Predicting Academic Difficulty in Veterinary Medicine: A Case-Control Study

A veterinary education is costly and time-consuming, so it is in the best interests of applicants and colleges alike that admissions processes be fair and select applicants who are likely to succeed. We employed a case-control study to explore whether any of 28 admissions variables used by a veterinary college located in the Midwest region of the United States predicted which students would encounter academic difficulty in the veterinary curriculum. Participants were selected from the veterinary classes admitted between 2008 and 2017. We defined academic difficulty cases (n = 55) as any students dismissed from the program or placed on academic probation. Controls (n = 220) were selected at random from the same classes, excluding the academic difficulty cases, students with honor code violations, or any who had exited the program early for any reason other than participation in a concurrent program. Admissions variables included gender, citizenship, underrepresented status, state of residence, age, interview scores, GPA (science), GRE scores, undergraduate credits, participation in honors courses, community college credits, repeats/withdrawals of required undergraduate courses, course load, and admissions committee review criteria including work experience, animal/vet experience, references, essays, leadership, personal development, special circumstances, and overall committee score. Zero-order correlations for academic difficulty were significant for underrepresented status, age, GPA (science), verbal and quantitative GRE scores, repeats/withdrawals, and references. When combined in logistic regression, only science GPA, verbal GRE, and references significantly and independently predicted struggler status.