U of MN vs Ohio State - thoughts?

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laviepassionne

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Hi everyone,
I am a soon-to-be first year veterinary student, currently deciding between the University of Minnesota and Ohio State University. I am trying to get a sense of what people's experiences have been like at both schools. I am particularly interested in equine medicine, so any information about these schools' equine programs would be much appreciated, as well. Thank you! :)

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Hi there--
First off, congrats!
I am a first year here at (the) Ohio State vet school. I was making the same hard decisions last year as you are now. I loved Minnesota because everyone I met there was so kind and it felt that they were very student oriented. Ultimately though, I went with OSU and am very happy here. Classwork is going to be hellish no matter where you go, but this is definitely a grueling curriculum. OSU has an amazing veterinary academic building, built in '03 where Minnesota's was pretty old and run down. I love to use the library to study and was much more impressed with OSU facilities as well. OSU has a great reputation and is building back up their equine faculty after losing a couple of their "star" equine specialists to private practice. Still with our facilities, large student body with ~140 students/class (Minnesota is about 80-90 I believe), an amazing pathology program, and some world reknowned professors/researchers, I think we have more to offer. Of course, I'm quite partial :) And I'm a northeasterner so this is a bit closer to home for me. Also OSU will allow you to become a resident after your first year here, which few schools allow you to do. As a 1st year out of stater the tuition appears to be ~$45,000 or so but this is in fact incorrect. THey give all out of staters a $10,000 stipend to offset those costs, then after that you pay the resident fees, which are much less.
Hope that helps,
Johanna
 
Hope this isn't too late...

I'm a first year at the U of MN, so I can give you that view of things. I'm not into equine, so I don't know a ton about the program, but I do that the new Equine Center is expected to be completed at the end of this summer. It sounds like it will be pretty spectacular... I'm sure they hyped it up to you during the interview process. We do have some great equine research happening here as well (especially Dr. Valberg's genetics research). You have the opportunity to take Large Animal Neonatology first semester, and to get credit for the class you are on Foal Duty during second semester. I've been called in twice, and it is quite a fun experience! You're pretty much a babysitter for foals, calves, crias, kids, lambs, or whatever happened to come in. Very fun, and it's great practice at the large animal physical exam, taking temp/pulse/respiration, using IV catheters, etc. We have a really active equine club that does a lot of wetlabs and brings in some interesting speakers.

The facilities here aren't fantastic (minus the new Equine Center), but they do work. The hospital is quite nice and has one of the largest case loads that you'll find. One of MN's advantages is starting clinical skills courses early. First semester we learned how to do the large animal physical exam, and this semester we're learning the small animal PE. We also start surgeries relatively early (spring semester of second year). MN is an urban campus, which is nice in the (relatively little) free time we have, but rural and wilderness areas are really close too.

Feel free to ask any questions I didn't answer, and good luck choosing if you haven't already done so!
 
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