Will not having a bachelors degree hurt my chances?

[bigdreams97]

Hello all,

About a year ago, I changed my career path from nursing to pursing becoming a veterinarian. I was really stupid when I first started college and went through A LOT of life changes (mostly getting out of an abusive relationship) and thus my grades really suffered through the first two years of school. I took a break from school, re-evaluated where it was I wanted to be and started fresh at a community college. My question is: should I transfer to the local state university and get my bachelors or just finish my pre-reqs at my local cc?

I plan on applying to University of Tennessee (in-state) and LMU if that makes any difference.

I'm weighing heavily on my animal/veterinary experience (I'm an emergency/ICU VA also trained on the surgery team and have considerable equine vet hours and still plan on shadowing several specialties as well) to get me into vet school. I also plan on doing a zoo internship after I am finished with school prior to applying to vet school. I have not taken the GRE yet - I also plan on taking this in the gap year I am taking.

Thoughts?

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[Lupin21]

Hello all,

About a year ago, I changed my career path from nursing to pursing becoming a veterinarian. I was really stupid when I first started college and went through A LOT of life changes (mostly getting out of an abusive relationship) and thus my grades really suffered through the first two years of school. I took a break from school, re-evaluated where it was I wanted to be and started fresh at a community college. My question is: should I transfer to the local state university and get my bachelors or just finish my pre-reqs at my local cc?

I plan on applying to University of Tennessee (in-state) and LMU if that makes any difference.

I'm weighing heavily on my animal/veterinary experience (I'm an emergency/ICU VA also trained on the surgery team and have considerable equine vet hours and still plan on shadowing several specialties as well) to get me into vet school. I also plan on doing a zoo internship after I am finished with school prior to applying to vet school. I have not taken the GRE yet - I also plan on taking this in the gap year I am taking.

Thoughts?

I don't know about those particular schools, but most don't require a degree, just finishing pre requisites. I got in as did many others without a degree. If you want to post in the format listed in the welcome thread, you can get some advice based on that.

 

[Cat-atonic]

There is a pre-req chart on the aavmc website [here]. The chart on the fourth page includes information on whether or not a Bachelor's is necessary. While it's not likely to change, keep in mind that these are the requirements for last cycle.

Also, I may not be the best resource for this, but I remember finding some schools that would not accept some pre-reqs from a community college. For those schools, they must be taken as an upper division course at a four year college.

 

[ajs513]

Late to the thread but I got in without a Bachelor’s. My situation was a little different since I was at a 4 year university studying animal science and have literally one 3-credit required course to finish and I just didn’t. Lots of extenuating circumstances behind that, but that’s the gist. Many schools say on their admissions pages that while a bachelor’s isn’t required, the more credits you’ve taken the more competitive you are. For Tennessee specifically, they assign you points based off of how many credits you’ve completed, from 1-6. 94 credits=1 point and 127=6 points. That’s for phase 1. Once you get through that point, it becomes more holistic. So if you’ve completed a ton of credits but just didn’t get a degree, you shouldn’t be too disadvantaged. I had 133 credits completed so I don’t think not having my degree actually mattered all that much.