UC Davis LOR

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Davis says that they want one of your LOR to be from a vet in your area of interest, and I've heard from someone that they expect the majority of your vet hours to be in your area of interest. How important is this? I'm interested in wildlife, but the majority of my vet hours are SA, simply because they're much easier to obtain and over the years, I've accumulated more of them. Although I will have a LOR from a wildlife vet, my hours with him are not nearly as massive as my SA hours. Is this really that big of a deal?

Originally Posted by bipolarbear123

Davis says that they want one of your LOR to be from a vet in your area of interest, and I've heard from someone that they expect the majority of your vet hours to be in your area of interest. How important is this? I'm interested in wildlife, but the majority of my vet hours are SA, simply because they're much easier to obtain and over the years, I've accumulated more of them. Although I will have a LOR from a wildlife vet, my hours with him are not nearly as massive as my SA hours. Is this really that big of a deal?

My personal opinion is that it's not a big deal, as long as you do have a decent number of hours of experience in your area of interest. For me, my area of interest is lab animal medicine, but I had FAR more hours in SA medicine. That's because, like the field of wildlife, lab animal medicine is not an easy area to gain hours. Plus, I worked as a vet tech in small animal emergency clinics, so the majority of my hours were there.

I was accepted and they didn't comment on it or ask about it during my interview

Similarly, most of my hours were in small animal private practice and small animal emergency even though I applied with the intent for public health. Although they didn't ask about this, they definitely grilled me about my knowledge of public health and zoonotic diseases during the interview. Make sure you are able to defend your decision and can demonstrate a clear understanding of wildlife medicine. There will definitely be people applying who want to go into wildlife med that have a lot of wildlife experience...so even though it might not make or break your app I would make sure you can articulate your career goals well and back it up with at least some quality wildlife experience. Good luck!