It's important to answer the prompt and your future goals are part of that, so definitely include itPersonal Statement question to all my fellow applicants.... How important/ not important is it to clarify in your personal statement your clinical interest... i.e. small animal vs. large animals.....
I think stating your interests goes hand in hand with explaining how you became interested in the field, your experiences, and where you are today. I'd be careful to avoid making it seem like those are your only interests/plans. Don't box yourself in!Personal Statement question to all my fellow applicants.... How important/ not important is it to clarify in your personal statement your clinical interest... i.e. small animal vs. large animals.....
Personal Statement question to all my fellow applicants.... How important/ not important is it to clarify in your personal statement your clinical interest... i.e. small animal vs. large animals.....
EDIT: I was incorrect, you need to submit as soon as possible (see posts below)Can the VMCAS application be submitted prior to the professional transcript entry being completed? Freaking out over here because everything is done except that and I can't submit and pay for my programs.
Can the VMCAS application be submitted prior to the professional transcript entry being completed? Freaking out over here because everything is done except that and I can't submit and pay for my programs.
That's weird, must have changed that from last year.
!! Wish I would have known that's all I needed a week ago! I thought I had to wait for the professional entry transcript to come back then submit. 
Did you already submit your application? I was confused, until I called VMCAS. You have to submit your completed application and pay for your programs. Once you do this then they will enter your coursework through the professional entry. Once they enter it will go back to you to verify all the entries are correct. It takes about 7-10 days to enter the coursework. Hope that helps!
yes I already completed my application and submitted it on the 28th of August. I had to wait for eLORs to be completed. I just hope I meet the deadline of the 15th now :/
oh ok that makes sense. thanks!
Now I'm worried. I had both of my schools send out transcripts a few weeks ago. No emails or notifications about VMCAS receiving them
I found it. They moved it to Personal Info in the "other" section.
I hope customer service speaks english
I'm in my genetics lab snickering at this. What sense does it make to move it to Personal Info at all? Why would they move it two weeks before deadline? It only serves to confuse applicants even more.
Tell me about it. Honestly, I had heard many VMCAS horror stories from previous cycles, but this one seems to have been particularly awful. They really ought to have just kept 3.0 in beta until these tweaks were adequately worked out. At least the darn thing worked consistently and stuff didn't disappear or get moved for seemingly no reason. That's not even mentioning all of the outages and small but bizarre errors (dates for awards and honors moving back one day, for example). I'm also pretty peeved about them lowering the already relatively minuscule character limit for the personal statement even more, but that's admittedly personal.
It also seems like they're having a lot of issues with the "Professional Transcript Entry." Taking forever, not communicating with the applicant, etc.
Honestly that service sounds like a scam for more money to me. It takes them 10 days to do what you could have done yourself in a few hours (if that), you have to pay extra (what is it, $50?), it doesn't make verification any faster, and you risk your application being late because they don't do it until all of your materials are in including at least 3 eLORs - it says on the help page that they aren't responsible for lateness if you don't have everything in early enough for the transcript entry to be done before the deadline.
No kidding. Everyone on the APVMA page is asking if it's worth it. I keep saying "Is spending around $100 in exchange for saving yourself 2-3 hours worth it to you? It's $50 for x amount of transcripts, $100 for so many more, and I think it caps at $150. Entering coursework really is quite simple, but VMCAS has put pressure on applicants to make them feel like it's some impossible task. No one cares about course entry. How about treating GRE scores like you do transcripts and actually saving us money?
Indeed. Just didn't seem like it'd be worth the money at all. This makes me so, so glad that I entered my own coursework and submitted when I did (even if I kinda regret it a bit because I'd like to have made some very minor changes to my personal statement and experience descriptions). I downloaded the PDFs for my programs and, thankfully, everything seems to be in order. So with everything that has been going on with VMCAS lately, seeing that was quite the relief
It really, really looks like a trap to me almost. I don't want to make VMCAS sound that shady, but they are so clear that even if they can't get the service you purchased done in time, it's your fault they are poorly staffed and they will keep your money. And do who knows what with it. They never had all of these payment policies, payment dispute policies, etc. spelled out when I applied.
I guess I could see the professional entry maybe being useful if you have a lot of different transcripts to go through, but even then... to request it at the risk of the application being deemed late because all of the other materials requisite for verification came in too close to the deadline and having to deal with the extra hurdles, as well as their mediocre customer service, just does not seem worth the exorbitant extra fee.
Exactly. This is my first cycle, but from digging around some older threads, it seems like this year has had more random errors, complaints, and general hang-ups than any one prior. I understand that VMCAS is trying to adopt this new 3.0 platform, but I think it should have become very clear halfway through the summer that it was broken and needed further testing.
It doesn't harm VMCAS, though. Anything that goes wrong is the applicants fault.Exactly. This is my first cycle, but from digging around some older threads, it seems like this year has had more random errors, complaints, and general hang-ups than any one prior. I understand that VMCAS is trying to adopt this new 3.0 platform, but I think it should have become very clear halfway through the summer that it was broken and needed further testing.
I saw that APVMA post - it is crazy that a customer service representative actually told an applicant to cancel their application entirely because of something that was 100% out of their control like that.
Actually, I agree with you on the whole Professional Transcript Entry thing in general. For most people, it just isn't worth it, I'd imagine. The overwhelming majority of applicants will have 1-3 transcripts to enter; coursework entry in that situation should take a couple of hours at the most. I know a lot of people opted for the Professional Entry, but with all of the extra hurdles to jump through with submission and verification, I personally just don't understand how it's worth paying an extra $50+.
I'm very happy I didn't go for it, because entering coursework on my own was relatively quick, painless, and now it looks like I'm avoiding a whole other mess of issues that have cropped up within the past couple of weeks.
I wonder if VMCAS will offer this service for future cycles? Sure, it may have netted them more cash from applicants, but it seems to have caused far more harm than good (not to mention loads of stress on both their staff AND applicants).
This. Even now it seems like they definitely weren't clear about things in the in-application instructions since people who used it aren't sure of the process. Unfortunately most people aren't going to go through and read the help and information pages that go into more detail on stuff like that.
You don't think people are reading the instructions?!
You're one lucky duck that they reopened it for you, because a lot of people had the same issue and are screwed now.
I am really, really happy that you managed to get that worked out. From what it sounds like, many applicants are basically being told that they're screwed at this point.
The thing is that I'm pretty sure VMCAS knows they suck. The schools think they suck. So what now? Do you really need more than one application service for the sake of competition? Maybe, but that might make things worse before it gets better. I don't think the schools want to do all of this application processing themselves, either.
If the application was only off by a few hours, I'd just let it slide, but that is a pretty big difference...
Mine is like this, too, upon second inspection. I know it's not a make-or-break deal, but it is still sloppy.
