Tufts c/o 2023

[M&D]

OOS accepted

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Members don't see this ad.

 

[Bkr0202]

OOS accepted. Told my dogs we're moving, they're very excited

 

[cbucks]

OOS acceptance!!

 

[yuriaru]

OOS acceptance!!

YESSSS! Go girl!!

 

[cattievet29]

OOS acceptance!!! Sobbing tears of joy rn

 

[Dolphin_girl]

OOS Acceptance!!! Over the moon!

 

[PigEnthusiast]

OOS alternate (again) pretty must just heartbroken

 

[dogmom44]

IS accepted!

 

[Lash310]

OOS acceptance! Looking forward to meeting my new classmates in March!!

 

[equestrianlife]

I just accepted my spot at Tufts! I cannot wait to meet you all!!

 

[Adamawavet]

Does Tufts release decisions in waves like they did interviews? Or if you haven’t heard is that just a rejection?

 

[Bkr0202]

I don't believe they send them out in waves but I'm surprised you haven't heard anything, I would probably call and see what's going on

Does Tufts release decisions in waves like they did interviews? Or if you haven’t heard is that just a rejection?

 

[Keri]

Does Tufts release decisions in waves like they did interviews? Or if you haven’t heard is that just a rejection?

I haven't heard either, and finally emailed the admissions office today. They responded:
"Yes, many decisions went out earlier this week, but not all of them, including you. I hope that it will not be too much longer that you hear from us. Remember, do not check your admissions portal constantly. You will get an email first that tells you a decision is on your portal. Hang in there!"

Here's to continued patience, and best of luck on getting good news soon!

 

[gamma_raven]

Hey guys!! I was accepted to Tufts OOS! I'm an alternate at a couple of less expensive schools, so I'm still not sure what's going to happen. For those of you who are choosing Tufts over a cheaper option, what makes it worth it for you?

 

[cattievet29]

Hey guys!! I was accepted to Tufts OOS! I'm an alternate at a couple of less expensive schools, so I'm still not sure what's going to happen. For those of you who are choosing Tufts over a cheaper option, what makes it worth it for you?

I'm not totally settled yet but some positives I noticed about Tufts when we were there interviewing that might help:
I felt like a LOT of the facilities were new or at least newer.
Sort of on the same vein, the wildlife center really impressed me and I'm not sure any other schools have that right on their property.
I also liked the feel of having a (absolutely beautiful) campus instead of just one building and a hospital.
Proximity to Boston and their opportunities for degrees with their med school is really interesting too. (As opposed to some schools that are really far from civilization/ don't have those degree programs lol)

Hope that might help get you thinking at least!

 

[Vetstudent96]

Hey guys!! I was accepted to Tufts OOS! I'm an alternate at a couple of less expensive schools, so I'm still not sure what's going to happen. For those of you who are choosing Tufts over a cheaper option, what makes it worth it for you?

Hey! I'm a first-year currently here at Tufts. Congratulations on getting accepted! Just figured I would tell you some of the things I love about Tufts to help with your decision and also for anyone else that is still deciding!

The campus has a community and family type of feel. The campus is our own little world vs. other schools where the campus is part of a larger university in the same location. However, it is close to larger cities like Worcester and not too far from Boston for a weekend. The faculty is 100% devoted to our learning and the entire class is friendly with each other and super supportive! It definitely has a family feel and is nice if you are coming from far away and are nervous about moving somewhere new.

There are a lot of opportunities to get hands-on experience early on. We have clinical skills most Thursdays where you spend 4 hours learning things like handling, physical exams, and suturing, most of which are hands-on with live teaching animals. It rotates between small animal, equine, cows, pigs, and sheep (we also had one goat and one llama lab). As a requirement you need to walk the teaching beagles a few times for the semester and give two physical exams. You can also walk them during lunches and groom the horses during lunch as well. Other sporadic opportunities we have been given are: heifer watch (and assisting in delivery if needed), neonatal critical care of sick large animals (mostly foals in the large animal hospital), bottle feeding baby lambs, and help with piglet processing. There also is a spay/neuter clinic on campus that holds a clinic for stray cats every month. Students sign up and go through 14 stations each month that they are selected (stations include prep, recovery, transfer, client communication, physical exams etc) and at the end after you complete the preliminary stations you get to neuter and spay. If you work it right you could be doing this during second year. Some more long-term opportunities are working as a large animal technician in the hospital (many first years I know are doing this currently) and working on the small animal surgery technician team.

Clubs also allow you hands-on experiences through wet labs. The Student Livestock Organization for one offers a ton of cool wet labs that allow you to palpate pregnant cows, ultrasound them, castrate piglets and small ruminants (on your own! with supervision and guidance, of course). A lot of clubs also are starting to do lunches/dinners with various clinicians in different fields so if you are interested in a certain specialty or direction, you can sit down and talk to them about it. STAT is also a new program that is meant to teach and advance surgical techniques early in the veterinary career and they hold workshops every few months.

We also have selective starting spring of 1st year for every one of your pre-clinical semesters. You get to pick out of a database or create your own experience to intern at every Tuesday afternoon. The options range from nearby animal clinics to getting time in the small animal, large animal, and wildlife hospitals. You can make basically anything a selective and it is built-in time to your schedule to get some extra hands-on experience.

The curriculum is always changing and the faculty is really open to taking suggestions and implementing them. For example our Anatomy course is currently being totally "renovated" and they have been moving towards making the curriculum more clinically relevant based on feedback from many clinicians in practice and cutting out the info that just crowds your brain for no reason. They just started this with us but they have huge, awesome plans going forward on more ways to improve the program and they are working extremely hard! The direction they want to take the program in will definitely be beneficial to you guys. It has already been beneficial to me as I have already seen so many of the conditions they were teaching us in my selective (and it's exciting to actually understand what is going on anatomically and biochemically!).

Let me know if you have any more questions!

 

[spottedfeatherik]

For example our Anatomy course is currently being totally "renovated" and they have been moving towards making the curriculum more clinically relevant based on feedback from many clinicians in practice and cutting out the info that just crowds your brain for no reason.

One of my interviewers was your Anatomy lecturer! The way things worked out, we chatted outside the interview room for about 5-10 minutes before the interview even formally started, and she was telling me all about how they're revamping the course to make it better, and that the first years this year are getting much better grades in Anatomy than other classes have in the past because of the new structure. I'm super excited to see everything y'all have in store!

 

[Pistachio556]

Hey! I'm a first-year currently here at Tufts. Congratulations on getting accepted! Just figured I would tell you some of the things I love about Tufts to help with your decision and also for anyone else that is still deciding!

The campus has a community and family type of feel. The campus is our own little world vs. other schools where the campus is part of a larger university in the same location. However, it is close to larger cities like Worcester and not too far from Boston for a weekend. The faculty is 100% devoted to our learning and the entire class is friendly with each other and super supportive! It definitely has a family feel and is nice if you are coming from far away and are nervous about moving somewhere new.

There are a lot of opportunities to get hands-on experience early on. We have clinical skills most Thursdays where you spend 4 hours learning things like handling, physical exams, and suturing, most of which are hands-on with live teaching animals. It rotates between small animal, equine, cows, pigs, and sheep (we also had one goat and one llama lab). As a requirement you need to walk the teaching beagles a few times for the semester and give two physical exams. You can also walk them during lunches and groom the horses during lunch as well. Other sporadic opportunities we have been given are: heifer watch (and assisting in delivery if needed), neonatal critical care of sick large animals (mostly foals in the large animal hospital), bottle feeding baby lambs, and help with piglet processing. There also is a spay/neuter clinic on campus that holds a clinic for stray cats every month. Students sign up and go through 14 stations each month that they are selected (stations include prep, recovery, transfer, client communication, physical exams etc) and at the end after you complete the preliminary stations you get to neuter and spay. If you work it right you could be doing this during second year. Some more long-term opportunities are working as a large animal technician in the hospital (many first years I know are doing this currently) and working on the small animal surgery technician team.

Clubs also allow you hands-on experiences through wet labs. The Student Livestock Organization for one offers a ton of cool wet labs that allow you to palpate pregnant cows, ultrasound them, castrate piglets and small ruminants (on your own! with supervision and guidance, of course). A lot of clubs also are starting to do lunches/dinners with various clinicians in different fields so if you are interested in a certain specialty or direction, you can sit down and talk to them about it. STAT is also a new program that is meant to teach and advance surgical techniques early in the veterinary career and they hold workshops every few months.

We also have selective starting spring of 1st year for every one of your pre-clinical semesters. You get to pick out of a database or create your own experience to intern at every Tuesday afternoon. The options range from nearby animal clinics to getting time in the small animal, large animal, and wildlife hospitals. You can make basically anything a selective and it is built-in time to your schedule to get some extra hands-on experience.

The curriculum is always changing and the faculty is really open to taking suggestions and implementing them. For example our Anatomy course is currently being totally "renovated" and they have been moving towards making the curriculum more clinically relevant based on feedback from many clinicians in practice and cutting out the info that just crowds your brain for no reason. They just started this with us but they have huge, awesome plans going forward on more ways to improve the program and they are working extremely hard! The direction they want to take the program in will definitely be beneficial to you guys. It has already been beneficial to me as I have already seen so many of the conditions they were teaching us in my selective (and it's exciting to actually understand what is going on anatomically and biochemically!).

Let me know if you have any more questions!

What’s the process like for getting jobs such as being part of the small/large animal hospital teams? And when do students usually begin working? Their first semester or do they usually start in the spring?

Just curious how students find out about the various jobs and what the steps are to apply and get one?

 

[CrocRcool]

Hey! I'm a first-year currently here at Tufts. Congratulations on getting accepted! Just figured I would tell you some of the things I love about Tufts to help with your decision and also for anyone else that is still deciding!

The campus has a community and family type of feel. The campus is our own little world vs. other schools where the campus is part of a larger university in the same location. However, it is close to larger cities like Worcester and not too far from Boston for a weekend. The faculty is 100% devoted to our learning and the entire class is friendly with each other and super supportive! It definitely has a family feel and is nice if you are coming from far away and are nervous about moving somewhere new.

There are a lot of opportunities to get hands-on experience early on. We have clinical skills most Thursdays where you spend 4 hours learning things like handling, physical exams, and suturing, most of which are hands-on with live teaching animals. It rotates between small animal, equine, cows, pigs, and sheep (we also had one goat and one llama lab). As a requirement you need to walk the teaching beagles a few times for the semester and give two physical exams. You can also walk them during lunches and groom the horses during lunch as well. Other sporadic opportunities we have been given are: heifer watch (and assisting in delivery if needed), neonatal critical care of sick large animals (mostly foals in the large animal hospital), bottle feeding baby lambs, and help with piglet processing. There also is a spay/neuter clinic on campus that holds a clinic for stray cats every month. Students sign up and go through 14 stations each month that they are selected (stations include prep, recovery, transfer, client communication, physical exams etc) and at the end after you complete the preliminary stations you get to neuter and spay. If you work it right you could be doing this during second year. Some more long-term opportunities are working as a large animal technician in the hospital (many first years I know are doing this currently) and working on the small animal surgery technician team.

Clubs also allow you hands-on experiences through wet labs. The Student Livestock Organization for one offers a ton of cool wet labs that allow you to palpate pregnant cows, ultrasound them, castrate piglets and small ruminants (on your own! with supervision and guidance, of course). A lot of clubs also are starting to do lunches/dinners with various clinicians in different fields so if you are interested in a certain specialty or direction, you can sit down and talk to them about it. STAT is also a new program that is meant to teach and advance surgical techniques early in the veterinary career and they hold workshops every few months.

We also have selective starting spring of 1st year for every one of your pre-clinical semesters. You get to pick out of a database or create your own experience to intern at every Tuesday afternoon. The options range from nearby animal clinics to getting time in the small animal, large animal, and wildlife hospitals. You can make basically anything a selective and it is built-in time to your schedule to get some extra hands-on experience.

The curriculum is always changing and the faculty is really open to taking suggestions and implementing them. For example our Anatomy course is currently being totally "renovated" and they have been moving towards making the curriculum more clinically relevant based on feedback from many clinicians in practice and cutting out the info that just crowds your brain for no reason. They just started this with us but they have huge, awesome plans going forward on more ways to improve the program and they are working extremely hard! The direction they want to take the program in will definitely be beneficial to you guys. It has already been beneficial to me as I have already seen so many of the conditions they were teaching us in my selective (and it's exciting to actually understand what is going on anatomically and biochemically!).

Let me know if you have any more questions!

Lots of great info here. I have a few questions..

Just how isolated is it really? I've been living in and around big cities for the majority of my adult life and my brief time back in the suburbs really didn't work too well for me. Tufts is my top choice but now I'm overthinking just how far from the rest of the world the campus is. I'm 31 and a guy, and while I'm sure I'll be friends with many of my classmates I'm under no illusion I'm going to fit in great with the majority of the class. Living away from an urban area with people more my age might be tough.

What are the bad parts about Tufts?

Thanks

 

[Vetstudent96]

What’s the process like for getting jobs such as being part of the small/large animal hospital teams? And when do students usually begin working? Their first semester or do they usually start in the spring?

Just curious how students find out about the various jobs and what the steps are to apply and get one?

Basically any opportunity for jobs will be emailed out to you (and there are a good amount like those, data entry jobs in the hospital, library jobs etc.). For the tech team positions they had a lunch talk during lunch hour that you would attend if you were interested and they would explain the position and tell you how to access the application and apply. The large animal team took a good amount of people this year and you would likely have a good chance at getting it! The small animal surgery team only had a few openings so it was more competitive. I did apply for the small animal one (didn't get it) and it was basically as easy as sending in a resume and cover letter. Both of the tech positions are only a few shifts a month on call so it's possible you might not get called in, but there is a training period in the beginning as well. You apply and start training your first semester, but like I said the scheduling is only a few shifts a month so it's a nice transition. I know the large animal one has a commitment that you have to be on at least a year but preferably up until your clinical years. I forget for the small animal! Like I said though there are a ton of opportunities that get emailed out to you or posted on your class page. Also for this summer they have sent out info about various internships, summer research opportunities, and jobs. I know more specifically about small animal because that is my focus but there were a ton of emails that went out about applying for the Banfield Student Job Program and VetCor which are pretty good with placement (and pay for that matter)! I'm doing a Banfield one this summer and a service trip.

 

[spottedfeatherik]

Just how isolated is it really? I've been living in and around big cities for the majority of my adult life and my brief time back in the suburbs really didn't work too well for me. Tufts is my top choice but now I'm overthinking just how far from the rest of the world the campus is. I'm 31 and a guy, and while I'm sure I'll be friends with many of my classmates I'm under no illusion I'm going to fit in great with the majority of the class. Living away from an urban area with people more my age might be tough.

I feel you here; I've lived most of my life in suburbs and I'm not a big fan, I'd much rather live in a city. But as a person who's from the Boston suburban area and has been to Grafton a bit, I would say that it's pretty easy to get to Boston from Tufts if you need some time away from the burbs. Also, I find Tufts to be wayyyy less isolated than any other vet school I've visited - most other places I know/have been to are college towns with nothing really around them, but with Tufts being more suburban there's much more to do and it's much easier and faster to get to nearby urban areas. The only vet school (that I know a good amount about) that I'd say is more urban or urban accessible than Tufts is UPenn.

If you have the opportunity, I'd say take another day to visit campus and the surrounding area; you'll see it's really not far from the rest of the world, especially in comparison to some of the other schools you might have offers from

 

[Mythical]

Madison >>> North Grafton

 

[Vetstudent96]

Lots of great info here. I have a few questions..

Just how isolated is it really? I've been living in and around big cities for the majority of my adult life and my brief time back in the suburbs really didn't work too well for me. Tufts is my top choice but now I'm overthinking just how far from the rest of the world the campus is. I'm 31 and a guy, and while I'm sure I'll be friends with many of my classmates I'm under no illusion I'm going to fit in great with the majority of the class. Living away from an urban area with people more my age might be tough.

What are the bad parts about Tufts?

Thanks

Well there is a lot of farm land around (makes sense for the program) but it isn't like Tufts is far from civilization! A quick 5 minute drive in either direction will take you to Westborough or into Grafton, which will give you all you need in terms of stores and such. There are restaurants and the Post Office Pub where a lot of people hang out. There are also a ton of trails around the area. There is a huge mall about 20 minutes away in Natick which isn't a bad drive. It's also about a 20 min drive from Worcester which is a pretty big city and a lot of students go there on the weekends to go out to the bars, breweries, etc. Boston is less than an hour away and it's not a bad option if you want to go to the city (I go pretty often on weekends). I've never really felt secluded here.

As for bad things about Tufts, I will preface by saying Tufts was always my dream school so I love everything about being here (and New England) but I'll try to be unbiased!! Obviously if you aren't used to the New England weather it can be tough to get accustomed to (not sure where you are from). Sometimes the class scheduling can be very draining (like once we had an entire day of the SAME class and that was super rough) and sometimes it seems like they could work out the scheduling a little better, especially in regards to timing of exams and juggling all of that together. We do have students on a board that help determine and try to make it so this doesn't happen (and a few awesome professors who try to advocate for better scheduling as well) but it seems inevitable at times. As I said before the Anatomy class is still being worked on so there have been a ton of kinks they have had to work out, but they are continuously getting feedback from us (the guinea pig class) and implementing changes that we suggested. Likely you guys will have it much better since they are working out all of those kinks on us haha! There isn't much else I can think of off the top of my mind, but if you have specific concerns let me know!

 

[CrocRcool]

Madison >>> North Grafton

That's what I'm hearing. I'm heading out to Madison this weekend to check out the school and the area, but nobody has anything bad to say about Madison as a town.

I'm between Tufts, Minnesota, and UW-M right now. Tufts has the program I want. Minnesota has the city, and I have no idea what Madison has yet.

 

[phishvet]

I hope it's alright if I ask a rather specific question on here, I see that there are a lot of current students responding so I think this would be the best place to get feedback. My desired career is in aquatic medicine, and though I am of course open to the idea that my interests may change, my interest in the field isn't new and I have been building up my resume for some time (B.S. Pre-Veterinary Science, M.S. Marine Biology; several years of experience through the New England Aquarium's Medical Center and Rescue/Rehab Dept's., graduate research and thesis conducted at Mystic Aquarium).

My top choice was/is UF for their aquatic opportunities but I have been waitlisted so I am currently trying to decide between my other top choices, Tufts and Colorado State. I spent the vast majority of my life in Massachusetts and I'm very done with living in New England. I moved to Oregon a year ago and I couldn't love a place more. Knowing that, Fort Collins is surely a better fit for me than North Grafton, however I am hesitant to attend a school with Z E R O aquatics opportunities (not even a club, and the Denver Aquarium is a for-profit facility and not research-focused as far as I'm aware). Not only does Tufts have WAZE and host guest speakers from NEAq and Mystic (most of whom I know personally), but the proximity to those institutions (as well as others, due to Tufts' relatively coastal location) makes me think that I might be able to seek out such opportunities with them more easily than if I'm in pretty much the most landlocked place possible.

For those of you who are current students, do you know of anyone who has been able to utilize local aquatic institutions and how? I know of the video on the admissions page about Eric Littman (V'17) who created his own selective in aquatics, and I'm just wondering what the logistics are behind something like that. Is there any particular faculty member who you would recommend reaching out to in regard to this?

What I'm mostly afraid of is deciding to attend Tufts in order to take advantage of these coastal connections and finding that I simply don't have the time to do so, leaving me with my original plan of doing summer externships such as Aquavet, for which I could apply as a CSU student just as easily.

 

[PippyPony]

I hope it's alright if I ask a rather specific question on here, I see that there are a lot of current students responding so I think this would be the best place to get feedback. My desired career is in aquatic medicine, and though I am of course open to the idea that my interests may change, my interest in the field isn't new and I have been building up my resume for some time (B.S. Pre-Veterinary Science, M.S. Marine Biology; several years of experience through the New England Aquarium's Medical Center and Rescue/Rehab Dept's., graduate research and thesis conducted at Mystic Aquarium).

My top choice was/is UF for their aquatic opportunities but I have been waitlisted so I am currently trying to decide between my other top choices, Tufts and Colorado State. I spent the vast majority of my life in Massachusetts and I'm very done with living in New England. I moved to Oregon a year ago and I couldn't love a place more. Knowing that, Fort Collins is surely a better fit for me than North Grafton, however I am hesitant to attend a school with Z E R O aquatics opportunities (not even a club, and the Denver Aquarium is a for-profit facility and not research-focused as far as I'm aware). Not only does Tufts have WAZE and host guest speakers from NEAq and Mystic (most of whom I know personally), but the proximity to those institutions (as well as others, due to Tufts' relatively coastal location) makes me think that I might be able to seek out such opportunities with them more easily than if I'm in pretty much the most landlocked place possible.

For those of you who are current students, do you know of anyone who has been able to utilize local aquatic institutions and how? I know of the video on the admissions page about Eric Littman (V'17) who created his own selective in aquatics, and I'm just wondering what the logistics are behind something like that. Is there any particular faculty member who you would recommend reaching out to in regard to this?

What I'm mostly afraid of is deciding to attend Tufts in order to take advantage of these coastal connections and finding that I simply don't have the time to do so, leaving me with my original plan of doing summer externships such as Aquavet, for which I could apply as a CSU student just as easily.

Current second year here --

I don't know too much about the full range of opportunities for aquatic medicine specifically, but it's certainly possible to do self-styled selectives at places like the New England Aquarium or the Mystic Aquarium. You'll probably need to start leveraging your contacts at those organizations soon after you start school to give them a heads up about the idea of following them around, but I've known some fellow students who have managed to get their foot in the door at both places and gone on to do selectives there, so you would likely already have the hardest part covered given your background.

Once you have a contact at the organization where you want to get experience, the process of actually setting up a selective/getting selective credit is NOT hard

Basically, you'll just tell admin that you want to do a self-styled selective instead of participating in the selective lottery, give them the contact info for your supervisor at the outside organization, and then turn in a signed form at the end of the semester to document your hours.

Now for the bad news... in terms of the curriculum itself, we don't really do very much with marine mammals or fish. There is a zoo med class in second year that we just finished, but it was pretty darn minimal in terms of hours and depth of content. I'm not sure I could tell you much more about aquatic animals than I already knew...which is that some of them are nice pets, some are tasty, and some of them might put my bff into anaphylactic shock. And, salmon get some parasites.

The bottom line is that it's there outside of class if you want it...but you might have to do some creative-but-doable scheduling (e.g. skip some lectures on occasion to go down to Mystic for a full day & watch the lecture recordings later), and don't expect to see much in the core curriculum.

Edit: oh, and in terms of particular faculty...maybe start with our ZCAM and wildlife faculty (particularly the department chairs)? The online directory lists their contact info.

 

[Keri]

A very belated OOS acceptance!

 

[bluejay1876]

Hello!

I'm OOS for Tufts and also have been accepted to Penn as OOS. I absolutely love both schools and am having a hard time making a decision. I was wondering if anyone else chose between these two schools and why they chose Tufts?

Disclaimer: I'm posting this but for Penn in that forum as well to get those opinions!

 

[gamma_raven]

I'm 31 and a guy, and while I'm sure I'll be friends with many of my classmates I'm under no illusion I'm going to fit in great with the majority of the class. Living away from an urban area with people more my age might be tough.

If it makes you feel any better, I'm 33 and have also lived in cities my whole life! I figure that I'm going to end up living in Worcester if I attend Tufts. So anyway, you wouldn't be alone.

 

[gamma_raven]

Hey! I'm a first-year currently here at Tufts. Congratulations on getting accepted! Just figured I would tell you some of the things I love about Tufts to help with your decision and also for anyone else that is still deciding!

The campus has a community and family type of feel. The campus is our own little world vs. other schools where the campus is part of a larger university in the same location. However, it is close to larger cities like Worcester and not too far from Boston for a weekend. The faculty is 100% devoted to our learning and the entire class is friendly with each other and super supportive! It definitely has a family feel and is nice if you are coming from far away and are nervous about moving somewhere new.

There are a lot of opportunities to get hands-on experience early on. We have clinical skills most Thursdays where you spend 4 hours learning things like handling, physical exams, and suturing, most of which are hands-on with live teaching animals. It rotates between small animal, equine, cows, pigs, and sheep (we also had one goat and one llama lab). As a requirement you need to walk the teaching beagles a few times for the semester and give two physical exams. You can also walk them during lunches and groom the horses during lunch as well. Other sporadic opportunities we have been given are: heifer watch (and assisting in delivery if needed), neonatal critical care of sick large animals (mostly foals in the large animal hospital), bottle feeding baby lambs, and help with piglet processing. There also is a spay/neuter clinic on campus that holds a clinic for stray cats every month. Students sign up and go through 14 stations each month that they are selected (stations include prep, recovery, transfer, client communication, physical exams etc) and at the end after you complete the preliminary stations you get to neuter and spay. If you work it right you could be doing this during second year. Some more long-term opportunities are working as a large animal technician in the hospital (many first years I know are doing this currently) and working on the small animal surgery technician team.

Clubs also allow you hands-on experiences through wet labs. The Student Livestock Organization for one offers a ton of cool wet labs that allow you to palpate pregnant cows, ultrasound them, castrate piglets and small ruminants (on your own! with supervision and guidance, of course). A lot of clubs also are starting to do lunches/dinners with various clinicians in different fields so if you are interested in a certain specialty or direction, you can sit down and talk to them about it. STAT is also a new program that is meant to teach and advance surgical techniques early in the veterinary career and they hold workshops every few months.

We also have selective starting spring of 1st year for every one of your pre-clinical semesters. You get to pick out of a database or create your own experience to intern at every Tuesday afternoon. The options range from nearby animal clinics to getting time in the small animal, large animal, and wildlife hospitals. You can make basically anything a selective and it is built-in time to your schedule to get some extra hands-on experience.

The curriculum is always changing and the faculty is really open to taking suggestions and implementing them. For example our Anatomy course is currently being totally "renovated" and they have been moving towards making the curriculum more clinically relevant based on feedback from many clinicians in practice and cutting out the info that just crowds your brain for no reason. They just started this with us but they have huge, awesome plans going forward on more ways to improve the program and they are working extremely hard! The direction they want to take the program in will definitely be beneficial to you guys. It has already been beneficial to me as I have already seen so many of the conditions they were teaching us in my selective (and it's exciting to actually understand what is going on anatomically and biochemically!).

Let me know if you have any more questions!

Thank you so much for your thoughtful input! Tufts definitely has the programs that I'm interested in, and I love how you get hands-on experience with live animals right away. It's great that the administration and faculty make changes according to student feedback as well.

Like @CrocRcool, I'm in my 30's. Vet med is my second career, and I couldn't be happier about it! But this comes with its own set of unique challenges, like "what's the real estate market like" and "will my husband find a good job." Is there anyone here who can speak to a non-trad student's experience at Tufts?

 

[PippyPony]

Thank you so much for your thoughtful input! Tufts definitely has the programs that I'm interested in, and I love how you get hands-on experience with live animals right away. It's great that the administration and faculty make changes according to student feedback as well.

Like @CrocRcool, I'm in my 30's. Vet med is my second career, and I couldn't be happier about it! But this comes with its own set of unique challenges, like "what's the real estate market like" and "will my husband find a good job." Is there anyone here who can speak to a non-trad student's experience at Tufts?

Yep! I'm in my mid 30s, married, and fit in just fine with my class. See previous posts about that (I think I also responded in the "deciding between schools" sub thread).

There were a lot more non-traditional students in my class than I expected -- there are at least 10 of us who are in our 30s-40s or thereabouts, I think. And honestly, I've been incredibly impressed with the maturity level of most of my younger classmates, so it really doesn't matter as much as you might think. A couple of my closest friends are 23/24 and I completely forget about their age most of the time... until I make a random pop culture reference to something from the early 90s or they tell me they were in middle school when some song came out after I graduated from college.

In terms of the area...

Real estate market is rough for renting a single family home, but is not terrible if you're looking to buy (although it is Massachusetts, so if you're from anywhere else other than California or NYC...be ready for some serious sticker shock). Also isn't bad if you're ok with renting in an apartment complex. We managed to find a single family home though, so it's definitely doable.

As an aside -- the Worcester area is considered "up and coming," but some areas of Worcester (& Shrewsbury) are still pretty sketchy. I would just make sure to do some due diligence before buying property there. The towns a little bit further east of Grafton (Northborough, Southborough, Westborough, etc) are all very nice & have stellar schools, etc., but prices go up accordingly.

My husband technically works in Boston but often travels for work. The Grafton --> Boston commute is rough, not going to lie to you about that one. We live about 20 min east of the school, and on the days when I've had to try to drive into the city during rush hour, it has taken me well over 1.5 hours. From Grafton or Worcester, you'd probably be pushing 2 hrs each way unless you commute during off hours.

The train, on the other hand, works pretty well, and the SO takes that when he's home and needs to commute in. The commute into Worcester is not nearly as bad as going east...but that's also because there aren't as many jobs in Worcester.

FWIW though, my husband's job prospects are one of the main reasons why I only applied to Tufts. Unless he had tried to find something in Philly, none of the other schools were close enough to a major metropolitan area for him to feel like he could find a solid job. Boston's a great place to work.

Hope that helps; feel free to PM me if you have any follow up questions!

 

[PippyPony]

Oh, one last comment about where to live...

A few of my classmates actually do live in the Boston area (Somerville, Cambridge, etc) and brave the reverse commute to school. I personally think they are bonkers for doing it, but it is feasible if you are a die-hard city person.

On the flipside, it does limit their ability to participate in some fun things (a lot harder to bop over to the farm at 9pm in the dead of winter to bottle-feed some lambs if you live 50 minutes away vs 5 minutes away).

I imagine they will have to move when clinics start, however, since we are required to be within ~15-30 min of school depending on the rotation. But, for the first couple years, you could make it work if it was important for your quality of life.

 

[PippyPony]

What’s the process like for getting jobs such as being part of the small/large animal hospital teams? And when do students usually begin working? Their first semester or do they usually start in the spring?

Just curious how students find out about the various jobs and what the steps are to apply and get one?

Edit: I just saw that someone already wrote a nice long response to this, and I just totally missed it! Oh well, here's a second perspective if you want one...

I work on the large animal tech team.

They will do lunchtime info sessions for small animal tech team and large animal tech team in the beginning of the fall semester where they cover all of the details about applying and such.

Generally, you apply at the beginning of your first year and start training in October. There's typically a lot of interest; having some background working with horses or other large animals is helpful for LATT.

You can also wait and apply as a 2nd year if you decide not to do it the first year (not a bad idea to prioritize school, since first semester can be a doozy at times), but they accept decidedly fewer people the second time around.

They ask for new hires to commit to working until the early spring of third year, when clinics start. After that, I believe you can typically pick up shifts if you're interested, but most people are too busy with clinics (or are too busy getting murdered by the tail end of the 3rd year didactic curriculum).

Also have heard of one-off cases of people basically walking in to various departments of the hospital and getting hired simply by virtue of the fact that they were standing there with a pair of empty hands, so there's always that approach, too haha

Bottom line -- I wouldn't worry too much about it until you get to school. Financial aid office may be able to help with work study opportunities before that if you contact them.

 

[PippyPony]

...And with that string of posts, everyone who goes to my school and lurks on this forum probably knows who I am or could figure it out haha.

If any of my classmates who I think might read this are reading this, I'm not sorry I said Worcester was kinda sketchy

 

[ajs513]

Also, Philly really just didn’t do it for me (and everyone I know who went to Penn got mugged like 3+ times too which kind of talked me out of it)

Having lived in Philly for the past few years, I’ve never once felt unsafe. And all of the current students I spoke to on interview day have said the same thing. I don’t know who you talked to that said they’ve been mugged (especially several times) but I can’t believe that that would be true. Out of all of the people I know who went to Penn or Drexel (same area) and out of all of the times I’ve been to Penn and Drexel for various things, neither they nor I have been mugged, threatened, or made to feel unsafe.

And I’ll link to Penn’s crime statistics as well. For entire years, there have only been a handful of violent crimes, and a handful of robberies. For a city as densely populated as Philly, that’s unheard of. I’m not trying to come on here and say that someone should go to Penn vs tufts because the commenter did post the same on Penn’s thread and that’s where that would be appropriate. But it’s a huge, unfair misconception to try and say Penn is unsafe.
https://www.publicsafety.upenn.edu/files/2018_ASR_PENN.pdf
Page 46

 

[SkiOtter]

OOS acceptance! Through the moon right now

Yaaaassssss dinaaaaa

 

[cattievet29]

Does anyone know if students are encouraged to wear certain color scrubs? I know some schools had rules like this so I was just wondering before I start buying the rainbow lol

 

[spottedfeatherik]

Does anyone know if students are encouraged to wear certain color scrubs? I know some schools had rules like this so I was just wondering before I start buying the rainbow lol

I don’t know if there are restrictions per se, but there does seem to be some color coding between different groups (a lot of their techs wear a certain light gray, their summer camp students are required to wear sapphire blue, etc). I don’t think it matters so as long as you don’t buy a group’s color unless you’re ok with maybe getting mistaken as a person of that group.

 

[Vetstudent96]

Does anyone know if students are encouraged to wear certain color scrubs? I know some schools had rules like this so I was just wondering before I start buying the rainbow lol

So there currently aren’t restrictions really but they are implementing a scrub dress code for preclinical students starting next year (we have got a few emails about it). I believe we have to wear “Tufts brown” while in the hospital, selectives, etc but I don’t think the colors matter for something like anatomy lab scrubs.

 

[gamma_raven]

Yep! I'm in my mid 30s, married, and fit in just fine with my class. See previous posts about that (I think I also responded in the "deciding between schools" sub thread).

There were a lot more non-traditional students in my class than I expected -- there are at least 10 of us who are in our 30s-40s or thereabouts, I think. And honestly, I've been incredibly impressed with the maturity level of most of my younger classmates, so it really doesn't matter as much as you might think. A couple of my closest friends are 23/24 and I completely forget about their age most of the time... until I make a random pop culture reference to something from the early 90s or they tell me they were in middle school when some song came out after I graduated from college.

In terms of the area...

Real estate market is rough for renting a single family home, but is not terrible if you're looking to buy (although it is Massachusetts, so if you're from anywhere else other than California or NYC...be ready for some serious sticker shock). Also isn't bad if you're ok with renting in an apartment complex. We managed to find a single family home though, so it's definitely doable.

As an aside -- the Worcester area is considered "up and coming," but some areas of Worcester (& Shrewsbury) are still pretty sketchy. I would just make sure to do some due diligence before buying property there. The towns a little bit further east of Grafton (Northborough, Southborough, Westborough, etc) are all very nice & have stellar schools, etc., but prices go up accordingly.

My husband technically works in Boston but often travels for work. The Grafton --> Boston commute is rough, not going to lie to you about that one. We live about 20 min east of the school, and on the days when I've had to try to drive into the city during rush hour, it has taken me well over 1.5 hours. From Grafton or Worcester, you'd probably be pushing 2 hrs each way unless you commute during off hours.

The train, on the other hand, works pretty well, and the SO takes that when he's home and needs to commute in. The commute into Worcester is not nearly as bad as going east...but that's also because there aren't as many jobs in Worcester.

FWIW though, my husband's job prospects are one of the main reasons why I only applied to Tufts. Unless he had tried to find something in Philly, none of the other schools were close enough to a major metropolitan area for him to feel like he could find a solid job. Boston's a great place to work.

Hope that helps; feel free to PM me if you have any follow up questions!

This is SO helpful!! Thank you! I love hanging out with folks of all ages, but it's always nice to hear that there are plenty of other non-trads.

I think we'd be looking to buy, because we own a home now and will probably make money when we sell. Plus who is going to rent to us with 5 cats and a large dog?? Haha. I'll definitely let you know if I have more specific questions!

 

[PippyPony]

Does anyone know if students are encouraged to wear certain color scrubs? I know some schools had rules like this so I was just wondering before I start buying the rainbow lol

Pro tip: don't buy scrubs for first year.

They won't care what the stuff looks like in clin skills as long as you have scrubs, coveralls, & proper boots (they do like people to have fully rubber boots for easy sanitizing, btw). Your anatomy scrubs will get trashed, so either use old ones you don't care much about or get some second hand from an upperclassman

 

[PippyPony]

5 cats and a large dog??

Living the dreeeaaaaam

 

[PippyPony]

I know Penn is a huge name and “technically” better?

In all seriousness, Penn is a great school; I have friends who are vet students there and they are wonderfully smart and are getting a stellar education...but we are also wonderfully smart and getting a stellar education. I think you would be hard-pressed to find someone around this site who actually says a given school is substantively better -- and even for the people who put stock into things like rankings, we are frankly pretty darn awesome at a lot of that stuff.

We have a 100% NAVLE pass rate, we have the largest* small animal case load in the country (and I believe one of the top 3 case loads overall), and we're top 5 ranked in terms of a bunch of other things, like internship & residency placement rates, very low attrition, competitive applicants, yada yada.

So, no, I don't think Penn is "technically" better... although I think it is probably an equally excellent school


*I couldn't find the actual published "yay, we're #1!" claim, but we exceeded 34k patients in our small animal hospital alone last year, which was higher than all the other published #s I found for schools who are also up there in volume (even Penn ), and we saw over 80k patients in total last year. That's... a lot.

 

[ajs513]

In all seriousness, Penn is a great school; I have friends who are vet students there and they are wonderfully smart and are getting a stellar education...but we are also wonderfully smart and getting a stellar education. I think you would be hard-pressed to find someone around this site who actually says a given school is substantively better -- and even for the people who put stock into things like rankings, we are frankly pretty darn awesome at a lot of that stuff.

We have a 100% NAVLE pass rate, we have the largest* small animal case load in the country (and I believe one of the top 3 case loads overall), and we're top 5 ranked in terms of a bunch of other things, like internship & residency placement rates, very low attrition, competitive applicants, yada yada.

So, no, I don't think Penn is "technically" better... although I think it is probably an equally excellent school


*I couldn't find the actual published "yay, we're #1!" claim, but we exceeded 34k patients in our small animal hospital alone last year, which was higher than all the other published #s I found for schools who are also up there in volume (even Penn ), and we saw over 80k patients in total last year. That's... a lot.

Yea as someone who chose Penn, it’s really not any better or worse for most things than other schools. Lots of research, great equine program, large case load, but you can get that at a ton of other hospitals. The only reason I would really choose Penn over others is the location. Some love it, some hate it. I just happen to love Philly. But to say that it’s objectively better than other schools based off of the program isn’t quite right.

 

[PippyPony]

Yea as someone who chose Penn, it’s really not any better or worse for most things than other schools. Lots of research, great equine program, large case load, but you can get that at a ton of other hospitals. The only reason I would really choose Penn over others is the location. Some love it, some hate it. I just happen to love Philly. But to say that it’s objectively better than other schools based off of the program isn’t quite right.

Cheesesteaks and Rita's... you've got us solidly beat there, no contest.

Also, New Bolton is GORGEOUS and I would looooove to have that facility. (On the flipside, I also like my 5 min walk to our large animal hospital & farm more than the 1.5+ hour Philly traffic jam extravaganza I experienced at SAVMA last year haha. But it might be worth the drive to have it. Maybe. Idk. It's objectively really nice.)

 

[ajs513]

Cheesesteaks and Rita's... you've got us solidly beat there, no contest.

Also, New Bolton is GORGEOUS and I would looooove to have that facility. (On the flipside, I also like my 5 min walk to our large animal hospital & farm more than the 1.5+ hour Philly traffic jam extravaganza I experienced at SAVMA last year haha. But it might be worth the drive to have it. Maybe. Idk. It's objectively really nice.)

Also I don’t know if you guys have WaWa. Do you? Because if not I’m sorry you miss out on it. But yea if NBC were closer that would be great. I’m small animal so that doesn’t affect me much.

 

[PippyPony]

Also I don’t know if you guys have WaWa. Do you? Because if not I’m sorry you miss out on it.

We don't. Two of my closest friends grew up in Philly and have been lamenting the lack of Wawas since they moved here over a decade ago.

Don't tell them, but I feel like Ben from Parks & Rec with Lil' Sebastian every time they start waxing poetic about how amazing Wawas are and omg we're not even a civilized land without a Wawa every 500 ft how will we ever get sandwiches blah blah

 

[PippyPony]

To bring this back to Tufts & the surrounding area, since I derailed yet another thread by talking about regional food...

There is a very nice local sandwich shop in downtown Grafton. True, it cannot hope to reach the level of WaWa. But, they are purveyors of perfectly respectable provisions, and I swear to you, any incoming Main Liners -- the food will not turn to ashes in your mouth. You will, unfortunately, have to go down the street for gas, but I believe in your ability to learn to forage in the wilderness.



There are also good Dunkins locations nearby

 

[spottedfeatherik]

There are also good Dunkins locations nearby

I'm moving back to Boston after a 4 year stint in the Midwest for undergrad and I am SO READY to have Dunkins that are accessible!!

we're top 5 ranked in terms of a bunch of other things, like internship & residency placement rates, very low attrition, competitive applicants

Where did you find these stats, especially for internship/residency placement in comparison to other schools?

 

[PippyPony]

Where did you find these stats, especially for internship/residency placement in comparison to other schools?

ze google

For example, NAVLE scores are here: Accreditation - Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine at Tufts University

Some of it is anecdotal*, including the residency stat. I asked back when I interviewed because I knew I was interested in opportunities for specializing, and it was/is important to me that I am at a school that would provide me with a solid shot at certain future career paths.


*(You can trust me, though, despite what my signature might imply -- those statements about me being shifty refer solely to the werewolf games people play elsewhere on this site )