U of AZ vs WSU

[slaytonpal]

I have promised WICHE funding so WSU should be a little cheaper than UAZ in state. UAZ goes year round, so they finish about 9 months earlier but only have 1 week mid semester breaks and 2 weeks between semesters with 3 a year. Honestly, the major advantage for UAZ is that my family is 30min-2 hours away as opposed to a short flight (which even if I don't visit much will allow my husband to visit more). I've been able to visit WSU (except the VTH because of COVID). I've known several WSU grads who are incredible doctors, but obviously since UAZ is only in its 2nd semester, it's kind of an unknown since they only have plans for how things will go (and plans always seem to change). Any thoughts are welcome!

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[MixedAnimals77]

Oofh. That's a tough one. Based on VIN it looks like WSU would be ~25k lower in tuition alone looks closer to 100k by the time you evaluate COL. I'm all for going to the cheapest option- I left my instate for WSU because it was ~30k cheaper but the whole 3 year vs 4 year program and support system I definitely understand where you're coming from. Is there a chance your husband could come with you? I suppose my advice to you would be to take a step back and evaluate yourself as a student and your post graduation goals. WSU is very much the traditional vet school experience with regular breaks 3 years of traditional didactics and 1 year clinicals. Plenty of time for extracurriculars and summer opportunities like externships. UofA is very different being accelerated, from what I've heard is much more tons of self guided learning and come to class to apply so a more case-based approach. Not as much break time, from what I've heard through the grapevine your minimal down time is usually spent catching up and not a true break. You also need to consider if having a teaching hospital is important to you vs a distributive model. I know for some people the distributive model is hard because they're constantly moving during their clinical rotations with no true set place like a teaching hospital where you can take 2/3 of the year in one place.

Pros of UofA- you'd be done ~1 year earlier, family is close+/-distributive clinics
Cons of UofA- they are still growing and changing, more expensive, less breaks, less opportunities for traditional summer externship things+/-distributive clinics
Pros of WSU- cheaper, established, traditional breaks and summer opportunities, +/-VTH
Cons of WSU- weather (trust me my AZ friends complain about the cold ALWAYS ), 4 year completion, further from family, +/-VTH

I think if you really evaluate 1)yourself as a student (do you need those breaks) 2) goals post DVM (are summer opportunities important to you) and 3) COL difference of possibly living in Pullman by yourself vs what potentially sounds like living with your husband and him being responsible for housing, food, etc

I wish I had more helpful advice to give. I personally chose to move away from my support system for the cost savings-ultimately my husband ended up moving with me, but that wasn't the original plan. PM box is always open if you have questions about WSU or other things in general. Good luck with your decision!

 

[slaytonpal]

Oofh. That's a tough one. Based on VIN it looks like WSU would be ~25k lower in tuition alone looks closer to 100k by the time you evaluate COL. I'm all for going to the cheapest option- I left my instate for WSU because it was ~30k cheaper but the whole 3 year vs 4 year program and support system I definitely understand where you're coming from. Is there a chance your husband could come with you? I suppose my advice to you would be to take a step back and evaluate yourself as a student and your post graduation goals. WSU is very much the traditional vet school experience with regular breaks 3 years of traditional didactics and 1 year clinicals. Plenty of time for extracurriculars and summer opportunities like externships. UofA is very different being accelerated, from what I've heard is much more tons of self guided learning and come to class to apply so a more case-based approach. Not as much break time, from what I've heard through the grapevine your minimal down time is usually spent catching up and not a true break. You also need to consider if having a teaching hospital is important to you vs a distributive model. I know for some people the distributive model is hard because they're constantly moving during their clinical rotations with no true set place like a teaching hospital where you can take 2/3 of the year in one place.

Pros of UofA- you'd be done ~1 year earlier, family is close+/-distributive clinics
Cons of UofA- they are still growing and changing, more expensive, less breaks, less opportunities for traditional summer externship things+/-distributive clinics
Pros of WSU- cheaper, established, traditional breaks and summer opportunities, +/-VTH
Cons of WSU- weather (trust me my AZ friends complain about the cold ALWAYS ), 4 year completion, further from family, +/-VTH

I think if you really evaluate 1)yourself as a student (do you need those breaks) 2) goals post DVM (are summer opportunities important to you) and 3) COL difference of possibly living in Pullman by yourself vs what potentially sounds like living with your husband and him being responsible for housing, food, etc

I wish I had more helpful advice to give. I personally chose to move away from my support system for the cost savings-ultimately my husband ended up moving with me, but that wasn't the original plan. PM box is always open if you have questions about WSU or other things in general. Good luck with your decision!

My husband is planning on moving with me regardless and doing school for a while and then transferring wherever is instate. I'm kind of worried about burnout with the U of A set up and it's just so new that it's hard to know what to expect. I like Pullman a lot and have been living in UT for a few years, so we should be able to survive the cold. 😂
I'm planning on starting mixed animal since I have a pretty broad range of interests.
How do you feel like scheduling clinicals has been?
Random question, but any opinions about buying a trailer vs house vs renting?
I also got into Oregon, Missouri, and Colorado but it didn't seem to make sense to spend more money when WSU has a great program and I'd rather be more rural.

 

[MixedAnimals77]

My husband is planning on moving with me regardless and doing school for a while and then transferring wherever is instate. I'm kind of worried about burnout with the U of A set up and it's just so new that it's hard to know what to expect. I like Pullman a lot and have been living in UT for a few years, so we should be able to survive the cold. 😂
I'm planning on starting mixed animal since I have a pretty broad range of interests.
How do you feel like scheduling clinicals has been?
Random question, but any opinions about buying a trailer vs house vs renting?
I also got into Oregon, Missouri, and Colorado but it didn't seem to make sense to spend more money when WSU has a great program and I'd rather be more rural.

lol glad the cold would treat you just fine That sounds like you and your husband have it pretty figured out! I do like Pullman it's not the hustle and bustle of bigger places but you can still find most of what you need (did I mention we're getting a Target?)
Being mixed I like the nontracking system. You have core rotations-anesthesia, SA ICU overnights, pick 2/3(neuro, onco, ecc SA), LA ICU overnights, pick 1/2 (ortho sx or shelter med at (seattle, boise, or pullman)), and eq med or sx and one additional either bovine or equine rotation, one preceptorship (4weeks at a clinic you pick from a list) and one 2 week externship (wherever you want). After that you get 12 weeks of electives to choose from that you can do whatever with. I personally split mine in half with SA and LA. So I have 7 weeks of LA and 5 weeks of SA electives. You get a total of 9weeks of vacation. Currently you put it in your preferences computer order thingy that "optimizes the schedule" for everyone. Then you can put in for changes. Right now the way things are set up you will get 1 rotation you don't want (usually ortho, onco, or neuro) just because of minimum and maximum limits of students on rotations, but in the grand scheme of things wasn't terrible. Things might change by the time you get to clinics-who knows!

oh renting vs buying-I laugh because I've lived through both experiences. So it depends on what you want in your living situation. There are some nice houses you can rent for ~1k-1.5k/mo. If you do apartments, be careful of which ones you rent from- there are notorious undergrad apartments you'll want to avoid and then there's a few poor rental companies. Few apartments in Pullman have laundry in unit which was important to me because of school-anatomy scrubs, clinics, etc. Husband wanted a dishwasher. So there's like one apartment complex in pullman that has all of that it's like $850 last I looked for a 1 bedroom and is pet friendly but the buildings are not insulated well and parking is a disaster. We were not made to live in an apartment especially once husband got a job with weird hours and overnights. So we bought a trailer. We are 1000x happier. our lot rent is $505/mo and we paid ~60k for our trailer, but housing prices are going up so the cheapest for sale in our park right now is 75k. There's a few other trailer parks that rent is closer to $400/mo and cheaper trailers. If you decide to buy a trailer do be careful and check them out. There are trailers in some parks that are less than ideal-one classmate had her sewer break under the trailer, the water heater was inaccessible, and the floor was rotting out from under their bathroom tub. Now is the time to be looking to buy for sure if that's the direction you want to go. There are 4 trailers for sale on my block alone. Another classmate had to level his trailer, but then everything in the trailer was unleveled and doors wouldn't shut and had to redo all the flooring. Since you are on WICHE though you could live in Moscow if you want which gives you more housing options if you don't mind driving ~15/min. There's also Colfax, Albion, Palouse, and Uniontown or Colton which are a little further but still drivable that you could look for housing in. Personally I like living closer especially for 4th year.

 

[slaytonpal]

lol glad the cold would treat you just fine That sounds like you and your husband have it pretty figured out! I do like Pullman it's not the hustle and bustle of bigger places but you can still find most of what you need (did I mention we're getting a Target?)
Being mixed I like the nontracking system. You have core rotations-anesthesia, SA ICU overnights, pick 2/3(neuro, onco, ecc SA), LA ICU overnights, pick 1/2 (ortho sx or shelter med at (seattle, boise, or pullman)), and eq med or sx and one additional either bovine or equine rotation, one preceptorship (4weeks at a clinic you pick from a list) and one 2 week externship (wherever you want). After that you get 12 weeks of electives to choose from that you can do whatever with. I personally split mine in half with SA and LA. So I have 7 weeks of LA and 5 weeks of SA electives. You get a total of 9weeks of vacation. Currently you put it in your preferences computer order thingy that "optimizes the schedule" for everyone. Then you can put in for changes. Right now the way things are set up you will get 1 rotation you don't want (usually ortho, onco, or neuro) just because of minimum and maximum limits of students on rotations, but in the grand scheme of things wasn't terrible. Things might change by the time you get to clinics-who knows!

oh renting vs buying-I laugh because I've lived through both experiences. So it depends on what you want in your living situation. There are some nice houses you can rent for ~1k-1.5k/mo. If you do apartments, be careful of which ones you rent from- there are notorious undergrad apartments you'll want to avoid and then there's a few poor rental companies. Few apartments in Pullman have laundry in unit which was important to me because of school-anatomy scrubs, clinics, etc. Husband wanted a dishwasher. So there's like one apartment complex in pullman that has all of that it's like $850 last I looked for a 1 bedroom and is pet friendly but the buildings are not insulated well and parking is a disaster. We were not made to live in an apartment especially once husband got a job with weird hours and overnights. So we bought a trailer. We are 1000x happier. our lot rent is $505/mo and we paid ~60k for our trailer, but housing prices are going up so the cheapest for sale in our park right now is 75k. There's a few other trailer parks that rent is closer to $400/mo and cheaper trailers. If you decide to buy a trailer do be careful and check them out. There are trailers in some parks that are less than ideal-one classmate had her sewer break under the trailer, the water heater was inaccessible, and the floor was rotting out from under their bathroom tub. Now is the time to be looking to buy for sure if that's the direction you want to go. There are 4 trailers for sale on my block alone. Another classmate had to level his trailer, but then everything in the trailer was unleveled and doors wouldn't shut and had to redo all the flooring. Since you are on WICHE though you could live in Moscow if you want which gives you more housing options if you don't mind driving ~15/min. There's also Colfax, Albion, Palouse, and Uniontown or Colton which are a little further but still drivable that you could look for housing in. Personally I like living closer especially for 4th year.

We would definitely prefer to buy (even just for guaranteeing a washer/dryer). We looked at one trailer that a vet student was selling that was a bit out of town, but seemed pretty nice (and quite cheap actually). Can I ask the name of the trailer park for yours? There are some advantages to Moscow, but we'd likely be in Pullman.

 

[MixedAnimals77]

We would definitely prefer to buy (even just for guaranteeing a washer/dryer). We looked at one trailer that a vet student was selling that was a bit out of town, but seemed pretty nice (and quite cheap actually). Can I ask the name of the trailer park for yours? There are some advantages to Moscow, but we'd likely be in Pullman.

I'll pm you😊

 

[SkiOtter]

I'm kind of worried about burnout with the U of A set up and it's just so new that it's hard to know what to expect.

This is my biggest worry with how U of A is set up. By the end of the semester first and second year (lol and third year) I was just so done with school and burnt out that I *needed* that summer break to recharge and refresh.

 

[Anirose24]

I also got into Oregon, Missouri, and Colorado but it didn't seem to make sense to spend more money when WSU has a great program and I'd rather be more rural.

Whoaaa I also got WICHE (through AZ) and those were all my options too! I didn't apply to UofA because brand spankin new and year round school sounds awful. So I'm between CSU and WSU but am visiting WSU right now and think I will likely go here due to cost. Good luck on your decision!