I went to a state school in Nebraska (OOS) because it was the cheapest option, hands down. With my scholarships, I paid about 13,000, give or take, for a bachelors of science in biology. That includes the small bit of tuition I had to pay for, housing, food, etc. With textbooks and such, I would bump it up to around 15,000. I graduated without debt because I had a childhood college fund that paid for a chunk and I worked all four years during breaks for my aunt, then three years in the on-campus c-store, and was an RA for two years. The other schools I applied to were Colorado State and University of Wyoming. Accepted to both and was even IS for CSU. However, I spent less in four years at my undergrad than I would have spent in one year at CSU or UW (who gave me more scholarship money, too).
The actual experience of school was great. I loved pretty much all of college with the exception of first semester junior year (bunch of family stuff happened back home, things blew up in the pre-vet department, failed a class). The only thing I would have changed was my major: I would have been a fine arts major with an animal science minor instead of bio with an emphasis in vet med. This is because I didn't know squat about applying to vet school until my junior year, and so I went with the major that the biology department put me in and followed my advisor's advice. Bad moves all the way around as the "pre-vet" program was shared between the bio department and ag department at the time and those two departments hated each other with a visible passion (at least from the students' perspectives). The biology department now holds the keys to the "pre-vet" kingdom and needs some serious updating. A lot of kids who go here now don't go "pre-vet" because of how the bio department has it set up. Instead, they go through the ag department and are rangeland management or wildlife management and do the few prereqs not in their program as electives. Much more successful that way than the way I did it in my opinion. The current bio advisor tries to have kids average 17-18 credits every semester with 10 of those credits being science, which is a bit excessive to me. The school also is very small and in a very small town, so the options of getting volunteer stuff or shadowing are extremely limited and the school doesn't help whatsoever; it's all on you. Had I realized this sooner, I would have changed my major and organized my summers way differently than I did. Back then, I didn't realize that it's a crap shoot on what your advisor actually knows and just believed everything they told me.
With that being said, if I had to make the choice again, I am pretty sure I would have gone to UW if I could do it all again. I loved my experience of college and the friends I made (and appreciate the things that happened where people were no longer friends), but overall, I don't think my undergrad does a great job of preparing people for trying to get into vet school or having a back up plan. I'm glad I realized this all when I did, or else I would be working at a doggy day care for 10 dollars an hour. Because I realized what is actually important, I became an RA (for club and leadership experiences and the free room/board), really enjoyed it, performed well, and now I'm back at my undergrad as a resident director. I appreciate that I have no debt, but I would have taken some on for the possibility of a better curriculum with people that know what their doing.
Number 1 lesson for no matter where you go: Educate yourself. Do not rely on or absolutely trust your advisors/department until you confirm the information for yourself. This forum is the number one reason why I wised up to the situation. Stick around here, use the internet resources (AAVMA website and such), to know what you really have to do.
