Hello! Illinois 4th year, but born and raised in Colorado. CSU was my dream school purely for the in state tuition, but I've been to FoCo many times in my life.
Illinois has extensive wildlife/exotics opportunities:
1. The Wildlife Medical Clinic: It's an entirely student run clinic that sees 2000+ critters per year ranging from the standard kidnapped bunnies and squirrels to foxes to bobcats to bald eagles. Students are in teams with 3-4 members acting as team leaders. Students work with the zoo med intern/residents to make treatment plans and stay with the patient from beginning to end. Teams rotate taking care of orphans and being responsible for triage intakes.
2. Ambassador Residents:
@SportPonies and
@SkiOtter both participated in this program and would be able to contribute far more than me to this.
3. Wildlife Epidemiology Lab: This lab is *prolific* in getting research done and out into the world of wildlife. It focuses on reptiles and amphibians at the moment pretty heavily due to the interests of the PI in that lab.
4. ZCAMS (zoological companion animal medicine and surgery): A service we have completely separate from all other services. They do essentially everything for zoo companion animals that come into the hospital. Sporty has done a rotation for that service and probably could describe it better.
5. New space: Our ZCAMS and WMC both have moved into new spaces in a newly remodeled building that was gifted to us by the main campus. Literally brand new.
6. Relationship with Brookfield Zoo and Shedd Aquarium: We have the opportunity to do clinical rotations off campus at both of these sites, and these sites specifically reserve seats for clinical year Illinois students. This even extends into our pathology services as we have one of the only zoological pathology residencies in the country.
7. Networking: Our exotics/zoo/wildlife network (either with the clinicians currently here or the student/alumni body itself) is extensive, and if you want to do something you can find someone to help you get there. This can be finding externships, research, summer programs, etc.
I'm not sure what IVM is, so can't comment on this.
We have students do international trips (summer/clinical) every year (except this year). Groups have gone to Australia for zoo specific stuff every year (except this year). Shelter medicine has been going to Greece for several years. One of my 2020 besties went to Croatia for an externship.
There are tons of research opportunities. We have a research summer scholars program where people are paired with PIs for summer research (some of which are paid). My 2020 bestie that went to Croatia also went to the vet school in Norway for a summer research the *whole* summer between her 2nd and 3rd year. I also know plenty of people that went to the service they were interested in and just asked if any clinicians on the service were doing any research and needed help. I know people who did research in therio, cardio, surgery, equine, farms, zoo med, etc.
So, real talk, as a Coloradoan that has now lived in the Midwest for 5 years and is moving back to the Denver Metro area in 80ish days: FoCo (and Colorado suburban/urban areas in general) are expensive. My bestie from high school is a clinical year student at CSU and her rent is double mine while she has a roommate and I don't. Part of that might be where in FoCo she's living, but its hard to say. Overall, FoCo will be more expensive in regards to cost of living than Champaign, 0 doubt in my mind. That's not even touching on the fact that CSU OOS tuition is more expensive than Illinois OOS tuition, which is more expensive than the Tufts IS tuition.
There was a Colorado native that was in 2020 here that was accepted off the CSU wait list as a "non-contract seat" where he was accepted, but had to pay OOS tuition for CSU. It was cheaper for him to come to Illinois OOS (which he did). He's currently practicing in CO and 100% does not regret declining his CSU non-contract acceptance to come to Illinois. I personally would have done the same thing.
If by reputation you mean the rankings, the rankings are based primarily on non-educational factors such as research grant money generated. As far as educational parameters go, all three schools are essentially equal and grant the same DVM. Going to one over the other won't give you a boost in regards to getting where you want to go, including landing internships and residencies.
I'm going to tag
@vetmedhead and
@wheelin2vetmed as CSU peeps
