For many UK students, A Levels are the final academic hurdle prior to studying Veterinary Medicine at university. As there are a number of different vet schools, each with their own specific A Level requirements, we have summarised this in our blog post to help prospective vet students work out which A Level grades & subjects they need to become a vet. This blog post has been written for ‘standard entry’ routes into Veterinary Medicine, however a number of vet schools offer Gateway / Widening Participation Veterinary Medicine courses, for which the A Levels needed to become a vet are lower. If applying for a Gateway course, you must ensure that you fulfil all their criteria (detailed on their individual websites).
What A Level Grades Do You Need To Be A Vet?
A Level grade requirements for vet school vary from A*AA (Cambridge Vet School) to AAB (Nottingham Vet School, Surrey Vet School and Harper & Keele Vet School). The grades required to become a vet are high, which reflects the fact that studying Veterinary Medicine is academically challenging. That said, some vet schools have higher A Level grade requirements than others and different weighting is placed on the aforementioned grades. We advise that you factor this into your application - if you are very confident about your grades then use this to your advantage (vet schools such as Cambridge University value this very highly), and if you feel other aspects of your application are stronger then apply to universities where they are most likely to factor this in.
Veterinary Medicine A Level Grades
What A Level Subjects Do You Need To Be A Vet?
We would recommend studying both Biology and Chemistry A Levels in order to maximise your chances of success - as demonstrated in the table below, these subjects are the most common requirements for vet school. They are also quite directly relevant to your Veterinary Medicine degree, so having studied these subjects to A Level you would be more likely to find the course easier in your pre-clinical years. You may be interested to note that Mathematics & Physics are not specifically required by vet schools unless in place of another science subject, so do not feel that you must study all the sciences and/or maths for A Level (this is a common misconception) if you would like to explore other interests. Vet schools like to see that you’re a well rounded individual, so it will not be a detriment to your application if you wish to study a non-science subject as long as it is approved by the university - we advise looking at their websites individually for further details of this.
Veterinary Medicine A Level Subjects
