Featured Image: Pacer Graphic / Ella Hasty  (Photo Credit / UTM College of Agriculture and Applied Sciences Facebook page)

Six University of Tennessee at Martin pre-veterinary students have earned early acceptance to the University of Tennessee College of Veterinary Medicine. These students make up 30% of the 20 students who received an early offer to the highly competitive college.

These students bypass the interview process and get what many call the “golden ticket” to attend the college in the fall of 2026. UTCVM began to offer these golden tickets to 20 students around three years ago.

The six students who received this high honor are Taylor Burke, Abby Huff, Clay Orman, Julie Peoples, Samuel Pitts and Kenzie Stockton.

Dr. Jason Roberts, Veterinarian and Director and Professor of Veterinary Science and Technology at UT Martin, explained why Knoxville began to grant students early acceptance.

“They did that to try to recruit the best of the best, I’ll say, early,” Roberts said.

Roberts also attended UTCVM and completed his undergraduate degree at UT Martin. He worked in practice in the Martin area for seven years before he began work for the university in 2009.

With Martin at such a sizable portion of the students that received this offer, it says a lot about the students’ work ethic and the UT Martin pre-veterinary program.

“It’s just a testament to the great students and the work that they’ve done. It also saves them a lot of stress,” Roberts said. “It’s special for them and a great reward for their hard work.”

Three of the six students shared their reactions to receiving early acceptance.

Julie Peoples from Collierville, Tennessee, grew up going to Brazil to visit her mother’s family. While in Brazil, Peoples saw the correlation between the stray animals on the streets and the lack of veterinary clinics nearby. This is when she decided to become a veterinarian.

She received an email from UTCVM while practicing interview questions.

“I saw an email from Knoxville, but I was like, I need to hold on. Let me answer a couple more questions,” Peoples said. “I opened it, I read it, I re-read it and then I threw the phone at my roommate.”

She called her advisor and mother at once to share the exciting news.

Abby Huff, from Dickson, Tennessee, was also practicing for an interview when she got the email.

“I’m used to always going after something, and right now, it’s like, what am I doing? I have never had free time,” Huff said.

Huff has been driven since a young age to carry out her dreams of becoming a vet, despite allergies to many animals.

“In the fifth grade, they went around and asked us to hold up a whiteboard that said what you wanted to be, and mine had ‘be a vet’ on it,” Huff said.

Many of Huff’s family members work in dentistry which has influenced her to pursue veterinary dentistry.

Clay Orman is from Dickson County, Tennessee, and he owns and operates Foggy Creek Farm Show Goats. Growing up in the livestock industry and rodeo community, Orman felt that the natural transition for him was to become a vet.

Seeing the relationship between veterinarians and farmers is what stood out to him. Once Orman got to Martin, Roberts encouraged him to go ride along with Dr. Martin Sander for a day.

“I’d see farmers light up so much when he [Dr. Sander] would get there. He would just cut up and make these hard situations so much easier,” Orman said. “Getting to see those kinds of interactions is what really confirmed that I want to be a vet.”

Orman was traveling to North Carolina to work with show goats when he received the email.

“When I got to the point where it said, ‘You have been accepted, you don’t need to interview,’ I was so happy. It just took a massive weight off my shoulders that I had,” Orman said. “I didn’t realize that I was so stressed about it, but right then it just felt like there was no stress in the world.”

All six UT Martin students who received the “golden ticket” have a bright future ahead, and in some ways, the journey has just begun. Thankfully, these students have a dedicated support system behind them with the UT Martin pre-vet staff.

“They’re not trying to get you to vet school, they’re trying to help you graduate from veterinarian school,” Huff said.