Tune in as veterinary student Amber McElhinney reads her “Veterinary School Financials – What I Wish I Had Known” blog post.
Helpful for all pre-veterinary students, Amber takes you step-by-step through her financial expenses while applying to veterinary school. From application fees to moving costs, this podcast episode provides tangible information to help with the pre-veterinary school process.
In this episode we mention the following links and information:
- Amber McElhinney blog post: https://vinfoundation.org/the-financials-of-applying-to-veterinary-school-what-i-wish-i-had-known/
- VIN Foundation Apply Smarter: http://vinfoundation.org/applysmarter
- VIN Foundation Apply Smarter Checklist: https://vinfoundation.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/VINFoundation_ApplySmarter_Checklist_July2024.pdf
- Vet School Bound: https://vetschoolbound.org
- VIN Foundation Cost of Education Map: https://vetschoolbound.org/how-much-will-my-veterinary-education-cost/
You may learn more about the VIN Foundation, on the website, or join the conversation on Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter.
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TRANSCRIPT
Intro
Jordan Benshea: Welcome to the Veterinary Pulse podcast. My name is Jordan Benshea. I’m the Executive Director of the VIN Foundation. Veterinary Pulse is the heartbeat of the profession. Join us as we talk with veterinary colleagues about critical topics, from student debt to mental health, and share stories. Stories connect us as humans, as animals, as a veterinary community. This podcast is made possible through individual donors like yourself, and our technology partnership with VIN, the Veterinary Information Network. Thank you for being here.
Guest Introduction: Amber McElhinney
Jordan Benshea: This episode, veterinary student Amber McElhinney, is reading her veterinary school financials, “What I wish I had known,” blog post. Amber’s insights and best practices are helpful for all pre-veterinary students. Please check the Episode Notes for helpful links and information mentioned. Thank you for listening.
Understanding Veterinary School Costs
Amber Mcelhinney: Veterinary school is a huge financial investment in your future. Most pre-vets are made fairly aware from the beginning of college that vet school is expensive, difficult to complete, and difficult to get into. You go into just about the same amount of debt as a medical doctor with a fraction of the earning potential once you are out. Most of us expect going in that veterinary medicine is not a lucrative career, but we pursue it because we are passionate about it. What most people don’t realize early on is that just applying to veterinary school can be a substantial cost, and there are many costs that pop up along the way before you start paying for veterinary school. Here are a few things I wish I had known to plan for while applying to veterinary school.
Application Costs Breakdown
Amber Mcelhinney: The veterinary school application:
The costs of the applications alone can get expensive very fast. I found while applying in 2018, that when all was said and done, it cost me about $200 per school I applied to on average. Most schools use the veterinary medical college application service, or VMCAS, as their main application portal. For the 2021 cycle, VMCAS is charging $220 for their first application, and another $120 for each additional school. This means the VMCAS cost for applying to five schools is $700. Most veterinary schools then also charge a supplemental application fee which is paid directly to them. These fees vary from school to school, but I found most ranged from 60 to $100. The last main application costs to consider is the graduate record exam or GRE. While more and more schools are no longer requiring the GRE, a large number still do require the test, and so it is a cost to consider. It costs $205 to take the GRE each time, and many students plan to take it more than once. There are some preparatory materials included in the registration fee, but if you choose a paid service, this can also be an additional expense. For example, the popular preparation program, Magoosh, costs $149 for one month, or $894 for six months. At the time of the GRE, you can send 4 schools your scores for free. If you do not know which schools you want to send scores to at the time of the test, you lose the ability to send the free scores. To send scores after the test, which you must do either way for additional schools, this costs $27 per institution. The best way to keep these costs low is to limit the number of schools you apply to. Start with being strategic about applying to institutions you have a good shot of being accepted to and only applying to places you would actually consider attending.
The approach I took was to apply to a couple reach schools that are generally considered more difficult to get into, a couple more mid-range I thought my application would do well at, and then a couple safety schools I felt I had a good chance of being accepted to based on admissions statistics. These statistics can be difficult to find, but comparing your GPA, test scores, and vet hours against admitted students’ statistics at various schools is a good way to guess how you might fare as an applicant. You may also want to look at the number of seats a school has reserved for in state and out of state applicants. You may find that your odds of acceptance greatly increase as a resident applicant versus a nonresident applicant for certain state veterinary schools.
So, let’s say you’re applying to five schools that require the GRE and you want to be prepared. You take a six-month prep course before taking the test, and you plan to take the test twice. Assuming you take advantage of the four free GRE score submissions plus one additional and that each school has an average supplemental fee of $80, your total cost for the application process is $2,431. That’s really close to the average application cost reported in a recent AAVMC Applying to Veterinary School webinar, where they stated the average applicant applies to five veterinary schools at a cost of $2,500.
So, to break that down, that’s $700 for VMCAS, $400 in supplemental application fees, $894 in GRE prep, $410 to take the GRE twice, and then $27 to send one additional GRE score for a grand total of $2,431. Some helpful links including VMCAS costs, GRE costs, information scores, and Magoosh can be found in the Episode Notes.
Interview Costs Breakdown
Amber Mcelhinney: The veterinary school interview:
The next step in the admission process, and the next substantial cost to consider is the interview. I’m a believer in the value of in person interviews as I feel they give you a good chance to see the school and get a feel for the environment before committing to spending a quarter of a million dollars at least to go there. That being said, I’ve preferentially chose to apply to a few schools that did not interview to save me some money, but with the intention of visiting anyway if I was considering attending that school. Interview costs vary widely based on where you live, how far you’re willing to go for veterinary school, and how much notice you get before your interview. I am from the northeast, so I was lucky that there were at least a few schools in that area I could drive to if need be for an interview to save on flight costs. Some schools only give you a week or two notice before your interview as well, which can increase potential costs for a flight. In general, it is not uncommon to spend between 250 to $500 per flight, even if you’re not actually flying that far.
The other costs to consider while interviewing is a place to stay. Hotels can run $100 plus per night easily, and unless your parents are going with you it is unlikely you will be with someone you know to share a room and split the cost. Staying with current veterinary students is a great way to mitigate this cost while getting good insight into what life is like at that school. You would be surprised by the number of veterinary students willing to have a distant acquaintance crash on their couch. Taking advantage of any connections you can, such as undergraduate professors or even Facebook groups, can help you to get in touch with current veterinary students and make these contacts. Personally, I was put in contact with some current veterinary students at schools I was considering applying to that had graduated from my undergraduate institution by a professor. From these communications, I was able to learn more about life at the schools I was considering, and I wound up staying with one of these students for my UC Davis interview.
Reaching out to friends or even acquaintances to see if they know anyone in veterinary school is also a great way to make connections. After applying to your five schools, let’s say you’ve got interviews at three. Congratulations! Maybe two of them are far enough away that you have to fly, but you get hotel rooms for all three. Assuming flights cost an average of $350, and hotels and food and miscellaneous expenses are $200 for each, your total cost to interview would be $1,300.
Starting Veterinary School: Initial Costs
Amber Mcelhinney: Starting veterinary school:
Congratulations! You’ve been accepted to veterinary school. Now come the costs of reserving a spot in your class and actually moving to your veterinary school’s town. When you accept your admission offer, most schools require some sort of deposit to save your seat in the class. While this will eventually be put towards your tuition bill, it is still money you need to come up with before you get your loans. This cost varies widely between schools, but most tend to be around $500.
The last big cost before your financial aid, aka student loans, come in is moving. This varies based on how far you are moving, how much you need to purchase, furniture, kitchen utensils, appliances, etc., and your chosen method of moving. For example, I chose to ship my car from New Hampshire to California, take a flight to get there, and purchase new furniture once there. Other people moving from other states chose to drive themselves, rent a U-Haul, or ship a storage cube. Unless you’re purchasing a house to live in during veterinary school, you’ll likely need to rent an apartment, which means you also need to put down a deposit and pay your first month’s rent. You can try to keep these costs low by choosing a lower cost apartment or finding roommates, maybe your fellow veterinary school classmates. Calculate how much a U-Haul versus a shipping box will cost before booking anything. Also consider how much it would cost to buy furniture, as it may be cheaper to buy items through Facebook, marketplace, or Craigslist than to pay for a U-Haul. These costs are near impossible to estimate until you know how far you will be moving, what you will need to move, and how much housing costs in your veterinary school town, but it is never a bad idea to budget at least 2 to $3,000.
Let’s do some accounting to see where we are now. The application cost was $2,431. The interview cost was $1,300. It costs $500 to accept your seat in the veterinary class, and then we’re budgeting an additional $2,500 for moving costs for a total of $6,731.
Financial Strategies for Veterinary School
Amber Mcelhinney: How to pay for veterinary school application, interviews, and moving:
So far, the bill we’ve racked up for application, interviewing, acceptance, and moving is nearly $7,000. If your parents are able to help, that’s great, but not everybody has that option. So how are you supposed to come up with this money. The first and best option is to be prepared and to save. Start putting away money as early as you can to cover all of the costs of applying to veterinary school. If you are too far along in the process and it is too late for that, another option is to take out extra student loans during the last couple semesters of your undergraduate degree. While this option is not ideal, or you may not be able to apply for more financial aid, it is one way to help cover the costs. Another option is to be strategic with your spending and open a credit card with a 0% interest promotion period. This could at least help you get through some moving costs, and then you can use veterinary school loans to pay it off. Be careful with these last two options, particularly the credit card option. Make sure to not spend more than you can eventually pay off with your resources and hide that credit card from yourself once you’ve paid the balance in full, reserving it only for emergencies until you graduate and have a steady income as a veterinarian.
Outro and Resources
Amber Mcelhinney: Good luck in your pursuit to become a veterinarian. If you have any questions along the way, or need any assistance, check out the resources available from VIN Foundation at Vet School Bound. We’re here to help.
Jordan Benshea: Thank you for joining us for this episode of the Veterinary Pulse. Please check the Episode Notes for additional information referenced in the podcast. If you enjoyed this podcast, please follow, subscribe, and share a review. We welcome feedback and hope you will tune in again. You can find out more about the VIN Foundation through our website, VINFoundation.org and our social media channels. Thank you for being here. Be well.
