The Value of School Ranking?

Veterinary Science Graduate Programs from U. of I.
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kyky_prevet

kyky_prevet

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I am having a difficult decision deciding on schools, and wanted to get everyone's opinion on this topic because I'm sure its on a number of people's mind. I am planning on going into surgery in the future, most likely equine, and will be applying to a residency program after vet school. Would the ranking/reputation of the vet school that I go to give me a better chance of getting accepted into a residency? I am particularly torn between Tufts and Colorado... both of which are great schools, but would the difference in ranking give someone a one up in future application processes? (I agree that a DVM is a DVM but considering applying to competitive equine surgery residency programs later on, would a DVM from a higher ranked school matter? ) Thanks so much for any input!
 
No. Vet school rankings are useless. If the school is AVMA-accredited, then you will be fine. Go to the cheapest school you get accepted to, which will probably be your IS.
 
No. They're pretty badly developed, and pretty useless. No one cares which school you graduate from. Go to an AVMA accredited school that is the least expensive for you.
 
School rankings are based on research/internal rankings and mean absolutely nothing. They don't have any insight into which one will make you more competitive for a residency what-so-ever.

Your individual academic performance in vet school (class ranking/GPA), LORs, and ability to network is WAY more important in getting a good residency than which school you go to.
 
Equine surgery residencies care about : 1) Grades 2) Experience 3) Who you know in the business
 
rockatiel said:
I will reiterate no, since I'm in at the "bottom" ranked school, which at least 5 people have brought up to me after I told them I was accepted...

🙄
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Is MSU really the bottom? What about the new schools or Tuskegee or the international ones? I would've expected it to be higher than those.
 
heyyimhayley said:
Is MSU really the bottom? What about the new schools or Tuskegee or the international ones? I would've expected it to be higher than those.
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Most rankings do not include Tuskegee, LMU or Midwestern, or Western because they are either not accredited or private. No international schools because it's usually the best in America or something. I just checked again, and apparently Oregon is the new bottom. Not like it matters, though.
 
Yes. You cannot get an equine surgery residency without going to UC Davis.

In all seriousness, everyone tells you school ranking doesn't matter, but .... going to a 'better known' school probably does matter a little bit. (Sigh. I can feel the SDN politically correct rage already getting geared up.....)

The difference between the two schools you mentioned is negligible - they're both well respected. But people coming out of one of the brand new schools? No matter how much they want to pretend otherwise, they're probably going to have to overcome a bit of a mental hurdle and extra-impress the folks looking at residency matches. It's just life and how humans work. Look at how long it took before people finally started saying "Ok, I guess Ross graduates actually are just the same as graduates from anywhere else." It sucks, it's unfair, and it's the way things work.

But the single most important thing isn't the school, it's doing well in school, gaining the respect and support of your faculty, making a ton of good connections in the field you want to be in, and making sure that people with pull in that field know you want to be in it and view you as someone who can do a good job. Down the road you'll want those people on your side. Get your name out there. Spend your summers doing fun things, but things that play into your future goals. Be positive, friendly, outgoing, and network your ass off.
 
For a lot of things, it really doesn't matter where you go.

But If you've already gotten into both, and your goal is Equine surgery, go with CSU. The equine caseload at Tufts is rather low. Of course you can go elsewhere during 4th year to get that experience, and your internship would matter way more than where you did your 4th year (which is why no one really cares too much). But given the cost between the 2 schools is never going to be such that Tufts is way cheaper, I'd say go where the horses are.

As others have said, school rankings really don't matter all that much. So that shouldn't be the deciding factor


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LetItSnow said:
In all seriousness, everyone tells you school ranking doesn't matter, but .... going to a 'better known' school probably does matter a little bit. (Sigh. I can feel the SDN politically correct rage already getting geared up.....)

The difference between the two schools you mentioned is negligible - they're both well respected. But people coming out of one of the brand new schools? No matter how much they want to pretend otherwise, they're probably going to have to overcome a bit of a mental hurdle and extra-impress the folks looking at residency matches. It's just life and how humans work. Look at how long it took before people finally started saying "Ok, I guess Ross graduates actually are just the same as graduates from anywhere else." It sucks, it's unfair, and it's the way things work.
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Agreed. The only people who are all "rah rah LMU! They have a top notch curriculum and state of the facilities!" are prevets with no idea what exactly that even means.

No one is saying that they have a horrible program or anything. But they certainly don't have a 'good' reputation simply because they're too new to have any sort of reputation. Given that they're needing to accept lower stat applicants to fill their class, the first however many classes graduating from there will be lucky if they are considered by residencies and employers "as good as" those from other schools.


Sent from my iPhone using SDN mobile app
 
LetItSnow said:
. (Sigh. I can feel the SDN politically correct rage already getting geared up.....)

.
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t6bKHt.gif
 
rockatiel said:
Most rankings do not include Tuskegee, LMU or Midwestern, or Western because they are either not accredited or private. No international schools because it's usually the best in America or something. I just checked again, and apparently Oregon is the new bottom. Not like it matters, though.
Click to expand...

That's one of the reasons why the rankings mean nothing -- they don't include everyone nationally, let alone internationally, and some of those schools are excellent.
 
I think that there is some value to vet school rankings




I mean, it does cost some amount of money to run a website, right? Think of all the fun ways we can rank all the vet schools; alphabetically, most desirable school locations, by height of their tallest building, by proportion of available restrooms per gender. I think I could go on forever with this. With enough lists, every school can be #1 in something!
 
Teepster87 said:
I think that there is some value to vet school rankings




I mean, it does cost some amount of money to run a website, right? Think of all the fun ways we can rank all the vet schools; alphabetically, most desirable school locations, by height of their tallest building, by proportion of available restrooms per gender. I think I could go on forever with this. With enough lists, every school can be #1 in something!
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LOL! Actually, the value might be what they can earn from selling advertising on the website (or magazine pages).
 
Teepster87 said:
I think that there is some value to vet school rankings




I mean, it does cost some amount of money to run a website, right? Think of all the fun ways we can rank all the vet schools; alphabetically, most desirable school locations, by height of their tallest building, by proportion of available restrooms per gender. I think I could go on forever with this. With enough lists, every school can be #1 in something!
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A legitimate concern, actually
 
Teepster87 said:
I think that there is some value to vet school rankings




I mean, it does cost some amount of money to run a website, right? Think of all the fun ways we can rank all the vet schools; alphabetically, most desirable school locations, by height of their tallest building, by proportion of available restrooms per gender. I think I could go on forever with this. With enough lists, every school can be #1 in something!
Click to expand...

Teep is on to something. Everyone is a winner in this special snowflake world. 😉
 
Teepster87 said:
I think that there is some value to vet school rankings




I mean, it does cost some amount of money to run a website, right? Think of all the fun ways we can rank all the vet schools; alphabetically, most desirable school locations, by height of their tallest building, by proportion of available restrooms per gender. I think I could go on forever with this. With enough lists, every school can be #1 in something!
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#1 in proportion of available restrooms by gender might legitimately be worth paying oos tuition for.
 
Doktor Timo said:
Tennessee actually swapped all their mens' and womens' restrooms once the school population became 80% female.
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MN did something similar. Used to be male/female lockers near the 1st/2nd yr classrooms ... they converted them to both female. The men are crammed into a very awkwardly narrow, cockroach-laden locker room down in the basement now.
 
LetItSnow said:
MN did something similar. Used to be male/female lockers near the 1st/2nd yr classrooms ... they converted them to both female. The men are crammed into a very awkwardly narrow, cockroach-laden locker room down in the basement now.
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maybe that was just because they knew you were in the class?
 
During fourth year, there were two single stall washrooms that the school converted from 1 male and 1 female to both gender neutral. You have no idea how many women wouldn't use the former male washroom.
 
I wish we would convert some of our male bathrooms (they don't need them 😛). Instead we have 2 (2-stall) bathrooms for 100-200 females (depending on the lecture time....)

It's not a fun time.
 
What did I start here? Lol

In boot camp we had 4 urinals and 4-5 stalls for 90ish people. And about 2-4 minutes for everyone to use the bathroom and refill water. Now THAT wasn't fun.
 
Trilt said:
...more stalls for the sane people.
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No pooping in the handicap stalls because it's roomier for your smartphone downtime*. My ass is too big and I can't fit in the smaller ones.

*I used to do it all the time
 
No plans of swapping the restrooms here (they're the same size as far as I know) but I did hear that they might be knocking down the wall between the men's and women's locker rooms and putting up a temporary wall so that the women can get more lockers next year 🙂
 
So what I'm hearing is that I am going to have to learn how to parkour so I can get to ridiculously far/out of reach bathrooms during breaks so I don't have to wait in line?
 
batsenecal said:
So what I'm hearing is that I am going to have to learn how to parkour so I can get to ridiculously far/out of reach bathrooms during breaks so I don't have to wait in line?
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Or just use the men's bathroom. Who cares, you're in a stall with a door. Well, at least I hope you aren't attempting to squat in a urinal but I'm sure stranger things have happened.
 
batsenecal said:
So what I'm hearing is that I am going to have to learn how to parkour so I can get to ridiculously far/out of reach bathrooms during breaks so I don't have to wait in line?
Click to expand...
I really can't think of a situation where being proficient in parkour would be a negative tbh.
 
Slightly OT: But I was just looking at undergraduate business school rankings and noticed how ridiculous they were.
The school that was ranked #1 in starting salary of its students was ranked #66 by employers. I thought that was odd as you would think if you pay someone a lot of money, you must think they come from a decent school?
Then I noticed the exact same thing in #2, #3, #4, and #5 in starting salary, they were all near the bottom of the rankings of top schools in ranking by employers.

Now if we were looking at schools ranked #66 in bathrooms and #1 in salaries I could see such a disparity, but not 2 factors that should be related (what you think of the education of who you hire, and the salary you give them).

Actually, I see a good chance bathrooms and salaries being linked. More bathrooms, means more time spent in bathrooms, and less studying. Less bathrooms makes you optimize your studying to plan those bathroom breaks, so I say, the fewer bathrooms the school has, the better the school will be ranked. There i said it. Deal with it.
 
DVMDream said:
I'd dare someone to parkour their way out of the lecture hall when the instructor has decided to start going over the allotted lecture time.
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Been there... done that. Kind of fun watching 100+ people looking at you enviously wishing they had guts to follow me out while they squirm uncomfortably in their seats.
 
StartingoverVet said:
Slightly OT: But I was just looking at undergraduate business school rankings and noticed how ridiculous they were.
The school that was ranked #1 in starting salary of its students was ranked #66 by employers. I thought that was odd as you would think if you pay someone a lot of money, you must think they come from a decent school?
Then I noticed the exact same thing in #2, #3, #4, and #5 in starting salary, they were all near the bottom of the rankings of top schools in ranking by employers.

Now if we were looking at schools ranked #66 in bathrooms and #1 in salaries I could see such a disparity, but not 2 factors that should be related (what you think of the education of who you hire, and the salary you give them).

Actually, I see a good chance bathrooms and salaries being linked. More bathrooms, means more time spent in bathrooms, and less studying. Less bathrooms makes you optimize your studying to plan those bathroom breaks, so I say, the fewer bathrooms the school has, the better the school will be ranked. There i said it. Deal with it.
Click to expand...

Nope less bathrooms equals staying at home. Which equals "watching" lecture from home and little studying. 😉
 
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