Where to move?

[CurrySpice]

I'm trying to figure out where I want to move after undergrad. I'm just a freshman, so I have ages before vet school, and I'm starting to volunteer at an animal shelter for experience.

However, I'm wondering how you guys chose which vet schools to apply to? I'm definitely going to take a year or two off after undergrad to work (and save $$$), and also to grow up a little and experience the real world. So, I'm thinking that I can get a job in many places through my school's career center and am trying to decide where to go. My family lives in Pennsylvania (so IS is UPenn), but they're unlikely to remain there and that won't be a hugely determining factor for me.

Undergraduate institutions were pretty easy... I knew I wanted small classes at a little LAC, in a small town, without a whole lot of drinking culture. They're ranked by US news, but I just visited until I got the "warm, fuzzy feeling."

I've been told the rankings that are done with vet schools don't mean much... and I certainly don't know my specialty yet. I love horses (and have thousands of hours working with them), but don't really want to work with other people's untrained, nasty horses. Small animals are more my thing at the moment, even specializing in neurology or something along those lines.

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[laurafinn]

Hi! I think you need to take into account what kind of place - in terms of areas of the country - you feel most comfortable in, as well as that state's vet school. For instance, are you more of a small town New England person, a rural Texas person or a Seattle person? If you don't know, you might spend some time poking around sites like http://www.findyourspot.com/ and http://www.city-data.com/.

The states with the cheapest vet school tuition tend to be in the South. Here is the latest compendium of DVM student first year tuition: http://www.aavmc.org/students_admissions/documents/Table42.pdf.

Hope this helps. I took a (very!) non-trad route to vet school, so don't think my own experience will help you out much. It didn't pay for me to move somewhere to gain residency and take the pre-reqs before I started school.