital or shelter. and if you can get in on any of the actual research at the barn, that'd be immensely beneficial. i hate research, and i'm never going near it again, but i got my miserable semester in and at least now i KNOW i don't want anythign to do with it, lol. even bad experiences are good

now that i've said the word 'equine' more in one post than i've probably ever said in my whole life, i'll leave you. i'm interested in doing equine surgery in an academic setting (teaching hospital), so don't hesitate to ask anything or PM!

Emily

 

[cyrille104]

hi and welcome!

i'm doing equine, too! hopefully i can help you out....

like cyrille said, Penn takes 49% of its class from out of state and has one of the best equine programs in the country. CSU (while not the easiest for out of staters/WICHE-ers) also has a great equine sports medicine program, and while tufts is a small school, their equine SMP is truly good too (the vet i got to speak with at my interview had some great selling points for tufts for an applicant with equine interest). as an equine focused applicant, those were my top three choices, for those reasons. i think ohio and va-md have good equine stuff, too? i doubt you could go wrong applying to your state school with an equine interest. the 3.2 isn't going to help you at any of these schools, but if you nail the GRE (and penn doesn't even look at the analytical score!), that WILL help you out bunches. your recent gpa helps too... keep that up.

i'll also reiterate cyrille again and say you should broaden your experience. they definitely want to see you can work with horses, but they also want to know you want to be a vet, not just someone who works with horses. if you're anywhere near a zoo, i strongly recommend that, but at least crank out some hours in a small animal hospital or shelter. and if you can get in on any of the actual research at the barn, that'd be immensely beneficial. i hate research, and i'm never going near it again, but i got my miserable semester in and at least now i KNOW i don't want anythign to do with it, lol. even bad experiences are good

now that i've said the word 'equine' more in one post than i've probably ever said in my whole life, i'll leave you. i'm interested in doing equine surgery in an academic setting (teaching hospital), so don't hesitate to ask anything or PM!

Emily

I was going to say CSU as well, but with a 3.2 you'd need thousands and thousands of hours of experience or I feel like it'd be a waste of money. Especially since they don't interview out-of-state, the only thing they have to go on is your stats. You could always apply and see what happens if you have extra money though.

 

[JIKJen124]

Michigan State has a very nice equine program as well. I was just up there taking a second look, actually. They have a great case load (the horse industry in Michigan is doing very well), a lameness expert, and a state-of-the-art equine research center that works on lameness related to how the horse is actually moving.

Certainly MSU has some funky/extensive prereqs that you'll need to plan for, but like I said, I'm quite impressed.

 

[eventualeventer]

Thanks for all the suggestions.

Er, no public speaking class means no KSU and no Western unless I take it next spring. I'm not even sure what my campus has for public speaking. I don't have nutrition yet, either, but I'm planning to take it in the fall.

Emio, I'm not much into research at the moment either, but you have me thinking. The vet I work for wants me to do some research on PHF, since my dad is an entomologist and we had 9! cases in the clinic on fluids last summer. Maybe my fate for the summer involves crushing up mayflies to look for N. risticii DNA.

OK, say I have 500-600 hours this summer that I'm going to spend at some vet clinic or another. Is it crucial to make all of those be small animal, or would it be enough to split it up -- work part-time at a small animal clinic and part-time at the equine clinic? I guess what I'm asking is what you'd consider sufficient depth.

 

[ri23]

Personally, I think it would be better to split it up. If you absorb information (really pay attention to what the vets are doing and why), and can demonstrate that in an interview setting that is what matters. Some people work hundreds of hours at a clinic and still have no real depth because they aren't very attentive. Have a decent amount of research, small animal and large animal would be a great addition to your application!

Also, I mentioned earlier that Ohio took a lot of OOS, specifically they take 97 from Ohio, 5 from West Virginia, and 38 from OOS. Good Luck!!

 

[kate_g]

Er, no public speaking class means no KSU and no Western unless I take it next spring. I'm not even sure what my campus has for public speaking.

I don't know about KSU or Western specifically, but some of the schools with weirder prereqs seem at least willing to negotiate substitutions - you might need to put together a letter and some substantiating evidence and send it to the admissions committee. If your research involved doing anything like presenting results (at a real national conference would be ideal, but even at your school's yearly "undergrad research symposium" or whatever), you might get a pass on having to take public speaking. I got out of the undergrad stats requirement at Wisconsin because I'd taken a graduate advanced topics seminar. Can't think of anything you've mentioned that would substitute for nutrition, but maybe someone who had an undergrad research position doing a nutrition study... Anyway, you see what I mean. If there's a school you really like but don't have prereqs for, it's worth at least calling the admissions office and discussing your situation before giving up on them.

Oh, and since Illinois was suggested as out-of-state-friendly, I've heard anecdotally that IL has a good equine caseload (from one person who worked there). The exact comparison was that IL had way more equine cases than MN (and additionally that IL got lots of sports and working cases, whereas all the horses in the hospital at MN when we interviewed were "obviously" pets according to this person).

 

[mistifical]

Er, no public speaking class means no KSU and no Western unless I take it next spring. I'm not even sure what my campus has for public speaking. I don't have nutrition yet, either, but I'm planning to take it in the fall.

Don't let public speaking limit you... I almost did (not that I've had any acceptances this year...), but I'm actually kind of glad I took it. It's a pretty useful class, and, depending on the professor and how it is taught at your school, it doesn't require that much extra effort on your part and could potentially be an easy A. I registered for it this semester because I applied to LSU and I was *hoping* that LSU would make a decision before the add/drop period was over so that I could drop the class and erase it from my transcript forever, just because I didn't *need* it. But after 1 or 2 sessions (and hearing no word from LSU) I decided to stick it out. So far so good... it does get kind of annoying being the oldest person (seriously, my university has a ton of non-trad "older" students) in a class full of freshman/sophomores (their intro speech: "my favorite color is pink, my favorite movie is titanic, my favorite band is.... I love ice cream, i love my boyfriend, i love my mom and dad. i hate peas. i hate writing in black pen" mine: "vet school this, vet school that..." with some interests etc thrown around in there somewhere). Or there's always the option to take it at a community college or over the summer. But seriously, I wouldn't let speech be the pre-req that causes you not to apply to a school.

 

[cyrille104]

Thanks for all the suggestions.

Er, no public speaking class means no KSU and no Western unless I take it next spring. I'm not even sure what my campus has for public speaking. I don't have nutrition yet, either, but I'm planning to take it in the fall.

Emio, I'm not much into research at the moment either, but you have me thinking. The vet I work for wants me to do some research on PHF, since my dad is an entomologist and we had 9! cases in the clinic on fluids last summer. Maybe my fate for the summer involves crushing up mayflies to look for N. risticii DNA.

OK, say I have 500-600 hours this summer that I'm going to spend at some vet clinic or another. Is it crucial to make all of those be small animal, or would it be enough to split it up -- work part-time at a small animal clinic and part-time at the equine clinic? I guess what I'm asking is what you'd consider sufficient depth.

I would say you could split it, but get at least 300 hours at the small animal clinic. Again, I think that you have enough equine hours and your best chance is to split it between a small animal clinic and a zoo or wildlife center to diversify your experience. I really think it would make a big difference. But obviously it's up to you

 

[ri23]

I completely forgot about your first post when you had all of that equine experience already. In that case, although you could split your work schedule, it would probably be best to err on the side of small animal. Almost all of my experience was exotics (zoo, 1500) and equine (500) while only having 100 hours of small animals. The fact that I had limited small animal definitely came up in my application, and almost all of the questions they asked were related to small animal (they asked one question about necropsies I had helped with at the zoo). For open-ended questions I always related everything back to exotics/farm animals, but I came out of the interview wishing that I had a stronger SA background, that might have just been paranoia on my part though.

 

[Emio]

Thanks for all the suggestions.

Er, no public speaking class means no KSU and no Western unless I take it next spring. I'm not even sure what my campus has for public speaking. I don't have nutrition yet, either, but I'm planning to take it in the fall.

Emio, I'm not much into research at the moment either, but you have me thinking. The vet I work for wants me to do some research on PHF, since my dad is an entomologist and we had 9! cases in the clinic on fluids last summer. Maybe my fate for the summer involves crushing up mayflies to look for N. risticii DNA.

OK, say I have 500-600 hours this summer that I'm going to spend at some vet clinic or another. Is it crucial to make all of those be small animal, or would it be enough to split it up -- work part-time at a small animal clinic and part-time at the equine clinic? I guess what I'm asking is what you'd consider sufficient depth.

you've already been specifically approached about a research opp? i think you'd be silly not to take it. who knows? you may love it. you may despise it. but you'll have done it. especially if its horse related! why not take the opp to learn more about the mechanism of PHF??

no, its not *crucial* its all small animal, but make sure you get something out of it; enough to bring specific ethical or practical issues to light. can i ask what exactly is your horse experience? riding your whole life? any management/teaching experience or certifications? if thats extensive, i'd recommend leaning more towards the small animal this summer (esp if you take the research. i'd do most of your working hours then in the small animal).

i love these threads

 

[eventualeventer]

Thanks for the encouragement.

My horse experience, besides the vet/"research" experience noted above:
-- riding since age 10
-- assistant teaching and teaching lessons for the past few years, as well as teaching horse management to other equestrian club members
-- riding horses for friends with too many, including the infamous tendon rehab horses that take weeks of carefully regimented walk/trot routines
-- helped supervise care of horses in the equestrian club for a summer

 

[PAThbrd]

When I think Equine, I think Penn, Colorado, Davis. Texas and Louisiana usually have some good equine research stuff coming out.

Penn is getting harder and harder to get into. Applicants went way up this year and the acceptance rate for out of staters is really quite low even though there are a lot of them accepted. 45-50 out of 1500 applicants is really not that much. Colorado is even worse, 10 out of 1200 I think. I could be a little off on numbers but its the general idea. If you don't go to one of the big equine schools its not that big of a deal, just set up some really sweet externships once you're in school and it will more than make up for it. And go to the AAEP conventions every year! It was the single best thing I've done in terms of furthering my career, aside from getting into vet school

 

[hoodle]

What about Cornell? I feel like cornell has a fabulous equine program, although I don't know if its just that I think Cornell has a fabulous all-around program. Regardless, people certainly send fancy horses to cornell from all over the east coast. They also have a whole barn full of nice stallions and run a breeding program.

Also, I don't think this is all that relevant for out-of-staters, but it could be: WSU is immensely well respected on the west coast for horses. people ship horses 10+ hours to get there (which seems silly to me, but...)

 

[winterfire1203]

You've already listed it, but I've got to second it: VA-MD! You're in-state which means you have a stronger chance of getting in and you'll pay cheaper tuition. They also have a really good equine program, several really good specialists floating around, etc.! Equine hospital is actually attached (unlike Penn, poor New Bolton, tucked away!) while they also work with Leesburg which brings in even more experience (although Leesburg is a good distance away!) Oh, and they apparently have the best and most active student AAEP program which is very active with mare palpations and the likes. And gorgeous country pastures spotted with horses!

So, as a class of 2011 horse-crazed person, I vote VA-MD!

 

[StealthDog]

I'm not an equine person, so I can't say I looked into schools' equine programs much, but U of MN will soon have a brand-new equine center to play in:

http://www.cvm.umn.edu/umec/home.html