Expensive begins with the Application

I'm sure you are well aware that veterinary school is going to be expensive, but you may not have realized that the costs actually start with the applications. Application cost may be constraining when trying to select how many, and which, schools to apply to. Though I only applied to four schools (UC Davis, Colorado State, Washington State, and Oregon State), I spent over $1,000 towards applying to vet school alone. The cost of applications will be slightly different for each applicant, so this post can help guide you as you budget and plan your application strategy. Click "Read More" to see the article!

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VMCAS general application: $495.00
Sending transcripts: $10.00
GRE prep: $13.00
GRE exam: $195.00
Sending GRE scores: $27.00
Supplemental applications: $250.00
PPI evaluations: $0.00
Interviews: $150.00

Total= $1,140.00.

• VMCAS: You can apply to any number of schools through the Veterinary Medical College Application Service (VMCAS). It costs $195 for the first school plus $100 for each additional school you apply to (you can also think of it as $100 per school plus a one time fee of $95 for using VMCAS). Almost all AVMA accredited veterinary schools use the VMCAS. As I mentioned, I applied to four schools: UC Davis, Colorado State, Washington State, and Oregon State. Note that a some AVMA-accredited veterinary schools do not use the VMCAS system, such as Ross University in Saint Kitts (Caribbean). 
  

• Transcripts: I attended one community college and one university for college. The VMCAS requires a transcript from every single institution you have attended. You need to order two official transcripts from each school-- one to be sent to VMCAS, and one to be sent to you so that you can input courses and grades EXACTLY as they appear on the transcript. After you submit your application, VMCAS will compare your course/grade inputs to the transcripts they received for you. If they are not identical save for 5 mistakes maximum, the VMCAS will return your application for you to fix. This is another reason why it's important to submit your application several weeks before the deadline, in case you do have to fix your transcript inputs. To avoid this trouble, you might elect to use VMCAS's transcript entry service (for a fee, of course). It is vital that you check and double check and get some unbiased person to check again that your entries exactly match the transcripts. Anyways, my community college charged $5 per transcript, but UC Davis sends them for free unless you do a rush order.
  
• GRE prep: I know other pre-vets taking Kaplan or other GRE prep programs for hundreds of dollars, but to prepare myself for the GRE, I bought the Barron's Revised GRE prep book from Amazon and worked through it with a fellow pre-vet twice a week for about a 4 month period. Note: If I had not had my fellow pre-vet studying with me, I don't think I would have been as committed to my independent study program. Shout-out to Jackie! We both ended up scoring well on our actual exams, and neither of us felt compelled to retake it. I would highly recommend at least taking a diagnostic GRE to see where you are at BEFORE signing up for an expensive program! Additionally, be aware that schools often display the admitted class statistics, including average GRE scores-- check these out for your desired schools (found on the vet school's website), and plan on scoring at or above these scores. However, keep in mind that an average is made up of some lower and some higher scores, so don't beat yourself up if you do not do exactly as well as you hoped to. Similarly, find out which portions are actually taken into account by the schools you're trying to get in to:  schools  While my verbal and analytical writing scores were awesome, my math score was below the UC Davis average, but I did not find the deficit to be worth another four-hours and $195 to try for a few more percentile points. 
• Your GRE scores are only valid for 5 years after the test date, because the percentiles (number of people scoring below a certain score) are recalculated. Your raw score corresponds to a percentile score, which you are evaluated on. The GRE exam fee has been rising, and probably will continue to rise. As of 2015, it was $195.00, so aim to get your best score on the first try! 
• You get to send scores to 4 institutions for free; any additional scores will cost $27.00 each. When I took the exam, I had not quite decided yet which schools I was going to apply to and sent my scores to WSU, CSU, UCD, and Cornell. Later, I realized I preferred Oregon over Cornell, and consequently I had to pay the $27 to send the score to Oregon.

• Supplemental applications: most veterinary schools require a separate supplemental application in addition to the general VMCAS. Some of them are available throughout the application cycle on their website, and some send them to you only after your VMCAS is submitted. Colorado and Washington were $60 each, UC Davis $80, and Oregon State $50. Later, I will write a post specifically about making your supplemental app shine! (Stay tuned). 

• Only UC Davis and Colorado State University require Personal Potential Index (PPI) evaluations. Sending PPI evals to both those schools turned out to be free for me, so I suspect we are allowed some number of scores sent for free. However, you may have to pay $20 per institution if you are also applying to medical schools or graduate schools that also ask for PPI's.
• Check the details regarding your schools of interest's interview policies. Some schools only interview resident applicants, some don't interview at all, and some interview all applicants that make past the first rounds of selection. I have yet to find out if assistance for transportation, housing, and food exist, but I will update the post around January when I do! (see blog post on 1/18/16).

After offers come in, the final pennies start adding up. Excluding interview costs, my total cost of applications came to $990. Recall I only applied to four schools- these are the results:

I interviewed and was accepted to UC Davis SVM; accepted (without an interview) to Oregon State University CVM; offered but declined my interview at Washington State University WIMU Veterinary Program; and was denied by Colorado State University CVMBS.

Luckily, I already lived in Davis (I was an undergraduate there) so it did not cost me anything to  attend my UCD interview. 

Oregon State does not interview its non-residents, which means I was admitted without interview. I feel incredibly fortunate and thankful to have been accepted there-- OSU has the smallest class size (~55) and only ~16 seats are open to non-residents. And since there is not an interview, OSU spared me the related expenses. Be aware of schools that have interview policies like this- it may help you decide which schools to apply to if money is a major concern for you. Also, be aware that some schools will do Skype or telephone interviews to help their applicants avoid the time and financial costs of travel. Also, be aware that schools that do NOT interview applicants may consequently place higher weights on your personal statement and letters of recommendation.

I ended up hearing the good news from UC Davis about 2 weeks before my Washington interview, so I decided to decline my interview offer to WSU. If I had pursued that interview, it would have cost me over $300, plus 2 days of missed classes and 1 missed workday.  Luckily, I was almost fully refunded from my AirBnB hosts ($115 for 2 nights) all but for an $11 service fee. Unfortunately, Alaska Airlines did not refund me, so I lost $150.00 to them for that plane ticket. Also to consider is the money that I would have spent in Washington for food and ground transportation.

Take note that you may not hear back from some schools before you hear back from UC Davis; several of my friends attended their interviews at Kansas, Michigan, Ohio before hearing back from Davis, so they had to shoulder these costs.

AirBnB may be an affordable way to find lodging for your interview travels. It was very easy for me to find a student budget-friendly room close to the WSU campus-- in fact, the people offering this particular room were a couple of WSU graduate students! Which would have been awesome because I would have been able to learn so much more about the WSU lifestyle than if I had lodged somewhere else. Learning about the community you may live in for 4 years may be an important factor for choosing which school you end up attending.

All in all, I would say I saved much more money than my peers who applied to many more schools, and schools all over the country. My applications to 4 veterinary schools cost me about $1,140 altogether, and I got in to my dream school: UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine. 
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Some other things to note: OSU requires a monetary deposit after you accept your offer to hold your place. I think they do this to deter people from accepting OSU's offer only to withdraw it later after hearing back from a different school. Non-residents, take note that Colorado State doesn't let you establish in-state residency during veterinary school, meaning you will pay out-of-state tuition all four years (yikes! as a result I was not terribly sad that I didn't receive an admission offer from them). These are all things you should research in-depth before choosing which veterinary schools to apply to. 

Thanks for reading, and if you have any more tips, please leave me a comment below.