Topic of the Week: How did you choose which school to attend? What things do you like and dislike about your school's location?

As you're all aware of by now, my undergraduate GPA was pretty poor. When it came time to apply to schools, I knew I'd have to apply really broadly in order to have any kind of chance. VMRCVM is my "in state" (contract agreement with the state of Maryland and the vet school) and they were my first choice if only because they were the cheapest and the closest to home, but I ended up applying to something like ten schools total.

Well, rejection after rejection rolled right in. No one even wanted to interview me, something I thought might give me a bit more of a fighting chance at any of the schools. AVC became my last hope and I was thrilled when it was my lone interview invitation.

I remember leaving my interview and getting some dinner with my parents. I told my dad, "I don't know if I can go here even if I was accepted." AVC and the surrounding community of Charlottetown, PEI is nearly night and day to the world I grew up in. In the suburbs of Washington, D.C there is no shortage of things to do or great places to eat. The summers are unrelentingly hot and humid (and crammed with tourists) and the winters are true winters but the spring and fall are just breathtaking. DC, Baltimore and Annapolis are all less than an hour's drive from where I live and even after living there for over twenty years, I still haven't remotely come close to exhausting the things to do and see. I never considered myself a city girl until I came to PEI.

PEI is a beautiful place in the summer and even fall. But the winters are rough - lots of snow, lots of cold, wind and it looks dreary as hell. As soon as the tourist season is up (pretty much a month after we start school), most things shut down for the season and there isn't much to do. Things are expensive, fruit and vegetables are crappy quality and it all feels so isolated. The other thing that has always struck me about PEI is that the people are crotchety. So many people ask me how refreshing it is to be around "such nice people" when I'm used to DC but honestly? I find people back home SO much nicer in general.

What I do like about PEI is school. There are definitely some issues that it has with regards to budgeting and politics, but on a daily basis I enjoy my professors, my friends and the opportunities I've been provided. I'll be glad to go home when I'm done, but in the end I'm glad I took my acceptance and started on the path to being a vet when I did instead of waiting around for another US school to think about me a couple years later. I can say that I learned a lot and grew so much as a person for coming up here, alone and to a completely different country, and as much as I grumble about the island, I really will miss my friends.

My advice to anyone trying to decide on a school right now is (most importantly) choose the least expensive school that you can. Schools across the country will give you essentially the same education and you make your own opportunities outside of school. People say they'll be studying all of the time anyway, so why does it matter if they like the area or not, but it can be depressing to be in a place that you don't enjoy and it makes you feel resentful and lonely and frustrated and believe me, that impacts your studying. So after cost, find a place that you think you'll genuinely enjoy living for four years of your life and make the most of it.