Can a scottish vet student help me out here..?

Transatlanticdrawl_

You're only applying to two unis?

Its not uncommon for people up here just to apply to Edinburgh and Glasgow up here. Thing is that its expensive for us to go south of the border because up here we don't have to pay our fees so its £3000 cheaper staight off. I only applied south as extra options... I always knew I had to get in up here :yep:

x

Reply 22

xFuture_Vetx

Its not uncommon for people up here just to apply to Edinburgh and Glasgow up here. Thing is that its expensive for us to go south of the border because up here we don't have to pay our fees so its £3000 cheaper staight off. I only applied south as extra options... I always knew I had to get in up here :yep:

x

It's expensive for us to go anywhere yet we still apply :wink:

I think it's mental limiting your options to such an extent - I mean, if you do go down south you're still going to get funding, right? I wouldn't mind the extra debt if it meant I was gonna get into vet school :s-smilie:

Reply 23

Egglet

emilyyy

It's expensive for us to go anywhere yet we still apply :wink:

I think it's mental limiting your options to such an extent - I mean, if you do go down south you're still going to get funding, right? I wouldn't mind the extra debt if it meant I was gonna get into vet school :s-smilie:

I thought they didnt get funding for down south?!

Reply 24

Egglet

I thought they didnt get funding for down south?!

No, they do. They don't get tuition fees automatically paid for them like they do in Scotland - but they still get all the government grants and loans and things.
I think.

I'm pretty sure.

Reply 25

emilyyy

It's expensive for us to go anywhere yet we still apply :wink:

I think it's mental limiting your options to such an extent - I mean, if you do go down south you're still going to get funding, right? I wouldn't mind the extra debt if it meant I was gonna get into vet school :s-smilie:

I know that but sometimes if the option of saving £3000 a year arose would you not take it?

I wouldn't have minded the extra debt but for some families its not a viable option. I met one guy in Glasgow who couldn't study down south because he couldn't afford it. This way people who perhaps might not be able to afford it can. Maybe if it wasn't for the fact that we don't pay fees, they wouldn't get the opportunity to study at uni. Plus you have to consider other things like the cost of getting to interviews, coming hom etc and sometimes being so far away from you family is hard. Rupertbear didn't apply up here for that reason (as an example).

xxx

Reply 26

Annaconda

17

i thought she didnt apply there cos neither of the scottish ones take deferred applicants

Reply 27

Annaconda

i thought she didnt apply there cos neither of the scottish ones take deferred applicants

Woops! Sorry, that too probably! I'm sure she said it somewhere though...

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Reply 28

xFuture_Vetx

I know that but sometimes if the option of saving £3000 a year arose would you not take it?

I wouldn't have minded the extra debt but for some families its not a viable option. I met one guy in Glasgow who couldn't study down south because he couldn't afford it. This way people who perhaps might not be able to afford it can. Maybe if it wasn't for the fact that we don't pay fees, they wouldn't get the opportunity to study at uni. Plus you have to consider other things like the cost of getting to interviews, coming hom etc and sometimes being so far away from you family is hard. Rupertbear didn't apply up here for that reason (as an example).

xxx

Oh totally; I'm not disputing that at all.
All I'm saying is that I wouldn't ever consciously reduce my chances of gaining an offer (by 50%!) on the basis of an extra bit of debt.
Nor the other things you mentioned, to be honest.

I can accept people may have their reasons for not applying to particular places - but personally I find the reasons you suggested trivial; certainly not enough to make me cut my own chances in half.
Especially when it's only an application anyway; nothing to lose by just applying somewhere. You can always turn any offers down if you find your reasons still stand, no-one will force you to go :wink:

But this is personal opinion, that's all.

Reply 29

Transatlanticdrawl_

11

Yeah tbf, if I went to say Edinburgh, the difference in distance between me and my family compared to going to Bristol, it doesn't really matter. Going away to uni is always going to put distance between you and your family, unless you're in that small % that manage to luckily swing one near home. Plus as an interesting point, they're hardly doing anything to encourage integration between Scotland and England doing things this way are they? With these reduced fees, and the fact that English people find it hard to get into a Scottish uni anyway, kind of sets in this deep ingrained barrier where you'll never get many scottish vets in england and vice versa, they'll always just be milling around on their own side of the border because of all the perks of doing so

Reply 30

SlipperyWhenWet

Scottish applicants are very very lucky, they have their fees subsided by THEIR government and they have TWO vet schools in a country with a population which bearly matches the population of London. Because of this, the vet schools will NEVER be completely full of just Scottish folk. However, THEIR government pay for their fees, that is huge amount of money saved compared to us English folk. If the option was available in England, none of us would have applied to Scotland would we? Even me who really wanted to go to Scotland, I would have saved thousands if I didn't have to pay fees. But the English government isn't quite as good as the Scottish, so us English students have more debt.....my boyfriend is Scottish and graduated last year with £7-8000; I am hoping to graduate next month but will be faced with a debt of nearly £20,000 (albeit this is not all due to fees....).
If you read the BVA article floating around this forum, you will have read the concerns about the debt that vet students get themselves into and the stress that comes with it; it makes sense for the Scottish applicants to apply to Glas and Edin. Whether they apply south of border comes to money, if they can't afford to, I don't think it's any one's place to judge them, or to think they are any less dedicated to getting into vet school because of it. If they don't get in this time, they can always take a year out, earn some money and then perhaps they will be able to apply south of border.

As for being near home, for some people that is a big issue, whether you come from England or Scotland. It wasn't for me but sometimes I do hate being an 8hr drive or having to fly home just to see the family, or when the beloved family cat is dying.

And us English people who live in Scotland wonder why the Scottish people hate the English so much (general people this is, not the vet schools!).........they have a better system for university applicants, get over it.

Reply 31

I don't think anyone was judging anybody. I think surprise was just being expressed at only two applications being made to D100. It cuts chances of an offer by half; nobody can dispute that. There may be valid reasons behind it but that fact remains the same.

People were only taking an interest as to why the individual in question was doing that.

Reply 32

ashefbjhsdab

emilyyy

I don't think anyone was judging anybody. I think surprise was just being expressed at only two applications being made to D100. It cuts chances of an offer by half; nobody can dispute that. There may be valid reasons behind it but that fact remains the same.

People were only taking an interest as to why the individual in question was doing that.

I would agree with Milly, it would be stupid not to apply to 4 vet schools. You don't have to take up the places in England even if you do get offers there. (however I personally would in that situation, because a vet school offer is a hard thing to get and if you reapplied you might not get one next year) Applying to two more vet schools would increase your chances at the ones you want to go to through interview practise. I found that I got better at being interviewed with each one I did. (and to quite a substantial degree)

Reply 33

Eilidhc90

Hmm! Milly I c your point I really do. But when I applied the first time it was only to Edin and Glasgow now ok i didn't get into either but that was my choice and yeah I probably should have applied down south but... well for some reason I just didn't.

But then this year I thought well should probably aply to English unis as well. But there was no point aplying to most of the english unis because my ABBD in AH wasn't good enough, and theres no point applying with less than the required grades unless u've loads of w/e which i didn't have. The one English uni I applyed to didn't even interview me... I was in the frist batch of rejects! But I got interviews for both edin and glasgow, a place at glasgow and on the waiting list for edin.

Scotish unis are just easier for scottish students, cos A we get our fees paid so it's much cheeper and B they only want AH grades of BB where as the english unis ask for ABB or AAB! So realy we have a better chance of getting into edin or glasgow.

Reply 34

I never said it wasn't clever not to apply to 4 uni's. I applied to 4 unis! I wanted to maximise my chances. However, as I said before sometimes people have reasons and I have stated them - Even if they are considered "trivial".

xxx

Reply 35

Emzzzz:)x

OP

7

Lemme try and settle this cos i just realised i havent actually had an input.
First- I did not say that I would not remotely consider applying to four unis. I said "only really glasgow and edinburgh matter" Cos I prefer them- cos they certainly would be easier, cheaper etc. But I never said I wouldn't apply to English ones. I probably still will to try and maximise my chances. But if I got accepted in scotland and england (if miracles like that happened ;P) I would definitely choose scotland regardless of how good the english one was..

Reply 36