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The route into veterinarian

Assembled backwards from the job: the degrees that lead there, the subjects those degrees require, the exams and when they are sat, and what the whole thing costs in years. Print it.

1. Subjects, chosen at fifteen or sixteen

Aggregated across every degree that leads here. Anything marked required closes the door if you skip it.

Saudi curriculum track

مسار الصحة والحياة— Health and Life Sciences

A-Level

  • Chemistryrequiredfor Veterinary Medicine
  • Biologyrequiredfor Veterinary Medicine
  • Physicshelpsfor Veterinary Medicine
  • Mathematicshelpsfor Veterinary Medicine

IB Diploma

  • Chemistry HLrequiredfor Veterinary Medicine
  • Biology HLrequiredfor Veterinary Medicine
  • Mathematics SL or abovehelpsfor Veterinary Medicine

Advanced Placement

  • AP Biologyhelpsfor Veterinary Medicine
  • AP Chemistryhelpsfor Veterinary Medicine
  • AP Physics 1helpsfor Veterinary Medicine
  • AP Statisticshelpsfor Veterinary Medicine

2. The degree

More than one route usually exists. They are not equivalent.

  • Veterinary Medicine

    The direct destination — clinical practice in small animal, equine, farm or mixed settings.

    Five to six years undergraduate outside North America; four years after a first degree in the US and Canada.

3. Exams, and when to sit them

Registration deadlines fall weeks or months before the exam. That is what people miss, not the exam.

  • Documented animal work experienceTwo years before applying, continuously

    Not a test, and a harder requirement than any test on this page. Most veterinary schools want weeks of experience across more than one setting — practice, farm, kennels, stables — and will not consider an application without it. It cannot be acquired in the month before the deadline.

  • Qudurat and TahsiliGrade 11 and 12

    The Saudi admission composite, as for every health college.

    • Several periods across the yearQudurat (General Aptitude Test), open from Grade 11. Computer-based and paper sittings both run.
    • Final months of the school yearTahsili (Scholastic Achievement Test), sat near the end of Grade 12 once the syllabus is covered.
    • Spring and summer of Grade 12University applications through the unified admission portals and each university's own portal.
  • InterviewAfter shortlisting

    Frequently multiple mini-interviews, and heavily weighted.

4. After the degree

Training, licensing and the years between graduating and practising independently.

Saudi Arabia

  1. schoolSecondary school — health and life sciences track (مسار الصحة والحياة)3 yr
  2. undergraduateBachelor of Veterinary Medicine and Surgery — a single long first degree, not a pre-med plus a doctorate5–6 yrs
  3. trainingFirst years in practice, effectively an apprenticeship regardless of what it is called1–2 yrs
  4. licensingRegistration to practise, and Ministry of Environment, Water and Agriculture requirements for veterinary work0–1 yrs

LicensingPractice requires registration, and veterinary work is regulated through the Ministry of Environment, Water and Agriculture. Confirm the current requirements with the regulator directly — this is the sort of rule that changes and that costs a year if assumed.

United States

  1. undergraduateBachelor's degree with pre-veterinary science prerequisites4 yr
  2. postgraduateDoctor of Veterinary Medicine (DVM)4 yr
  3. licensingNorth American Veterinary Licensing Examination and state licensure0–1 yrs
  4. trainingOptional internship and residency for specialist certification0–4 yrs

LicensingNAVLE plus state licensure. The debt load attached to this route is a well-documented and serious feature of the profession in the US.

5. What the route costs

Not tuition — time. The years spent training are years not spent earning, and that is the largest cost of a long route by a wide margin.

Saudi Arabia

School-leaving to independent practice: 6–8 years.

The shortest route needing no degree written up on this site is air traffic controller at 4 years. Someone taking that route has been earning for 4 years by the time this one starts. At their entry pay of SAR 140,000–220,000, that is roughly SAR 560,000–880,000 of earnings deferred.

United States

School-leaving to independent practice: 8–12 years.

The shortest route needing no degree written up on this site is aircraft maintenance engineer at 4 years. Someone taking that route has been earning for 8 years by the time this one starts. At their entry pay of $48,780–62,630, that is roughly $390,240–501,040 of earnings deferred.

How that figure was reached, and what it leaves out

It is arithmetic on the sourced figures elsewhere on this site — training years multiplied by the shortest route’s entry pay — not a measurement of anything. It ignores what trainees earn while training, which in medicine and several other routes is a real salary. It ignores the pay you reach afterwards, which for long routes is usually higher and can overtake the gap entirely. And it excludes tuition, deliberately: Saudi public universities charge nationals no tuition, and fees abroad vary so widely by country and university that any single figure would be misleading. Treat it as a sense of scale for the years, not as a calculation of whether a career is worth it.

Everything on this page is assembled from the career page, the majors that lead to it and the exams those majors require, so it cannot say something they do not. Entry requirements change every year — confirm on the course page for the year you apply.