Pharmacy vs. Optometry vs. Veterinary School: Length, Tests, and Cost Compared

Three doctorates, three very different applicant pools

Pharmacy, optometry, and veterinary medicine are smaller fields than law, medicine or the MBA, but all three are genuine four-year professional doctorates with their own admissions test (or lack of one), their own small set of accredited schools, and their own licensing exam at the end. Because the fields are smaller, comparing them side by side is the fastest way to see what each path actually asks of you, before you commit prerequisite coursework to one over the others.

Program length and the admissions test, if any

All three run about four years after prerequisites. The difference is in how you get admitted. PharmD programs dropped the admissions test entirely - the PCAT was retired in January 2024, so pharmacy schools now admit without any standardized test, weighing prerequisite GPA, interviews and experience instead. Optometry still requires the OAT, scored 200-400. Veterinary medicine is the outlier on length: a standard DVM is four years, but students pursuing board certification in a specialty add a one-year internship and a two-to-three-year residency, and most DVM programs no longer require the GRE (those that still do score it 260-340).

How many schools you're actually competing for

This is where the fields diverge most. Veterinary medicine has 32 US colleges with full or probationary AVMA accreditation, plus five provisional on the June 2026 list - the most constrained applicant pool of any professional field covered here. Optometry has 24 ACOE-accredited US programs (25 ASCO member schools). Pharmacy is the widest field by far, with 142 ACPE-accredited or candidate PharmD programs as of Fall 2025.

What each program actually costs

Median in-state tuition is lowest in veterinary medicine, at about $30,253 - despite the field having the fewest schools to spread demand across. Pharmacy's median sits near $37,428, and optometry's near $39,050. But the single cheapest program among all three fields is a PharmD: Florida A&M's pharmacy program was the lowest in AACP's 2022–23 tuition survey at about $5,464 in-state before fees (Florida's Board of Governors now bills FAMU PharmD students at the regular graduate rate, so check the current fee schedule). Veterinary and optometry's own cheapest options start higher: the University of Georgia's DVM charges $22,032 in resident tuition for 2026–27 before fees, and NSU Oklahoma's OD program is the lowest-priced optometry option in the AdmitBase catalog. Program selection, not field choice, is the biggest single lever on your total cost in any of the three.

The licensing exam at the end

Each field ends in its own national boards, and none of them are optional. Pharmacists take the NAPLEX, reported pass/fail, with the passing standard at a scaled 75 on NABP's 0-150 scale. Optometrists take the NBEO exam series. Veterinarians take the NAVLE. Passing is required for state licensure in every case - the degree alone does not let you practice.

Choosing between them

Program length is a wash - all three run about four years at the base level. The real differences are admissions mechanics (pharmacy's GPA-only screen vs. optometry's and veterinary medicine's test requirements), how constrained the applicant pool is (veterinary medicine's 32 accredited schools vs. pharmacy's 140+), and what a specific program costs you, which varies more within each field than between them. If your interest spans more than one of these fields, the fuller comparison against dentistry covers the scope-of-practice and lifestyle differences this piece leaves out.