C/O 2019 Applicants

Veterinary Science Graduate Certificate from UofI
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Now I want to apply to Pitt.
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Does how long a recommender has known me matter that much?

I've been at my current research job for around 2 years and will obviously want to submit a letter of recommendation from one of my supervisors, but I'm not sure who to ask. Both would write strong, positive letters and neither is a vet (director is an MD, supervisor is a PhD)

The director of the research institute was one of the people with whom I originally interviewed, and has thus known me since I first started, but is a very hands-off mentor. He is essentially my boss's boss and the PI of a lab that I do work for. I see him every 1-2 weeks (whenever I can make it to his lab's lab meetings) and we occasionally have one-on-one meetings, but all our interactions have been in the context of formal meetings, he definitely doesn't enter the lab. I would probably have a lot of say as to what he writes in his letter.

My direct supervisor sees me daily, frequently sees me do benchwork and mousework, and is probably more directly aware of my abilities and interests. Most of our interactions are a lot less formal and more frequent, though he also seen me contribute in lab meetings and whatnot. I think that his letter would probably be a lot more candid and sincere. However, he's only known/supervised me for a couple of months.

Most of the schools that I'm applying to only accept three eLORs and I have my other two already lined up, so I unfortunately can't ask both. Any advice?
 
Prevet2019 said:
Does how long a recommender has known me matter that much?

I've been at my current research job for around 2 years and will obviously want to submit a letter of recommendation from one of my supervisors, but I'm not sure who to ask. Both would write strong, positive letters and neither is a vet (director is an MD, supervisor is a PhD)

The director of the research institute was one of the people with whom I originally interviewed, and has thus known me since I first started, but is a very hands-off mentor. He is essentially my boss's boss and the PI of a lab that I do work for. I see him every 1-2 weeks (whenever I can make it to his lab's lab meetings) and we occasionally have one-on-one meetings, but all our interactions have been in the context of formal meetings, he definitely doesn't enter the lab. I would probably have a lot of say as to what he writes in his letter.

My direct supervisor sees me daily, frequently sees me do benchwork and mousework, and is probably more directly aware of my abilities and interests. Most of our interactions are a lot less formal and more frequent, though he also seen me contribute in lab meetings and whatnot. I think that his letter would probably be a lot more candid and sincere. However, he's only known/supervised me for a couple of months.

Most of the schools that I'm applying to only accept three eLORs and I have my other two already lined up, so I unfortunately can't ask both. Any advice?
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You actually can ask both. Look into using a committee or composite letter (I forget the difference). I'm assuming your direct supervisor and your boss's boss know each other since they work in the same company. If they're willing to work together on a letter, they could submit one letter that they both contributed to and signed, and it counts as one eLOR.

The only issue is that I think composite letters might have to be submitted differently through VMCAS, so I'd check with VMCAS and also check to be sure the schools you're applying to will accept a composite/committee/whatever-it's-called letter.
 
Question about the supplemental for Western: Aren't there essays?

I already submitted the supp and got a thank you response back but it did not get instructions about any essays or something sent to me later. A vet I know went there and said they had a bunch of essays. Just want to make sure I'm not missing something.
 
Meowmix1712 said:
Question about the supplemental for Western: Aren't there essays?

I already submitted the supp and got a thank you response back but it did not get instructions about any essays or something sent to me later. A vet I know went there and said they had a bunch of essays. Just want to make sure I'm not missing something.
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Last cycle their supplemental did have a ton of questions to answer with essays. It could always change though.
 
I was kinda hoping for at least one essay about why I wanted to go to Western lol Being out of school since 2008 and being taught by the vets in my practice, I'm essentially already doing the Western's teaching style!!
 
Prevet2019 said:
Does how long a recommender has known me matter that much?

I've been at my current research job for around 2 years and will obviously want to submit a letter of recommendation from one of my supervisors, but I'm not sure who to ask. Both would write strong, positive letters and neither is a vet (director is an MD, supervisor is a PhD)

The director of the research institute was one of the people with whom I originally interviewed, and has thus known me since I first started, but is a very hands-off mentor. He is essentially my boss's boss and the PI of a lab that I do work for. I see him every 1-2 weeks (whenever I can make it to his lab's lab meetings) and we occasionally have one-on-one meetings, but all our interactions have been in the context of formal meetings, he definitely doesn't enter the lab. I would probably have a lot of say as to what he writes in his letter.

My direct supervisor sees me daily, frequently sees me do benchwork and mousework, and is probably more directly aware of my abilities and interests. Most of our interactions are a lot less formal and more frequent, though he also seen me contribute in lab meetings and whatnot. I think that his letter would probably be a lot more candid and sincere. However, he's only known/supervised me for a couple of months.

Most of the schools that I'm applying to only accept three eLORs and I have my other two already lined up, so I unfortunately can't ask both. Any advice?
Click to expand...
Where I interned our head vet did most of the eLOR writing because she was a well established well known vet who had written a lot of eLORs, etc. But she didn't always know the interns very well, so typically she'd talk to the techs and the hospital manager about the student before writing the letter. So I suppose you could always ask your supervisor if he would be willing to share some thoughts with the director if you asked him for a letter, or something like that. Or if you asked the director they may very well check in with your supervisor to get more info on how you work, etc.
 
Meowmix1712 said:
Question about the supplemental for Western: Aren't there essays?

I already submitted the supp and got a thank you response back but it did not get instructions about any essays or something sent to me later. A vet I know went there and said they had a bunch of essays. Just want to make sure I'm not missing something.
Click to expand...
I'm going to assume you mean the Western in California because of your comment about the learning style, but ignore this if you mean the other western.
http://prospective.westernu.edu/veterinary/apply-17/
Is the "secondary application" that's listed on that page the supplemental that you already submitted? I thought that did have quite a few short-essay questions last year. I don't remember there being any longer essays, but you could always email admissions and make sure you're not missing anything.
 
Anyone else feeling "stuck"? I've been working on my PS for weeks, I've had it reviewed by people who I know are fantastic at writing, and know what to look for (two are on med/grad school admissions boards) and its so pretty!! But its 1,000 characters too long and I just canNOT figure out what to cut out :( Its so sad :(

And finally deciding on where to apply...

I'm in this funk...there's so much to do that I'm having trouble getting myself to actually do any of it!!
 
HowIMetYourPet said:
Anyone else feeling "stuck"? I've been working on my PS for weeks, I've had it reviewed by people who I know are fantastic at writing, and know what to look for (two are on med/grad school admissions boards) and its so pretty!! But its 1,000 characters too long and I just canNOT figure out what to cut out :( Its so sad :(

And finally deciding on where to apply...

I'm in this funk...there's so much to do that I'm having trouble getting myself to actually do any of it!!
Click to expand...
I put my address on my app the other day
 
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HowIMetYourPet said:
Anyone else feeling "stuck"? I've been working on my PS for weeks, I've had it reviewed by people who I know are fantastic at writing, and know what to look for (two are on med/grad school admissions boards) and its so pretty!! But its 1,000 characters too long and I just canNOT figure out what to cut out :( Its so sad :(

And finally deciding on where to apply...

I'm in this funk...there's so much to do that I'm having trouble getting myself to actually do any of it!!
Click to expand...
That was my problem last year. It sucks to whittle it down but I'd much rather do that than have to add more. I wound up shortening my paragraphs a bit and took out one of the shorter ones. :)
 
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I'm on my 10th draft of the Personal Statement. This is the WORST thing I've ever had to write.
I'm pretty sure I just sound like a douche face to the reader. :mad:
 
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lhmhtd said:
I'm on my 10th draft of the Personal Statement. This is the WORST thing I've ever had to write.
I'm pretty sure I just sound like a douche face to the reader. :mad:
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I feel you man....I feel you.....
 
Haha yeah, I'm kind of unique in that I wanted to become a vet, got a job at a clinic, realized I did not like general vet med so thought, "well guess I can't be a vet after all..." Then realized you can do a billion other things besides general medicine! I CAN be a vet!
Try making that sound positive and that you're sure of yourself :yeahright:
 
Well my VMCAS app just got verified. Soon the schools will have my info. *insert heavy breathing cat meme here*
 
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HowIMetYourPet said:
Anyone else feeling "stuck"? I've been working on my PS for weeks, I've had it reviewed by people who I know are fantastic at writing, and know what to look for (two are on med/grad school admissions boards) and its so pretty!! But its 1,000 characters too long and I just canNOT figure out what to cut out :( Its so sad :(
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As a rather overly verbose myself, I understand your pain. Walk away from your PS for awhile and come back to it. And by awhile a mean a few days or heck, even weeks. You're probably too "close" to it at this point. At this point you love the whole thing so much you just can't imagine taking anything out. Fresher eyes will help a lot with deciding what needs to be cut. And honestly, as crappy as it sounds, you may just have to go back and rewrite a lot of it to make it more succinct. Get out a thesaurus and find shorter words to use that mean the same thing. Take out unnecessary fluff words. Make sure you only single spaced between sentences (I think that's the norm these days, but I'm someone who learned double spacing and still do it out of habit). Trim up your ideas to get to the point quicker. You'll probably still have to take out content, but you can trim down a lot through neatening up what you currently have.
 
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dovelover said:
As a rather overly verbose myself, I understand your pain. Walk away from your PS for awhile and come back to it. And by awhile a mean a few days or heck, even weeks. You're probably too "close" to it at this point. At this point you love the whole thing so much you just can't imagine taking anything out. Fresher eyes will help a lot with deciding what needs to be cut. And honestly, as crappy as it sounds, you may just have to go back and rewrite a lot of it to make it more succinct. Get out a thesaurus and find shorter words to use that mean the same thing. Take out unnecessary fluff words. Make sure you only single spaced between sentences (I think that's the norm these days, but I'm someone who learned double spacing and still do it out of habit). Trim up your ideas to get to the point quicker. You'll probably still have to take out content, but you can trim down a lot through neatening up what you currently have.
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About the bolded above. If you do this, make sure it sounds good/flows with your personal statement. It is glaringly obvious when someone has been writing as themselves for an entire paper and then places in some word that just doesn't flow well with the rest of their writing style. Don't just drop in random words from a thesaurus to replace things, you need your paper to still read like you. A thesaurus is good for ideas, but be sure that word(s) will work in your paper.
 
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DVMDream said:
About the bolded above. If you do this, make sure it sounds good/flows with your personal statement. It is glaringly obvious when someone has been writing as themselves for an entire paper and then places in some word that just doesn't flow well with the rest of their writing style. Don't just drop in random words from a thesaurus to replace things, you need your paper to still read like you. A thesaurus is good for ideas, but be sure that word(s) will work in your paper.
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Yes, and I should have said I meant metaphorically get out your thesaurus. You can't just pick some random word you've never heard of before, but simple shorter words will often get the job done just as well as the long word with a more specific meaning. Saying, I did this well, instead of, I did this outstandingly, saves you a lot of characters and means the same thing (and honestly sounds less awkward). The connotation is slightly different, but as my mom always likes to point out to me when she's helping me with last minute paper editing and we're arguing about a word she's suggesting that doesn't convey the exact the meaning I want--no one is reading anything you write with that much of a fine tooth comb (especially not someone with hundreds of personal statements to read). If a friend reads through your PS and says, "that part jumps out as being awkward," then its probably not a good change. If they read through it without noticing the change, you're probably okay, even if it seems a bit awkward to you. You've probably read it so many times with the original wording that anything you change it to will sound weird to you. There are times when you feel you have the perfect word, or just an amazing sentence/paragraph that you really don't want to change, and that's fine. Those are the places where you can let "you" really shine through. But that unfortunately means the things you are less excited about will have to be boiled down.
 
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WildZoo said:
I'm thinking of adding Tufts to my list since I took out Ohio. Any weird things about their admission requirements that I should know about?
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Psssst, you wanna come to Purdue with meeeee? =D
 
Also, I think Tufts is the school that doesn't use VMCAS as their application. You should check out the Tufts c/o 2019 page!
 
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WildZoo said:
I'm thinking of adding Tufts to my list since I took out Ohio. Any weird things about their admission requirements that I should know about?
Click to expand...

I think they require specific people for LORs...meaning like one vet and two professors, but that might have changed or I'm remembering incorrectly. And they have their own app. But if you have any questions, just call them. Seriously nicest group of admissions people I have ever dealt with.
 
Gwenevre said:
Psssst, you wanna come to Purdue with meeeee? =D
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Too far west for my taste ;) UTK is already pushing it, but it's far enough south that it's still close-ish to home.
I might not add Tufts afterall. We'll see. Might just stick to four schools to save some money.
 
DVMDream said:
I am saying western states >>>> eastern states. Always. :p
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Whatever man, you crazy :p

I'm just kidding, I would just prefer to stay near the east coast because it's where all my family is :) I've never even been west of West Virginia...
 
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WildZoo said:
Whatever man, you crazy :p

I'm just kidding, I would just prefer to stay near the east coast because it's where all my family is :) I've never even been west of West Virginia...
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I completely understand the family thing.

You definitely need to travel out west though at some point. I have to say east coast beaches> west coast beaches. East coast has warmer water and the sand doesn't stick to you as much. So good beaches, I say east coast.

For me living-wise west is better, mainly for family reasons as well. :)

But travel out west sometime, California, Arizona, Washington State, Nevada, New Mexico (Carlsbad Caverns is really cool).
 
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DVMDream said:
I completely understand the family thing.

You definitely need to travel out west though at some point. I have to say east coast beaches> west coast beaches. East coast has warmer water and the sand doesn't stick to you as much. So good beaches, I say east coast.

For me living-wise west is better, mainly for family reasons as well. :)

But travel out west sometime, California, Arizona, Washington State, Nevada, New Mexico (Carlsbad Caverns is really cool).
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I definitely hope to at some point in my life :) There's a ton of cool stuff out there that I would love to see.
 
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To answer the Tufts question, they have a separate application, and yes, they have specific LOR requirements. One from a Vet, one from a professor, one from a faculty member in you major department (I'm using my PI of my research project, I think it will work, I'm in the process of double checking, but he's technically faculty in bio medical sciences...so....yeah haha)
 
HowIMetYourPet said:
To answer the Tufts question, they have a separate application, and yes, they have specific LOR requirements. One from a Vet, one from a professor, one from a faculty member in you major department (I'm using my PI of my research project, I think it will work, I'm in the process of double checking, but he's technically faculty in bio medical sciences...so....yeah haha)
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I would have to work an English professor in there... Either as the one professor if it doesn't have to be a science one, or as the faculty member in my major (I'm an English major in addition to Bio)
 
orca2011 said:
I think they require specific people for LORs...meaning like one vet and two professors, but that might have changed or I'm remembering incorrectly. And they have their own app. But if you have any questions, just call them. Seriously nicest group of admissions people I have ever dealt with.
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One vet, one professor, one academic advisor/department chair/some other options. Their own application, but it's pretty straightforward and similar enough to VMCAS that it didn't take much extra time. I think I tweaked my PS slightly for Tufts but it was pretty easy to use the same essay.
And I'll second that - Tufts admissions people are incredibly nice, and they seem fairly relaxed about admissions requirements and specific prereq's compared to other schools.
DVMDream said:
I completely understand the family thing.

You definitely need to travel out west though at some point. I have to say east coast beaches> west coast beaches. East coast has warmer water and the sand doesn't stick to you as much. So good beaches, I say east coast.

For me living-wise west is better, mainly for family reasons as well. :)

But travel out west sometime, California, Arizona, Washington State, Nevada, New Mexico (Carlsbad Caverns is really cool).
Click to expand...
Ahem. You forgot the giant blob in between California and Washington, and that is definitely part of the West Coast. ;)
 
WildZoo said:
I've never even been west of West Virginia...
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:eek: There's so much awesome stuff out west! The plethora of national parks is just to die for... and driving for hours through places like Wyoming without seeing more than 3 or so other cars passing the other way, no one ahead of you & no one behind, and no buildings anywhere except the occasional rest area. It's kinda eerie, but also awe inspiring when you're used to the crowded east. Not to mention incredible picturesque scenes visible right from the highway. Now I've got myself longing for another national park road trip...
 
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Turned my VMCAS application in last night, what a relief that is!!!!
Now to spend the next couple of months in a panic!
 
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And its verified already, Damn they are fast! :soexcited:
 
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My organic chemistry professor, that I served as a supplemental instructor is on top of everything she does and literally has had it done for weeks. She was done before I was...which is kinda embarrassing, but I'm grateful now!
 
None of my4 have either. I will start bugging them in August I Think.
 
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I have two that haven't even opened them yet, so don't feel bad. Especially cause one of them is the vet I spent two summers working with and that is the main one they care about.
 
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I wish I was on top of things like you guys! So far I've thought about starting my personal statement, and that's as far as I've gotten.
 
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