Applying to the RVC
Thinking about applying to RVC? Here’s some top tips to help:
- Research: We are convinced that we offer some of the best Biological Sciences, Veterinary Medicine or Veterinary Nursing degrees in the world, but if you are in two minds about where to study we would suggest trying to gain as much insight about the RVC and these programmes as possible by:
- Exploring our Prospectus: You can download our prospectus and/or request one to be mailed (free of charge) to your home address.
- Visiting and/or Meeting the RVC: Throughout the year we host a myriad of on-campus visiting opportunities, as well attending off-campus events in order to help prospective students and their supporters gain a real insight into the RVC and our study opportunities. We hope to meet you soon!
- Work Experience: For our Veterinary Medicine and Veterinary Nursing programmes we require applicants to have completed in-person work experience. Trying to achieve this can be challenging; so we would always suggest:
- Contact lots of different animal-related places near you, from vets to city farms or riding schools.
- To find your local vet practice, try Find A Vet Practice.
- Send an email first, then call or visit to follow up. If they can’t help, can they recommend someone who will?
- Keep trying! It can take persistence to find clinical work experience.
- See if you are eligible to apply to our Work Experience Support Programme
- Check out our Veterinary Gateway programme. It is a foundation year leading to our 5 year BVetMed programme; for students who meet a number of Widening Participation entry criteria, along with certain academic criteria but does NOT require work experience. Our Veterinary Gateway programme does NOT count as a veterinary application; so can be an applicant’s 5th course applied to.
- Application Deadlines: All students, apart from students from US/Canadian Universities (see below), must apply via UCAS online. The UCAS application deadline for Veterinary Medicine is mid-October, whereas for Biological Sciences, Veterinary Gateway or Veterinary Nursing the application deadline is the last Wednesday in January. Applicants from US/Canadian Universities wishing to apply must do so through the VMCAS application system and have a mid-September application deadline.
- Applicant Supplementary Forms: All students, apart from those applying to our Biological Sciences programmes, are required to complete an Applicant Supplementary Form. The form will be available in our application portal and applicants will be given access to this, and notified of the need to complete the form, via email on receipt of their application. The form must be submitted independently of, and in addition to, the UCAS/VMCAS application and within five days of your application being received by the RVC. The RVC will not contact applicants reminding them to submit the form before the deadline given.
- Interviews: We use Multiple Mini Interviews (MMI) and a group task to assess Veterinary Medicine, Veterinary Gateway and Veterinary Nursing interviewees. Students will undertake six stations (each one five-minutes in duration) and a group task (10 minutes in duration)- these are designed to assess different skills that are required in the degree programme(s), rather than specific academic content e.g. communication, critical thinking etc..
Everyone was so nice and friendly and made it so much less stressful and a really comfortable environment.
Interviewee