On the wire

The rural vet who mentors students every summer, and the placement data nobody has yetThe prep-room bottleneck costing you billable time between casesYour practice burns 400-600 hours a year on prescription admin aloneFourteen Cats Got Dog Plasma. Here's the Number Emergency Vets Need.CVS Just Became Your Pharmacy Competitor, and Your Client Already Has the AppRoo Just Put a Number on Every Relief Shift You Couldn't FillEleven High Schoolers Just Spent Five Weeks in Vet Research Labs. One Learned She Could Skip Surgery.Your CE Hours Might Not Count. Here Is How to Check.The rural vet who mentors students every summer, and the placement data nobody has yetThe prep-room bottleneck costing you billable time between casesYour practice burns 400-600 hours a year on prescription admin aloneFourteen Cats Got Dog Plasma. Here's the Number Emergency Vets Need.CVS Just Became Your Pharmacy Competitor, and Your Client Already Has the AppRoo Just Put a Number on Every Relief Shift You Couldn't FillEleven High Schoolers Just Spent Five Weeks in Vet Research Labs. One Learned She Could Skip Surgery.Your CE Hours Might Not Count. Here Is How to Check.

Annual · $2,500 · Deadline December 15, 2026

The Practice Leadership Scholarship

$2,500 for the veterinary student who writes the best answer to one question: buy, build, or join? Most scholarships reward where you've been. This one rewards how you think about where you're going — because within a decade of graduating, you'll have answered it for real.

A veterinary student and an owner-veterinarian reviewing a clipboard together at a practice front desk

The award

One winner receives $2,500, awarded annually by VeterinaryPracticeNow, the trade publication covering the business of veterinary practice. The top ten essays are published here with their authors' full bylines and featured in our Up & Coming series — the next generation of practice leadership, on the record early.

Eligibility

Enrolled (any year) in a DVM program at an AVMA-accredited US veterinary college, including programs with probationary or provisional accreditation
One application per student per cycle
No application fee, ever. We never ask for your SSN, banking, or payment information

The essay

“Buy, build, or join?” — 800–1,200 words. In ten years you'll own a practice you bought, run one you built, or work in one that belongs to someone else. Which is it — and why? Give us the honest version: the debt math, the corporate offer that will land in your inbox, what you'd keep from the clinics that trained you and what you'd never repeat. There is no right answer. We're not grading ambition; we're grading thinking.

How we choose

Clarity of the path: buy, build, or join — and the reasoning that gets you there
Business thinking: the debt math, what a practice costs to run, how it pays its people
Understanding of the ownership landscape: independent, corporate, or hybrid, and why
Writing quality: the top ten essays are published, so they have to read well

Judged by the VeterinaryPracticeNow editorial desk. Winners announced February 2027; every applicant gets a reply either way. Payment is made directly to the winner's school toward tuition.

Sponsor

Sponsored and administered by VeterinaryPracticeNow (veterinarypracticenow.com). Questions: hello@veterinarypracticenow.com. See our privacy policy — application data is used solely to administer the scholarship and is never sold or added to a mailing list without your separate opt-in.

Apply

Full nameEmail (your school email is fine)Veterinary schoolExpected graduation yearYour essay: “Buy, build, or join?” (800–1,200 words)

By applying you agree that, if you win or place as a finalist, we may publish your essay with your byline. No application fee. We never ask for your SSN, banking, or payment information.