In this article, we take a look at the best vet schools in Canada, not just that, we also considered the entry requirements for vet schools in Canada and many other vital information for aspiring candidates.
People who are passionate about animals frequently think about becoming veterinarians or animal doctors.
A doctor who treats animals is known as a veterinarian. Animals of various types are examined, diagnosed, and treated by them, and frequently surgery is involved.
Veterinarians are taught to use cutting-edge medical devices and surgical instruments, just like a doctor aiding people in the medical profession.
Veterinarians are employed in a variety of places, including zoos, labs, veterinary hospitals, and clinics. They might also travel and make house calls or visit farms.
To become a veterinarian, you must meet a variety of prerequisites, including license, education, and skill requirements. If you’re considering applying for this position, finding out more about it might help you decide if it aligns with your interests and career objectives.
How To Become A Vet In Canada
To become a veterinarian in Canada, adhere to these steps:
1. Analyze Veterinary Colleges
When submitting an application to Canadian veterinary colleges, you would have to compete with other applicants. This page lists five authorized institutions.
2. Fulfill Entry Requirements
The entrance requirements of the school you intend to attend should be considered as you do your research on it. To improve your chances of being accepted, check out their website to learn more about the precise requirements.
3. Complete The Veterinary Medicine Doctoral Program.
In addition to their academic work, veterinary students engage in a variety of research projects. Viruses and other microbes are some research subjects.
In Canada, a doctorate in veterinary medicine is earned after four years of study. Clinical training, commonly referred to as rotations, is frequently included in the final year of veterinary school. Working with animals and their caregivers is practiced in this training.
4. Fulfill The Prerequisites For Licensing
To work as a qualified veterinarian in Canada, you require a certificate of qualification.
Where you receive your degree will affect the procedure for obtaining this certificate. After completing the North American Veterinary Licensing Examination (NAVLE), you can obtain the certificate of qualification (CQ) if you obtain it from a recognized institution.
Those who receive their Doctor of Veterinary Medicine (DVM) from a non-accredited institution must pass the NAVLE, the Basic and Clinical Sciences Examination (BCSE), and the clinical proficiency examination (CPE).
5. Obtain A Provincial License
Following receipt of your CQ, you must fulfill your province’s licensing requirements. There is a cost to pay, documentation to complete, and, depending on your jurisdiction, there might be extra requirements. For instance, Alberta requires candidates to submit three references along with their contact details.
6. Get Additional Training If You Want To Specialize
You can choose from a number of specialties in the veterinary sector. For instance, alternatives include daily practice, canine, feline training, and swine health management. By narrowing your area of expertise, specialization broadens your employment options. Obtaining an internship or residency through the Veterinary and Internship Residency Matching Program is the initial step in specialty training.
How Much Do Vets Make In Canada?
In Canada, a veterinarian makes $87,500 a year, or $44.87 an hour. The starting salary for entry-level professions is $69,743, while the average yearly salary for experienced workers is $110,000.
For veterinarians, new job vacancies are anticipated to reach 3,600 between 2019 and 2028 due to expansion and replacement needs, whereas 3,900 new job seekers are anticipated to be available due to school dropouts, immigration, and mobility. Retirements will be the main cause of job openings.
The List of Best Vet Schools In Canada
There are numerous reasons to pursue a career as a veterinarian in any of these colleges if you love animals because veterinary medicine is one of the most well-liked and fulfilling career options for animal lovers.
A veterinary degree typically takes six years to complete, including two years of pre-veterinary coursework at a variety of post-secondary schools and four years of specialized professional training at one of the veterinary colleges.
Canada has five veterinary institutions, including:
1 Ontario Veterinary College (OVC)
In order to promote the health of animals, people, and the environment, the Ontario Veterinary College (OVC) at the University of Guelph is a global pioneer in developing veterinary medicine and health research.
OVC uses an interdisciplinary, comparative approach to educate the next generation of health professionals and offers high-value experiential learning experiences with the goal of identifying real-world solutions to real-world challenges.
Doctor of Veterinary Medicine:
Candidates for the DVM program must have finished eight prerequisite courses in addition to at least four full semesters of an undergraduate bachelor’s degree program.
Any reputable college or university and any area of interest may provide this.
For overseas students, all necessary courses must be finished by August 31 and for Canadian applicants, by December 31 of the year before the projected entry date.
To be considered for admission, candidates must have prerequisite averages of at least 75% and averages of at least 75% in their most recent two full-time semesters. Read more.
Click here for more information.
Admission: present the necessary documentation before the first of March at 11:59 p.m. (EST).
All candidates are required to submit the following records in addition to the Background Information Form:
- Authentic transcripts
- References
- Casper Score
- English fluency (if necessary)
Apply through the Internal Transfer/Readmission Application and pay the necessary application fees.
2 Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, Université de Montréal
Saint-Hyacinthe, Quebec is where this veterinary college is situated. The school spent a significant amount of time at Oka, Québec, before relocating there in 1947, where it was a component of an agricultural-veterinary teaching center supported by the Québec Department of Agriculture and run by the Trappists (i.e., a Roman Catholic religious order).
Before becoming a faculty of the Université de Montréal in 1969, it was under the direct control of the Québec Department of Agriculture following the transfer to Saint-Hyacinthe. Both staffing levels and amenities have significantly improved.
It grants DVM, M Sc, and PhD degrees and is the only veterinary school in North America that is entirely in French. There are also postgraduate diploma programs available.
Click here for more information
3. Western College of Veterinary Medicine (WCVM)
The WCVM is a significant participant in Canada’s veterinary, public health, and food safety networks and the top center of veterinary education, research, and expertise in Western Canada.
The college’s goals are to educate veterinarians in Western Canada and serve as a hub for veterinary knowledge and investigation.
The internationally renowned veterinary college, which has a veterinary hospital center, a provincial diagnostic laboratory, and substantial research facilities, has more than 450 undergraduate and graduate students enrolled.
The WCVM is a part of the University of Saskatchewan campus, which is situated in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, by the South Saskatchewan River.
The Doctor of Veterinary Medicine (DVM) program, which lasts four years, welcomes up to 85 new students each year.
A set number of applications from Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and British Columbia are accepted by WCVM under the terms of an interprovincial agreement with the three western provinces.
The college also accepts applications from the northern territories of Canada. The WCVM currently grants western Canadian and worldwide applicants access to a small number of non-provincially funded seats.
Doctor of Veterinary Medicine (DVM):
With the help of this curriculum, you will be ready to satisfy the demands of animal health care in Western Canada and everywhere else.
The curriculum enables you to pursue personal interests in a variety of fields, including, but not limited to, anesthesia, pathology, wildlife medicine, surgery, medical imaging, and animal-human health-related issues.
First two years:
You’ll concentrate on core courses in fundamental and applied sciences. You’ll discover how a healthy body works and how those functions can be interfered with.
Their updated curriculum places a stronger emphasis on clinical abilities and ensures that students have attained the essential skills needed to work as a veterinarian.
Third year:
Through a variety of core/elective courses, you will learn more in-depth, specifically and get hands-on experience in particular areas of interest.
Fourth-year
During the program’s final year, you will complete a series of two- or four-week clinical rotations to obtain clinical experience.
Additionally, students can set up externships at specialty clinics, zoos, and aquariums in other provinces or nations.
$14,402.29 is the estimated tuition for this program.
Click here for more information
Admission: The DVM program has no set requirements for high school graduation. However, pre-veterinary university courses frequently call for the following high school courses:
- 12th-grade Mathematics
- 12th-grade Biology
- 12th-grade chemistry
- 12th-grade physics
For further information on the high school requirements for pre-veterinary courses, students may contact the university they intend to attend.
University requirements:
- Residents of Manitoba, Saskatchewan, British Columbia, and the northern territories are eligible to apply to the WCVM.
- The pre-veterinary course requirements are divided into obligatory and elective courses totaling 60 credits (20 one-term courses).
- To get admitted, a student must have an overall average of at least 75%.
4. Atlantic Veterinary College (AVC)
The Atlantic Veterinary College (AVC), one of Canada’s five veterinary colleges, is the sole program in Atlantic Canada that trains veterinarians. AVC has been a fully accredited college with exceptional achievement and growth since its first class graduated in 1990.
More than 1,700 AVC alums are employed globally in private practice, education, research, governmental agencies, and business.
They take great satisfaction in giving the students a top-notch veterinary medicine education.
Due to their small size, they are able to get to know each student by name and provide them with opportunities of a lifetime.
They prioritize encouraging creativity and academic success. They are training future leaders in veterinary medicine and research, guided by their goal.
Doctor of Veterinary Medicine (DVM):
The greatest and brightest local and foreign students are drawn to the Doctor of Veterinary Medicine program at the Atlantic Veterinary College, which provides an intensive, engaging veterinary education in Canada’s picturesque capital city of Charlottetown.
The Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons in the United Kingdom and the American and Canadian Veterinary Medical Associations both fully accredit this curriculum. Their highly sought-after alumni consistently have excellent success rates in their licensing examinations and are qualified for licensure in Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, and New Zealand.
The basic science disciplines are covered in all Year 1 courses, with a focus on normal form and function and chances for integrated problem-based learning.
Coursework on epidemiology, critical thinking, and animal welfare as well as production systems is also covered. The Veterinary Teaching Hospital provides chances for interaction with academics, staff, and senior students as well as the introduction of fundamental clinical skills, such as animal restraint and handling.
All Year 2 courses are essential and include public health, evidence-based medicine, disease processes and agents, among other topics.
The introduction of course material in clinical specialties such as medicine, surgery, anesthesia, diagnostic imaging, theriogenology, and primary care practice is combined with instruction in relevant clinical skills.
For both big and small animal disciplines in year 3, a core-elective format is adopted, with the majority of core coursework taking place in semester one and the majority of elective courses being provided in semester two in a series of five-week modules.
The year three core courses cover the essential concepts and abilities of both large and small animals, as well as decision-making for healthy and unwell animals.
Students must complete at least 39 weeks of clinical rotations in Year 4 in addition to a 2-credit seminar course called Clinical Conference.
Students get the chance to put their veterinary medical and professional knowledge and abilities into practice through clinical rotations while being guided by knowledgeable academic members.
Find out about tuition here.
Click here for more information.
Admission: click here to see the requirements.
5 Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, University of Calgary
In order to address Alberta’s demand for highly qualified veterinary graduates to assist the production of animal and horse sectors, rural Alberta, animal and human health research, and public health, the University of Calgary Faculty of Veterinary Medicine (UCVM) was founded in 2005.
UCVM, which is currently ranked among the top 50 veterinary programs in the world, has quickly established a reputation as a center for cutting-edge basic and applied research and creative veterinary education.
The CVMA/AVMA Council on Education has accredited UCVM. The veterinary colleges in Canada and the United States are accredited by the CVMA/AVMA Council on Education (COE).
The Faculty received full accreditation from the Council on Education in December 2019 for a period of seven years.
The innovative curriculum and community-based clinical education methodology at UCVM are well-known throughout the world.
The Distributed Veterinary Learning Community, which is made up of a number of veterinary clinics and locations across Alberta, gives fourth-year Doctor of Veterinary Medicine (DVM) students a year to get real-world experience.
Click here for more information.
Admission: Please make sure you are familiar with the admission requirements if you are prepared to submit your application to UCVM.
- You must be an Alberta resident as defined by the Province of Alberta in order to be admitted.
- The Medical College Admission Test (MCAT) must be taken by all applicants in order for the Admissions Committee to have access to their MCAT results.
- Each of the 10 prerequisite courses must be completed with a passing grade.
- A minimum cumulative undergraduate grade point average (GPA) of 3.0 (or its equal, a “B” or its equivalent) must have been earned over the previous four full-time terms.
FAQs
Vet school requirements in Canada
- Completion of a bachelor’s degree program that requires at least two years of full-time study. In your third year of study, you can apply to the Doctor of Veterinary Medicine (DVM) program.
- Eight necessary degree-level courses, including cell biology, biochemistry, genetics, statistics, two biological sciences, and two humanities or social sciences, must be completed.
- Experience working with animals and veterinarians
- Background Information Form Submission
- Reference letters
- Casper test
- An interview
- The DVM program only accepts Canadian applicants, including dual citizens, who are residents of Ontario.
- A person who has lived in Ontario for 12 consecutive months, excluding time spent in a post-secondary institution, is referred to as a “resident.”
How long is vet school in Canada?
In Canada, a doctorate in veterinary medicine is earned after four years of study. Clinical training, commonly referred to as rotations, is frequently included in the final year of veterinary school. Working with animals and their caregivers is practiced in this training.
How Many Vet Schools Are In Canada?
Canada has five veterinary colleges, including the faculties of veterinary medicine at the Université de Montréal and the University of Calgary. The other two are the Ontario and Atlantic Veterinary Colleges.
How much money does a vet make in Canada?
In Canada, veterinarians typically make between $30,229 and $139,667 per year.
What is the cost of vet schools in Canada?
The cost of tuition for non-IPA seats is roughly $69,400 per year, which is equivalent to the cost of attending an international veterinary school.
How much does a vet make in Ontario?
In Ontario, a veterinarian makes an average yearly salary of $104,524.
How much does vet school cost?
The anticipated four-year total cost of attendance (tuition, fees, and typical living expenditures) for recent pre-veterinary students entering veterinary school in the US ranges from $150,000 to $420,000.
Your expenses will vary depending on whether you attend a private veterinary school or reside in a certain state.
How many years does it take to become a veterinarian?
The typical length of a veterinary degree is 5 to 6 years. You might be able to enroll in a 4-year graduate entry veterinary degree program if you currently hold a degree in a similar field.
Is it hard to become a vet in Canada?
There are generally just about 300 slots available each year for veterinarians; the numbers in brackets represent regional allocations.
As a result, it is the most competitive program in Canada, with 700 to 1000 applicants being rejected for everyone that gets accepted.
As a result, there are strict, unforgiving standards and unfair competition.
Is veterinary a good career in Canada?
In Canada, there is a big need for veterinarians. According to a poll conducted by the CVMA, around 97% of students who graduated in 2013 had worked in the sector.
Is there a shortage of vets in Canada?
The Canadian Veterinary Medical Association noted that there has long been a shortage of veterinarians in Canada, even before the COVID-19 outbreak.
What percentage of applicants get into vet?
Getting accepted into a veterinary program may be easier than you think. Since there are over 2400 candidates each year for 1200 available spots in veterinary science programs, the possibility of acceptance is about 50%.
How much does a vet surgeon make in Canada?
In Canada, a veterinary surgeon makes an average yearly salary of $110,176.