University of Melbourne DVM c/o 2027

[RicecakeY]

Hi!

I just wanted to start this thread since I haven't found one about Melbourne DVM for 2027 yet. Just to introduce myself I'm an international student from Asia but studied my undergrad in California. I'm a second year applicant and have just got my unconditional offer from Melbourne dvm. I didn't go through VMCAS so that's why my offer came really early.

If there are any current vet students studying at Melbourne, I'd like to ask how you figured out housing during your first year and what's the average price of rent in Melbourne. These are things I'm currently very anxious about, since I'll be travelling to a completely new country alone. I'd like to thank ahead of time if anyone sees this post and decides to answer my questions. And to those who have jut submitted their application a month ago, good luck!

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[Vet01]

Hi! Congratulations to you on getting an offer!!

I am a current DVM international student at University of Melbourne. I totally understand how anxious you are probably feeling as I also had never been to Australia before I moved for vet school.

I'm currently in university accommodation. You can check out the different options here: Student Accommodation - University of Melbourne
It was a nice way to meet other students (vet and non-vet), very easy to sign a lease and move in, and is very close to Parkville campus (where the majority of year one and year two classes are currently held). However, it is very expensive and fairly small compared to some of the other options. I've heard some places might require proof of past rental agreements in Australia, so that is another reason why I went with university accommodation. If you want to try and look for other options outside of what the university offers I would recommend Flatmates.com.au or Fairy Floss Real Estate private group on Facebook.

Feel free to message me (or add them here for others to see) if you have any other questions. We are currently completing finals over the next couple of weeks, so I will get back to you as soon as I can.

 

[jane_194]

Hi!

I just wanted to start this thread since I haven't found one about Melbourne DVM for 2027 yet. Just to introduce myself I'm an international student from Asia but studied my undergrad in California. I'm a second year applicant and have just got my unconditional offer from Melbourne dvm. I didn't go through VMCAS so that's why my offer came really early.

If there are any current vet students studying at Melbourne, I'd like to ask how you figured out housing during your first year and what's the average price of rent in Melbourne. These are things I'm currently very anxious about, since I'll be travelling to a completely new country alone. I'd like to thank ahead of time if anyone sees this post and decides to answer my questions. And to those who have jut submitted their application a month ago, good luck!

Hey!! Congratulations! I don’t have the answers to your questions but just wanted to say I received a conditional offer from Melbourne and if all goes well, I will likely be heading there for the DVM program as well! Just wanted to congratulate you and meet one of my potential future classmates

 

[tex35]

Hello, I have also received an offer from Melbourne. I’m from the U.S. and have studied in Australia before for graduate school.

Flatmates is a really good way to find housing, just hope someone will take you before meeting you in person. There is also a Melb Uni Vet Medicine Buy and Sell page on Facebook you can check out as well. I loved Australia and am happy to be moving back, haven’t been to Melbourne before. I’m more than likely going to take this offer if Murdoch does not let me know soon, I had studied and lived in Perth for a few years. I’m not really wanting to take the chance of not getting into a U.S. school.

 

[5Hs5Ts]

It's worth noting that U Melbourne's referral hospital has apparently closed as per some post on Reddit, this may affect avma accreditation. Look into this before paying money.

 

[5Hs5Ts]

It's worth noting that U Melbourne's referral hospital has apparently closed as per some post on Reddit, this may affect avma accreditation. Look into this before paying money.

 

[tinyfalcon]

Hi all! I am another current University of Melbourne student. I would like to note that currently the university is on probation with both AVMA and the Australian accrediting board (AVBC), their standing with the RCVS is unclear to students. Additionally and with no notice, the university has just announced that it is closing its teaching hospital and dissolving the Melbourne Veterinary School into the Faculty of Science, firing a wide number of staff. In my personal experience, the university is very very poor with communication and the students do not have a clear understanding of how this will impact us, but currently we understand that DVM4 rotations will now be entirely external in commercial vet clinics. We do not have a clear understanding of how these changes will impact lecture/practical content for DVM1-3, as we are expecting the university to retain a much smaller number of staff following these changes (and many of our lectures were previously provided by specialist staff who worked in the hospital). If you decide to attend this program, I personally would expect for all of your lecture content to be provided online - as has been the case since the onset of the pandemic and the university has previously stated that they do not have adequate staff (which is soon to be even less) to return to providing in-person lectures. In my experience, there have been significant issues with the quality of lectures, although the upper year students have tried to flag all the areas which need improvement before delivery to the next cohort. I would expect that practical content and collaborative learning activities will still be in person, but note that such practical learning might not be to your level of expectation (e.g. the university has decided to no longer do live spays in DVM3 as most other institutions do... again the upper year students are fighting for change on this).

Melbourne is a beautiful city and an exceptionly great place to live. The teaching staff and the upper year students are fighting hard and care deeply about all the students which come next. That said, if you have the option to study at any other institution, I would highly reconsider taking another look at that option. If anyone has further questions about the program or about life/costs/moving internationally to Melbourne I would be happy for you to reach out to me about it.

 

[tex35]

Hi all! I am another current University of Melbourne student. I would like to note that currently the university is on probation with both AVMA and the Australian accrediting board (AVBC), their standing with the RCVS is unclear to students. Additionally and with no notice, the university has just announced that it is closing its teaching hospital and dissolving the Melbourne Veterinary School into the Faculty of Science, firing a wide number of staff. In my personal experience, the university is very very poor with communication and the students do not have a clear understanding of how this will impact us, but currently we understand that DVM4 rotations will now be entirely external in commercial vet clinics. We do not have a clear understanding of how these changes will impact lecture/practical content for DVM1-3, as we are expecting the university to retain a much smaller number of staff following these changes (and many of our lectures were previously provided by specialist staff who worked in the hospital). If you decide to attend this program, I personally would expect for all of your lecture content to be provided online - as has been the case since the onset of the pandemic and the university has previously stated that they do not have adequate staff (which is soon to be even less) to return to providing in-person lectures. In my experience, there have been significant issues with the quality of lectures, although the upper year students have tried to flag all the areas which need improvement before delivery to the next cohort. I would expect that practical content and collaborative learning activities will still be in person, but note that such practical learning might not be to your level of expectation (e.g. the university has decided to no longer do live spays in DVM3 as most other institutions do... again the upper year students are fighting for change on this).

Melbourne is a beautiful city and an exceptionly great place to live. The teaching staff and the upper year students are fighting hard and care deeply about all the students which come next. That said, if you have the option to study at any other institution, I would highly reconsider taking another look at that option. If anyone has further questions about the program or about life/costs/moving internationally to Melbourne I would be happy for you to reach out to me about it.

Thanks for the detailed breakdown. Has there been anything from the university in regards to the probationary status? Being an international student that’s my largest concern at the moment

 

[tinyfalcon]

Thanks for the detailed breakdown. Has there been anything from the university in regards to the probationary status? Being an international student that’s my largest concern at the moment

It’s important to note that probationary status is designed to provide universities the opportunity to make corrections and thus far no school has ever had their accreditation revoked. From my understanding, any student enrolled at an institution with accreditation at the onset of their studies (including probationary accreditation) will graduate with an accredited degree. At this time, Melbourne has been on probation for both minor and major deficiencies which each have different processes for correction. The deadline to correct minor deficiencies was in October and as far as students have been told we have not received final feedback. Major deficiency corrections are due in Jan or Feb. We were told that the move to close the teaching hospital was done in attempt to meet the requirements of the accreditation body (as the university has made a long list of decisions that some say essentially destroyed the ability of the hospital to function). I think the administration is hoping that a private entity will buy out and run the hospital within the next two months so that it can continue to be a central hub for student learning, or at the very least I would expect this to happen within the coming years (note that a similar business model is used at USydney). While personally if I was in charge of accreditation of a school I would be incredibly unimpressed with this program, ultimately I do not have the insight to predict the outcomes determined by the accrediting bodies. I would highly recommend reaching out directly to the avma to confirm that if you start at Melbourne in 2023 you will be guaranteed to graduate with accreditation. Ultimately, a degree is a degree and as long as you’ll be allowed to practice where you like I wouldn’t tell anyone to turn down their offer if this was the only possible option for them to pursue a DVM. But as it currently stands you would not be doing yourself any favours in choosing this school over somewhere else.

 

[Vet01]

From my understanding, any student enrolled at an institution with accreditation at the onset of their studies (including probationary accreditation) will graduate with an accredited degree... I would highly recommend reaching out directly to the avma to confirm that if you start at Melbourne in 2023 you will be guaranteed to graduate with accreditation.

That is what I was thinking up until a couple of months ago when we were told differently by the vet school administration. We were told that if we loose AVMA accreditation that all the current DVM students would NOT graduate with an AVMA accredited degree. If the University of Melbourne was a US school then students currently in the program would still graduate with an accredited degree. But since the school is international, there is different set of rules and we would have to do extra things before we could sit the NAVLE. I tried to find my own research on this topic, but never found anything to confirm or deny this statement.

As tinyfalcon said, I would highly recommend you email the accreditation boards directly if you want the most accurate information.

 

[Lexieee]

That is what I was thinking up until a couple of months ago when we were told differently by the vet school administration. We were told that if we loose AVMA accreditation that all the current DVM students would NOT graduate with an AVMA accredited degree. If the University of Melbourne was a US school then students currently in the program would still graduate with an accredited degree. But since the school is international, there is different set of rules and we would have to do extra things before we could sit the NAVLE. I tried to find my own research on this topic, but never found anything to confirm or deny this statement.

As tinyfalcon said, I would highly recommend you email the accreditation boards directly if you want the most accurate information.

Thanks a lot for this statement.

 

[RicecakeY]

It’s important to note that probationary status is designed to provide universities the opportunity to make corrections and thus far no school has ever had their accreditation revoked. From my understanding, any student enrolled at an institution with accreditation at the onset of their studies (including probationary accreditation) will graduate with an accredited degree. At this time, Melbourne has been on probation for both minor and major deficiencies which each have different processes for correction. The deadline to correct minor deficiencies was in October and as far as students have been told we have not received final feedback. Major deficiency corrections are due in Jan or Feb. We were told that the move to close the teaching hospital was done in attempt to meet the requirements of the accreditation body (as the university has made a long list of decisions that some say essentially destroyed the ability of the hospital to function). I think the administration is hoping that a private entity will buy out and run the hospital within the next two months so that it can continue to be a central hub for student learning, or at the very least I would expect this to happen within the coming years (note that a similar business model is used at USydney). While personally if I was in charge of accreditation of a school I would be incredibly unimpressed with this program, ultimately I do not have the insight to predict the outcomes determined by the accrediting bodies. I would highly recommend reaching out directly to the avma to confirm that if you start at Melbourne in 2023 you will be guaranteed to graduate with accreditation. Ultimately, a degree is a degree and as long as you’ll be allowed to practice where you like I wouldn’t tell anyone to turn down their offer if this was the only possible option for them to pursue a DVM. But as it currently stands you would not be doing yourself any favours in choosing this school over somewhere else.

Thank you so much for the information! It was really helpful because up until I read your reply, I didn't know something wrong was going on in Melbourne U. I attended the recent zoom information session with current students, and if I interpreted everything correctly, I think all current students can graduate with a DVM degree, which is reassuring because what is the point of attending any school if we won't even get a degree? I also checked out the website of AVMA, and while MelU is listed as probationary, the next evaluation year is 2028, when all of us in this thread are probably graduated already. I learnt from the zoom session that the school of agriculture was going to merge with the science campus, but I heard from a Sydney U Vet student that something similar also happened to them a few years ago because of funds shortage. However, I am still very concerned with the shortage of staff and my biggest fear is not being able to learn when I pay so much to attend a vet school. From your personal experience, do you think you've been taught of all the topics listed on the curriculum? And if you've already started external clinical rotation, how was your experience so far?

I actually have received another offer from Queensland U, so I'm debating on which school to attend, but Queensland only offers a bachelor degree. At least in Asia I know that both a bachelor degree and a dvm degree allow me to work as long as the school is AVMA accredited, but do you know if there's a difference in salary in Australia? Will it be easier to find a job if one has a dvm degree?

 

[RicecakeY]

Hi! Congratulations to you on getting an offer!!

I am a current DVM international student at University of Melbourne. I totally understand how anxious you are probably feeling as I also had never been to Australia before I moved for vet school.

I'm currently in university accommodation. You can check out the different options here: Student Accommodation - University of Melbourne
It was a nice way to meet other students (vet and non-vet), very easy to sign a lease and move in, and is very close to Parkville campus (where the majority of year one and year two classes are currently held). However, it is very expensive and fairly small compared to some of the other options. I've heard some places might require proof of past rental agreements in Australia, so that is another reason why I went with university accommodation. If you want to try and look for other options outside of what the university offers I would recommend Flatmates.com.au or Fairy Floss Real Estate private group on Facebook.

Feel free to message me (or add them here for others to see) if you have any other questions. We are currently completing finals over the next couple of weeks, so I will get back to you as soon as I can.

Hi, thank you so much for the information! I checked out both sources you shared and it does seem like living in student housing is much easier. I found out that there are four buildings in total and just from your personal experience, how do you which building would you recommend! How do you like living in student housing?

 

[winnie22]

Hello! Does anyone know if there have been students accepted to Melbourne DVM with a WAM under 80? also what is the percentage of domestic and international students accepted and the class size overall?

 

[Vet01]

Hi, thank you so much for the information! I checked out both sources you shared and it does seem like living in student housing is much easier. I found out that there are four buildings in total and just from your personal experience, how do you which building would you recommend! How do you like living in student housing?

Living in student accommodation definitely makes first year easier if you are willing to pay more and be locked into a contact. The four I'm assuming you are talking about are: Little Hall, The Lofts at MC, Lisa Bellear House, and University Apartments. I don't know much about most of them, but I think Little Hall and maybe Lisa Bellear House are for undergraduate students only. Lisa Bellear is also the furthest from the Parkville campus (about 10 minute walk to campus). University Apartments is only doing leases until July 2023, so that might be a good option if you want a shorter lease and if the other university accommodations wont let you sign a lease for less than a year long. The Lofts opened for the first time in Feb 2022 and is for graduate students only (including DVM students). There are community events almost every day and most of the students are international students, so you are likely to find other graduate students from the same country as you (but obviously not guaranteed). Regardless of where you go, I would recommend you look at the Google reviews before you sign a lease. I also want to point out the Residential Colleges options as well. I don't know much about these, but I know that there were a couple of DVM students who have lived in these buildings in the past. Overall, I thought living in student accommodation for year one was a great way to meet new people in a completely new country. I am moving out of student accommodation for year two though because I found a cheaper place elsewhere.

 

[Vet01]

Hello! Does anyone know if there have been students accepted to Melbourne DVM with a WAM under 80? also what is the percentage of domestic and international students accepted and the class size overall?

I do not know the answer to your WAM question, but I will try to answer the other questions. At the beginning on the school year (Feb 2022), the class graduating in Dec 2025 had 160 total students with about 100 domestic and about 60 international. A few people have left for various reason over the course of a year, but we don't know any current numbers unfortunately. I think the other year levels are closer to 140 or 150 students overall because of covid-19 preventing international students from entering Australia, but I am not entirely sure.
Most of the in person classes are either 2 groups of ~80 students or are team based where we are in individual groups of about 5-6 students.

 

[winnie22]

I do not know the answer to your WAM question, but I will try to answer the other questions. At the beginning on the school year (Feb 2022), the class graduating in Dec 2025 had 160 total students with about 100 domestic and about 60 international. A few people have left for various reason over the course of a year, but we don't know any current numbers unfortunately. I think the other year levels are closer to 140 or 150 students overall because of covid-19 preventing international students from entering Australia, but I am not entirely sure.
Most of the in person classes are either 2 groups of ~80 students or are team based where we are in individual groups of about 5-6 students.

Thanks so much for the info! 😊

 

[RicecakeY]

Living in student accommodation definitely makes first year easier if you are willing to pay more and be locked into a contact. The four I'm assuming you are talking about are: Little Hall, The Lofts at MC, Lisa Bellear House, and University Apartments. I don't know much about most of them, but I think Little Hall and maybe Lisa Bellear House are for undergraduate students only. Lisa Bellear is also the furthest from the Parkville campus (about 10 minute walk to campus). University Apartments is only doing leases until July 2023, so that might be a good option if you want a shorter lease and if the other university accommodations wont let you sign a lease for less than a year long. The Lofts opened for the first time in Feb 2022 and is for graduate students only (including DVM students). There are community events almost every day and most of the students are international students, so you are likely to find other graduate students from the same country as you (but obviously not guaranteed). Regardless of where you go, I would recommend you look at the Google reviews before you sign a lease. I also want to point out the Residential Colleges options as well. I don't know much about these, but I know that there were a couple of DVM students who have lived in these buildings in the past. Overall, I thought living in student accommodation for year one was a great way to meet new people in a completely new country. I am moving out of student accommodation for year two though because I found a cheaper place elsewhere.

Thank you so much for the info! I have already applied to university housing and my first choice is lofts. It seems like lofts is the better choice too

 

[tinyfalcon]

Thank you so much for the information! It was really helpful because up until I read your reply, I didn't know something wrong was going on in Melbourne U. I attended the recent zoom information session with current students, and if I interpreted everything correctly, I think all current students can graduate with a DVM degree, which is reassuring because what is the point of attending any school if we won't even get a degree? I also checked out the website of AVMA, and while MelU is listed as probationary, the next evaluation year is 2028, when all of us in this thread are probably graduated already. I learnt from the zoom session that the school of agriculture was going to merge with the science campus, but I heard from a Sydney U Vet student that something similar also happened to them a few years ago because of funds shortage. However, I am still very concerned with the shortage of staff and my biggest fear is not being able to learn when I pay so much to attend a vet school. From your personal experience, do you think you've been taught of all the topics listed on the curriculum? And if you've already started external clinical rotation, how was your experience so far?

I actually have received another offer from Queensland U, so I'm debating on which school to attend, but Queensland only offers a bachelor degree. At least in Asia I know that both a bachelor degree and a dvm degree allow me to work as long as the school is AVMA accredited, but do you know if there's a difference in salary in Australia? Will it be easier to find a job if one has a dvm degree?

Sorry it’s taken me so long to get back to you. Just an update for everyone as well, the teaching hospital has been sold off to Green Cross (corporate vet clinic in Australia) to be run by them with a smaller number of university staff embedded into the hospital to run student rotations. Similar things have occurred at other universities in Australia, by the time any incoming students get to their final year I would hope the teaching hospital would be running smoothly for them. I think it’s worth bringing up, and do note that it’s entirely speculation, but a few vets I’ve spoken with in Melbourne believe that the university has deliberately degraded the quality of their hospital and education to get to this outcome as it saves them a lot of cost to sell out to a corporation. One vet suggested that they think that more schools will be headed this direction globally and will take a similar approach that Melbourne did: get rid of the specialists and downgrade practical opportunities for clinical skills learning, with the intention of producing less clinical prepared vets on graduation to funnel them into the New Grad programs being developed by many of the corporate clinics and shift the industry closer to the human med model where doctors are completing more training on receiving their degrees. Can’t tell you if it’s true, can’t tell you if it’s good or bad, can only say that it does seem to fit with all the things that have happened at unimelb imo.

To address your specific questions, I am very concerned with the quality of education I received here. I don’t think it was good enough, I don’t feel prepared to step into fourth year rotations. A proportion of my class will graduate well prepared but that’s in spite of university, not because of it. If I had the chance to start over I would choose unimelb only if I had no other options. In terms of DVM vs bachelors there is no difference in salary. You will be fully qualified to practice in Australia with both degrees and you should be able to practice overseas with both as long as the schools are accredited.

Edited to note that as much as I have been disappointed by my experience my cohort was also heavily impacted by the pandemic which has caused challenges in schools everywhere. The teaching staff here do work really hard and care about their students and everyone hopes that for the years coming things will go back to the high standard that the school had previously to the pandemic.

 

[tinyfalcon]

Hello! Does anyone know if there have been students accepted to Melbourne DVM with a WAM under 80? also what is the percentage of domestic and international students accepted and the class size overall?

Yes there are students with WAM under 80 but it certainly wouldn’t be competitive for the fee supported spots and isn’t a guarantee. Much more likely to happen for an international applicant than a domestic one as well. Class size when I started was around 120-130 I think and they increased it to around 160 during Covid, can’t say if it will continue at that size and for at least the first year they did that during Covid there was a much higher number that didn’t make it to second year (per a document they accidentally sent out to students from my year with notes about a bunch of students who wouldn’t be returning on it lol). I think the international vs domestic is about a 50/50 split, maybe slightly less but it varies between years.

 

[winnie22]

Any domestic students heard back yet? 😊

 

[C23]

Any domestic students heard back yet? 😊

Hi!
I'm a domestic student and received an offer first thing in the morning on Jan 20th. WAM 88.11 and 4th quartile casper. Fingers crossed you get one soon!
Also, based on the courses I can see on the timetable, it looks like the class size is about 90, maybe 100? The classes/practicals I am enrolled in show spots for different times as 45 and 45 or 4x25

 

[winnie22]

Hi!
I'm a domestic student and received an offer first thing in the morning on Jan 20th. WAM 88.11 and 4th quartile casper. Fingers crossed you get one soon!
Also, based on the courses I can see on the timetable, it looks like the class size is about 90, maybe 100? The classes/practicals I am enrolled in show spots for different times as 45 and 45 or 4x25

Congratulations!! I have a lower WAM of about 76.5 so might not be high enough to get an offer 😅