Are you a high schooler looking to become a veterinarian? Vet school admissions can be very competitive, and although they are far away, it can be great to get a head start as early as possible. 

The undergraduate school you go to plays a big role in the opportunities available to you as you pursue a career in veterinary medicine and apply to vet schools. To help you find the right school for you with the strongest pre-veterinary program, we’ve organized a list of the top undergraduate schools for students interested in veterinary careers, based on schools with strong animal science programs and universities that have veterinary schools that undergraduates can work with. 

Using information from USDA and US News as well as other supplementary sources, we put together a list of 32 schools that will do a great job preparing you to apply to veterinary school. Access to a veterinary school can be extremely useful as an undergraduate student, as it gives the opportunity to collaborate with and learn from veterinary students and faculty. Thus, we built our list focusing on including schools with veterinary schools and strong animal science programs.

For each school below, we’ve included:

• Admission Information: Admit rate and ACT/SAT mid-50th percentile test score ranges
• Vet School Information: This list shows whether each school has a vet school, and additionally shows the proximity of the vet school to the main campus. This is an important factor to consider as it may be harder to work with the vet school when it requires a longer commute to get there.
• Research Opportunities: These are schools where there are programs in place that provide a pathway for undergraduate students to do veterinary research. Although there may be opportunities to do research with the vet school at many of these schools by independently asking, the highlighted ones have established programs facilitating this research. (Note: This is separate from the animal science research programs that many schools offer.)
• Pre-vet Counseling: Certain schools offer counseling specifically for pre-veterinary students, which will give you access to resources to help you on your journey applying for vet school.
• Pre-vet Concentration/Track: These schools offer a pre-vet concentration or track that, if taken, would allow you to fulfill all of the vet school prerequisite classes. This is helpful as fulfilling vet school requirements can often be confusing or difficult to fit into your schedule, and therefore the structured pre-vet track provides built-in support.
• Accelerated/Early Assurance Programs: These schools offer opportunities for top students to get admitted to their vet school early in their college career or as a senior in high school. These programs vary a lot depending on the school, but usually students complete their undergraduate degree and then automatically progress to the vet school afterward. Oftentimes, these programs allow students to get both their Bachelor’s degree and Doctor of Veterinary Medicine degree in an accelerated time period. The details of each program is outlined in the table below.
• Highlights: This column describes any other important notes about the pre-veterinary programs that isn’t covered in the other columns

Author

Avery Jones is a graduate from The Harker School’s Class of 2025 who will be attending UC Berkeley in the fall. She will be majoring in chemical biology on a pre-vet track.

 

The Best Colleges for Pre-Veterinary Students

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