Presented By: Mellissa Crosswhite, Oklahoma State University

In the fall of 2022, 4.6% of undergraduate's students at Oklahoma State University were enrolled in a major that had a pre-veterinary option. The objective of this study was to examine the background demographic attributes of students enrolling one of six ˜Pre-Veterinary Medicine' focused degrees at Oklahoma State University (OSU) and successful enrollment in the OSU College of Veterinary Medicine (CVM). Data were collected on 4,661 students between the years of 2006 and 2022. Students were identified as having started OSU as a freshman or as a transfer student, however there were no significant (P >0.05) interactions with entry type and so data were evaluated together. When high school rank was divided into quartiles, a greater proportion (P < 0.0001) of students in the highest-ranking quartile were enrolled into CVM. Only small differences (P = 0.232) were observed among class size groups for students enrolling in CVM. Higher school GPA had a beneficial effect (P < 0.0001) on enrolling in CVM and there was a substantial advantage for students with a GPA of 4.0 even over those with a GPA between 3.9 and 3.99. It is probable that some of those students had a higher than 4.0 high school GPA due to AP, IB and other types of courses, however, when transferred to the college level, were capped at the 4.0 scale. Overall, higher class rank, GPA and ACT score were all reasonable predictors of successful enrollment in the College of Veterinary Medicine at Oklahoma State University.