Vince's Pre-Veterinary Student Scholarship
10/31/2024
NEW: Scroll down to check out the 2024 winners!
2025 Pre-Veterinary Scholarship
The older I get, the more compassion I feel toward animals, which is why I have tremendous admiration and respect for those of you who are planning to care for animals in the future.
To show my support, I'm offering an annual scholarship which will take the form of a $500 award to two winners every year.
Student Scholarship Criteria
- You're enrolled in good standing in an animal sciences or similar type of undergraduate program in the United States with the intention of going to veterinary school afterwards.
- You have an overall GPA of 3.33 or higher.
Application Requirements and Deadline
The application period for the scholarship begins on October 19th, 2024, and students may submit applications through October 15th, 2025. The recipients of the awards will be announced on October 22nd, 2025 and notified by email.
Winners of past years' scholarships are not eligible.
How to Apply
To apply, please submit all of the following in one email to vince (at) vincekotchian.com with the subject line "2025 Pre-Vet Scholarship":
- Your first and last name
- Your email address
- Your current college
- Your GPA
- Your expected graduation date
- Your current course of study / major
- An original poem, written by you, in an attachment to the email.
- You must have someone create a "do-follow" link anywhere on your school's website to this page (https://vincekotchian.com/blog/gre/vinces-veterinary-student-scholarship). That link must be from a domain ending in .edu). Include that link in your email to me. This helps ensure more people find out about the scholarship. It will take work to get this done, most likely.
- If you use AI to write your poem, may God have mercy on your soul.
The Poem
Applicants must also submit a poem - yes, a poem - of no more than 500 words. Rather than write yet another scholarship essay about why you want to work with animals, I'd rather hear your voice in a different context.
"The pen is mightier than the sword" is not an empty phrase; the ability to convey emotion through writing is a valuable skill, and one that's increasingly neglected, in my view, in our STEM-focused education system.
The poem must be at least somewhat related to animals in some way. Other than that, you have carte blanche.
If you're serious about winning, please take the poem seriously and give it your best shot, since it is the sole criterion I will use to decide the winners!
If you win, I will share your poem and a photo of you (that you'll send me if you win) on this blog when I announce the winners. If you're cool with that, please apply.
Best of luck in your studies and beyond,
Vince
2024 Winners and Poems
Emily Fortin, for Two Starving Souls
Thalia Dorsett, for When In Rome
Two Starving Souls
By Emily Fortin
Paws trembling, teeth bared,
Eyes stricken with fear
The dog cowered in the corner
Confined within this kennel
Now confined with me.
We wait together now,
waiting for each other to make a move
The tension is palpable
Barks echo around us
And still we wait
He is skin and bones,
So thin you can see each staggered breath
Each rib and vertebrae
I look at him and I see that he is hungry
No, not hungry
Starving
But it is not food that he craves
It is love that he yearns for
It is the affection he has never received
The touch of someone who cares
The feeling of safety
of belonging
that he aches for
His eyes lock onto mine
I stare into those deep pits
and a whirlwind of emotions reveal themselves
But I see more than those feelings
I see myself
I see the fearful child
So afraid and so helpless
Who felt alone in this world
Who often still feels alone
Suddenly movement.
He lays down slowly and the silence returns
I take a leap of faith and reach out
He stares before sniffing
and allows me to touch him
He is hesitant and stiff
but then his muscles relax
he sighs
and closes his eyes
and I close mine
And just for a moment
Everything is alright
When in Rome
by Thalia Dorsett
The sun shone,
through a network of holes in the Circus Maximus,
pummeling the chariots coat,
beating down on all who enter.
Images of humans mounting horses
lined the walls of the stadium,
depicting the two as one.
Thrill plagued the faces
of officials and nobles all adorned.
Piled on each other,
their gaze striking every steed.
Every breath,
Every movement,
calculated and recorded,
in the eyes of the beholder.
Saliva quenched the thirst of the sand underfoot,
where generations of tethered horses trekked.
Their eyes bulged,
as if it were a matter of life and death.
You could suppose it was,
as spectators despised the thought of losing.
As each horse drew near the finish line,
desperate faces arose on each observer,
as they waved to their heroes to pick up the pace.
Some lunged at the chance to overstep the Maximus’ walls,
to be trampled below by the stomps of the steeds.
What could have been on the line?
Had they placed a bet,
where losing it all warranted death?
Crack!
The sting of the whip
reminded each steed of something that they will never attain.
Suffer the consequences,
all for human entertainment,
is all that was written out for them.
Tortured by their captor,
they gallop.
Tornado on the rise,
they left everything to dust.
Forsaken were those caught in it.