What It Takes to Become a Veterinarian

What it takes to become a veterinarian! This is a bit of an older video, but the outline provided is pretty solid! A few points to note from the video:
1. After COVID, a lot of vet schools stopped requiring the GRE.
2. Some schools now require a test called the CASPER test, which gages you social and professional intelligence, and ethics, more or less.
3. When you are going to become a specialist, you can apply and get accepted into a residency almost at any point AFTER passing the NAVLE and graduating vet school, and may not need to do multiple internships or a fellowship.
4. To be an exotics vet, you just need to be a General Practice (GP) vet with a passion for exciting animals. Some will try to specialize as a zoo med veterinarian or avian vet, which follows the specialist pathway outlined. Vets that work on the animals at the zoos are specialists in zoo medicine.
5. Emergency vets can be just regular GP vets, but many will have done rotating and/or specialty internship (like myself). Personally, I recommend every vet that wants to work emergency do at least a rotating internship at a speciality center. You can specialize as an emergency vet through the residency/specialty pathway, which will earn you the title of a Board Certified Veterinary Criticalist.
6. You don’t need to specialize to own your own clinic.
7. It can cost anywhere from $200,000 to $500,000 in student loans to become a licensed veterinarian (undergrad and vet school). If you’re very lucky, you’ll have family who can help and it won’t cost that much.