Pre-Veterinary Requirements

Pre-Veterinary requirements can vary between schools, so pre-vet students should research schools they are interested in and contact the Department of Biology. In general, students are required to take courses in liberal arts, chemistry, biology, physics and mathematics.

Kentucky has contracts with the following schools in Alabama to reserve spaces for students who are legal residents of Kentucky: Auburn University College of Veterinary Medicine (37 spaces) and Tuskegee University School of Veterinary Medicine (2 spaces). Students admitted to either the Auburn or Tuskegee program will be charged in-state tuition. The University of Louisville has an approved pre-veterinary curriculum for Auburn consisting of approximately three to three and a half years of college coursework with a heavy concentration in the natural sciences. In the event the student is not admitted to professional school, the fourth year may be spent in completing requirements for a bachelor’s degree with biology or chemistry as the obvious choices. Listed below are the prerequisites for Auburn and Tuskegee's Colleges of Veterinary Medicine. In addition to the course prerequisites, students will need to meet additional requirements regarding GPA, GRE score, and clinical animal experience. 


Tuskegee Pre-Veterinary Requirements:                 

 

Tuskegee's Additional Requirements:

  1. The minimum science and overall GPAs required are 2.7. The recommended GPAs for gaining acceptance are 3.0 or higher. 
  2. Tuskegee's minimum recommended combined GRE score is 295 (verbal + quantitative), though students should aim for a combined score of at least 300. 
  3. Experience working alongside a licensed veterinarian is required effective the 2017 application cycle and the requirements increase for applicants the following year (see below for more information):

Effective 2017 Application Cycle: 

        1. ALL Tuskegee applicants are REQUIRED to have a minimum of 100 contact hours of clinical animal experience with a licensed veterinarian.

    Effective 2018 Application Cycle: 

        1. ALL prerequisites must be completed prior to application through VMCAS.
        2. ALL Tuskegee applicants are REQUIRED to have a minimum of 200 contact hours of clinical animal experience with a licensed veterinarian. 
        3. Medical Terminology will be REQUIRED as a prerequisite for admission. 


      Auburn Pre-Veterinary Requirements: 

      Auburn's Additional Requirements:

      1. Auburn's College of Veterinary Medicine expects candidates to have at least 500 hours of small and large animal experience working alongside a veterinarian, though most admitted students have 1,000 hours.
      2. Applicants should have a combined (verbal + quantitative) minimum GRE score of 300. The average combined GRE score of accepted applicants is 310. 
      3. Applicants should aim to have an overall and science GPA of 3.5 or higher. Average accepted applicants for 2016 (class of 2020), had an average overall GPA of 3.59, an average science GPA of 3.59, and an average organics/physics GPA of 3.25. Auburn admissions puts particular emphasis on applicants' trending GPA (GPA for the last 60 hours of coursework), which averages 3.6 for admitted students.