Children of a Vet Pre-Vet Students Experiences

[Bleed Purple. Go Cats!]

Sorry if anybody has already made a thread for this! I am the son of a veterinarian and I haven't met a lot of people that have parents that are vets and are trying to get in. You would think that most people would want to be vets even if just for the business owning side of things.

Anyways, I am filling out the experiences section on VMCAS and I was wondering if anybody else has ran into the problem I am having. I grew up with a dad as a vet. How am I supposed to put accurate hours of when I was getting veterinary experience? I mean when I was eight years old we would go out to the pig pen and castrate our 4-H pigs, go on random emergencies, work at the Salebarn, etc... I don't even have a clue how to put a weekly working schedule into VMCAS. It's not like I was keeping track my whole life. Any suggestions as to how to approach this would be appreciated. Thanks!

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[Pugsforlove2014]

If I remember only experiences from high school and up count so start there. We have a few people who are kids of vets and had a bunch of hours. I would average what I thought I worked each week and average it, erring on the lower side, then multiply by total number of weeks worked. Honestly above 5,000 hrs a few hundred here and there are gonna be really hard to keep track of.
That's about all I got but hopefully you have been able to keep an accurate account over college.

 

[twelvetigers]

Sorry if anybody has already made a thread for this! I am the son of a veterinarian and I haven't met a lot of people that have parents that are vets and are trying to get in. You would think that most people would want to be vets even if just for the business owning side of things.

Anyways, I am filling out the experiences section on VMCAS and I was wondering if anybody else has ran into the problem I am having. I grew up with a dad as a vet. How am I supposed to put accurate hours of when I was getting veterinary experience? I mean when I was eight years old we would go out to the pig pen and castrate our 4-H pigs, go on random emergencies, work at the Salebarn, etc... I don't even have a clue how to put a weekly working schedule into VMCAS. It's not like I was keeping track my whole life. Any suggestions as to how to approach this would be appreciated. Thanks!

If you mention somewhere in your PS etc. that you 'grew up at the clinic' or whatnot, they will understand. If anything, just pick out some particular experiences and estimate low. Give more weight to stuff that you have done separate from the family business.

 

[Glammyre]

OP, I was in the same situation. @twelvetigers gave very good advice. Use your experiences with your dad as part of your personal statement, but emphasize your experience with veterinarians and the practice outside of your family on the rest of your application. Overall, it shows that you have a good understanding of veterinary medicine as a field, and not just one practitioner's habits.