Taylorsville teen attends Cornell pre-vet program

Taylorsville teen Jenny Schilling knows exactly what she wants to do with her life.

Over the summer, Jenny had the unique opportunity to attend a pre-vet program for high school students at Cornell University in upstate New York. This Juan Diego senior has wanted for many years to be a vet, and now she is one step closer to realizing her dream.

"Veterinary medicine is extremely competitive," her anatomy and AP biology teacher Dr. Christine Celestino said.

It's actually much harder to get into than human medicine, due to scarcity of colleges that offer veterinary programs, said Jenny's mother Susan Schilling, who is an x-ray technologist. Also, veterinary medicine itself is more difficult because a vet has to be familiar with the anatomy and needs of many different species, she said.

However, Jenny is determined that this is the right career for her. She grew up riding horses and watching the TV program “Animal Planet” obsessively, she said. She also rescued many stray cats and dogs around a relative's property in Idaho. Jenny currently owns six cats and a dog, and has spent time volunteering for the local animal shelter and for Best Friends Animal Sanctuary in Kanab.

Jenny spent three weeks at Cornell with 31 other high schoolers from across the U.S. and 16 other countries.

"It gave her a taste of what vet school will be like," Schilling said.

The students lived in the dorms, attended lectures with the university's professors in the mornings, and did labs in the afternoons. They dissected dogs, chickens, and even a dolphin that had washed up on the New Jersey shore, and studied the skeletons and preserved bodies of many other species. The students learned a great deal from the experiences of guest speakers, including one vet involved in the rescue of animals during Hurricane Katrina. They also practiced necessary skills like stitching up incisions, and Jenny won an award for the best stitching job.

"I learned more at Cornell than in my entire junior year," Jenny said. "I really miss it. I wish I never had to leave."

Jenny has already applied to attend Cornell officially, and was still waiting for an answer as of press time.

Cornell is particularly competitive, as it has one of the top veterinary programs in the U.S., Celestino said. Anything like the pre-vet summer program that gives Jenny a boost in learning the material she needs to know and makes her known to the professors there will help her toward her goal.