Education and support for students with the Pre-Vet club

“Vet school admissions are more competitive than getting into med school,” Landry Scoles said. Scoles is a junior studying microbiology on the pre-veterinarian track and a member of the MSU Pre-Vet club.

The Pre-Vet club is MSU’s extracurricular opportunity for prospective vet students to learn more about the program, get help with their applications and learn from those with similar interests, according to club president McKenna Quirk. 

According to Scoles, the average meeting involves members chatting, catching up on classes and making connections with each other. Each meeting, the club tries to have special guests speak on different topics or representatives from vet schools discuss applications with the club, according to her.  

“One of our coolest guest speakers last semester, we had a certified acupuncturist who’s a vet at Bridger Veterinary Specialists. She came in and gave an acupuncture demo on one of our members' dogs,” Quirk said. The presenter taught the club about the uses of acupuncture related to pain relief, anxiety and nausea for animals that may be experiencing, for example, recurring injuries or chemotherapy, club member Caitlyn Franke said. 

The club works to host admissions representatives from different schools at their meetings. According to Scoles, they will be hosting an admissions representative from Colorado State University over WebEx at their next meeting. “We like to host representatives at meetings, so our members can learn about multiple vet schools without traveling,” Scoles said. The club does this by appointing representatives to communicate with schools and admissions programs to aid their members in their applications.

In order to host these representatives, Franke and Scoles share the WIMU representative position within the club. WIMU stands for Washington, Idaho, Montana and Utah and represents the program and coalition of states that work to prepare vet students for vet school and provide resources for experience and education, according to the MSU website. Franke said they schedule virtual meetings with those accredited vet schools to teach their members more about where they will be applying to vet school. 

To aid their members in the application process, the club also visits different veterinarian programs during the year. According to Franke, they visited Oregon State last year and plan to visit Washington State later this semester.

“It gives our younger members a chance to see some different vet schools and hopefully they go each year so they get to see a lot of different ones,” Franke said. 

Traveling as a club requires a lot of work from its members to build funds, Scoles said. In order to fund the trips the club does dog washes each semester, Quirk stated. According to Scoles, the club will post advertisements on the radio, TV and newspaper, and will call previous clients to spread the word. 

“It’s an absolute blast to see all those dogs each semester. There’s one dog named Blue, who’s been coming to the dog wash every semester for about five or six years now, which is really incredible,” Quirk said. The club loves to see the Gallatin Valley community come together at those events to support their cause, she said. 

Scoles, Quirk and Franke all commented on the supportive nature of the club, explaining that their education experience wouldn’t have been the same without it. Older members teach younger ones, according to Scoles and their advisors even help to read their applications, Quirk said.

Keep your eye out for the Pre-Vet club's spring dog wash on March 3 by checking out their Instagram @msuprevetclub.