Future DVMs- C/O 2021!

[Trilt]

I'm back at my parent's house and I'm cleaning out my closet, and I found a page from kindergarten (I was 5 years old) that said "when I grow up I want to be a veterinarian so I can help animals when they're sick".


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I had one of those pages - that I actually wrote about in my PS, haha - where I said I wanted to "keep animels in cages" when I grew up. (aka be a zookeeper). D'oh.

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[finnickthedog]

gosh I'd love to see what the 3 of us in one room would be like. Probably entertaining.

I can picture it. It's pretty great.

I had one of those pages - that I actually wrote about in my PS, haha - where I said I wanted to "keep animels in cages" when I grew up. (aka be a zookeeper). D'oh.

See, I wasn't sure I wanted to work with "animels" until I was a little older. When I was that young, I wanted to either be a vet or bag groceries.

 

[Trilt]

I can picture it. It's pretty great.




See, I wasn't sure I wanted to work with "animels" until I was a little older. When I was that young, I wanted to either be a vet or bag groceries.

I mean I'm still disappointed to not be an animorph tbh.

 

[cdo96]

I can picture it. It's pretty great.




See, I wasn't sure I wanted to work with "animels" until I was a little older. When I was that young, I wanted to either be a vet or bag groceries.

Oh see I wanted to "hep anemels wen they sek" so I'm guessing that means veterinarian.

Granted that was about the time my dog got run over the first time.

 

[Devastating]

@Devastating Yes, I have dual credits from two other colleges so I'll have to submit those transcriptions. They show up on my Purdue one as TR. The weird thing is though on one of those two colleges, some of the classes I had Bs in when I know for a fact that I got As in high school for those classes. If I don't select them for any of the prerequisites, will my GPA from Purdue be the same or will VMCAS calculate those Bs into the GPA too? I'm going to contact the school tomorrow to try and get it changed.

That's weird...maybe you can order yourself a transcript from that school to try and verify the grades? But you're going to contact them about it tomorrow anyway so hopefully you won't need to.
As for the prerequisites selection, I'm honestly not sure and have wondered the same thing. I think VMCAS automatically calculates from everything when you submit it, but for specific schools like Purdue it can be different depending on whichever way they calculate prereq/science GPA (so those classes may or may not factor in, you'd have to find out how they calculate GPAs). For example I think LSU would include Animal Science courses in the science GPA but not all schools do. I always select the classes with highest grades to fill the relevant prerequisite spots just in case.

 

[wildlifer]

I can picture it. It's pretty great.




See, I wasn't sure I wanted to work with "animels" until I was a little older. When I was that young, I wanted to either be a vet or bag groceries.

Hahaha, this gave me a good little chuckle. Quite opposite ends of the spectrum there... veterinarian vs bagging groceries. Oh the stuff we came up with as little ones!

 

[brownswissfanatic]

See, I wasn't sure I wanted to work with "animels" until I was a little older. When I was that young, I wanted to either be a vet or bag groceries.

When I was really young, probably 1st or 2nd grade, I wanted to be either a vet or a teacher. I really admired my early elementary school teachers. When I was 6, I wrote a letter to myself that I hoped my 1st grade teacher, Mrs.Larson, who was pregnant, would give birth to a boy because I wanted to marry him and become Mrs.Larson. Talk about admiration! LOL! Well, as soon as there were bad kids in my class I thought (I was still elementary school age), "No way! I can't handle a class full of bad kids." And that is where the desire to be a teacher faded away.

And then ever since then the dream has been only "veterinarian." My parents say it was since about 4th grade, since it was around that age when I started attending Texas A&M's Annual Vet School Open House. However, honestly, I think it has pretty much been since forever.

 

[cdo96]

When I was really young, probably 1st or 2nd grade, I wanted to be either a vet or a teacher. I really admired my early elementary school teachers. When I was 6, I wrote a letter to myself that I hoped my 1st grade teacher, Mrs.Larson, who was pregnant, would give birth to a boy because I wanted to marry him and become Mrs.Larson. Talk about admiration! LOL! Well, as soon as there were bad kids in my class I thought (I was still elementary school age), "No way! I can't handle a class full of bad kids." And that is where the desire to be a teacher faded away.

And then ever since then the dream has been only "veterinarian." My parents say it was since about 4th grade, since it was around that age when I started attending Texas A&M's Annual Vet School Open House. However, honestly, I think it has pretty much been since forever.

Right?? I think to begin with there were 5 of my friends who wanted to be a vet, but now there's only me. Which is surprising, considering the number of times my Nana's told me that I'll change my mind and go to a different career.


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[AndThenIMetHer]

Hey guys sorry to just randomly jump in. I don't know if anyone else has had this problem with the application, but when I go to fill out all my transcript entries in the second section I can't move on to transcript review like it tells me to. The bottom of the page, where the prerequisites are for the different schools you are applying to, is all jumbled and seems to be blocking the continue button. Has anyone been able to fix this? BTW I use Google Chrome.

 

[Coopah]

Hey guys sorry to just randomly jump in. I don't know if anyone else has had this problem with the application, but when I go to fill out all my transcript entries in the second section I can't move on to transcript review like it tells me to. The bottom of the page, where the prerequisites are for the different schools you are applying to, is all jumbled and seems to be blocking the continue button. Has anyone been able to fix this? BTW I use Google Chrome.

You have to go to the school section of the application under the prerequisites tab, this can only be completed after you finalize your transcripts (which I find annoying but understandable). As far as I can tell the jumbled mess applies to everyone everywhere no matter what they're using. Cheers!

 

[brownswissfanatic]

Right?? I think to begin with there were 5 of my friends who wanted to be a vet, but now there's only me. Which is surprising, considering the number of times my Nana's told me that I'll change my mind and go to a different career.


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Same here! My 2 best friends had also wanted to be a vet, but now only I do.

Yea I heard about how often people switch majors at least 2-3 times throughout college. Many of my friends did, but I didn't.

 

[WildZoo]

I have a similar kindergarten journal entry that said something about wanting to be a veterinarian when I grow up. We would write a sentence and draw a picture in the journal each day and then the teacher would correct our spelling/grammar/whatever. I was never an artist...not sure I could do much better with that drawing now

 

[heyyimhayley]

Right?? I think to begin with there were 5 of my friends who wanted to be a vet, but now there's only me. Which is surprising, considering the number of times my Nana's told me that I'll change my mind and go to a different career.


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I went to a really small middle school, and myself and one other girl both really wanted to be vets... Her AIM username was even "vetgirl"
I was not so popular in middle school (lol) and she was... so "vetgirl" would tell people I was just saying I wanted to be a vet to be cool because I was jealous of her. Made me so mad because I knew it was my dream before I even met her.

I lost touch with her a long time ago, but I'm pretty sure she ended up going to art school... Meanwhile here I am....

 

[heyyimhayley]

I have a similar kindergarten journal entry that said something about wanting to be a veterinarian when I grow up. We would write a sentence and draw a picture in the journal each day and then the teacher would correct our spelling/grammar/whatever. I was never an artist...not sure I could do much better with that drawing now

I have one of those too!! It's actually still in our kitchen... It says "vetrinarian" with a terrible drawing of myself doing a physical exam on a dog.

And there's a note from my teacher that says "Hayley you will be a kind and caring veterinarian"

For someone who is a terrible speller... I never spelled that word wrong since

 

[cdo96]

I have one of those too!! It's actually still in our kitchen... It says "vetrinarian" with a terrible drawing of myself doing a physical exam on a dog.

And there's a note from my teacher that says "Hayley you will be a kind and caring veterinarian"

For someone who is a terrible speller... I never spelled that word wrong since

Are you kidding? I misspelled it up until my freshman year of high school.


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[lhmhtd]

Aw you guys are so cute with your little stories I never wanted to be a vet when I was a little girl. I was always going to be an astronaut.... bwahahah. that's rich.

 

[lhmhtd]

Serious note: I did a directed independent study in undergrad where the research involved estimating population density & capture probability of Apple snails.
Research or animal experience? Probably research, but wanted some other people's input.

 

[vetmedhead]

I have one of those too!! It's actually still in our kitchen... It says "vetrinarian" with a terrible drawing of myself doing a physical exam on a dog.

And there's a note from my teacher that says "Hayley you will be a kind and caring veterinarian"

For someone who is a terrible speller... I never spelled that word wrong since

I once misspelled "veterinarian" in my middle school spelling bee. It's why I got second place!

 

[TrashPanda]

Serious note: I did a directed independent study in undergrad where the research involved estimating population density & capture probability of Apple snails.
Research or animal experience? Probably research, but wanted some other people's input.

Research. VMCAS wants all research under research, even if it's also animal experience or under the supervision of a vet. There's a flowchart on the experiences tab of VMCAS that also shows this.

 

[bombai]

Thanks so much! I looked at the PDF and they did not organize so I didn't know how they would reorganize if it doesn't reorganize when you make the PDF.

I just called VMCAS and they told me that experiences and achievements WILL NOT reorder (even after submission--which is what I read it would do from an earlier post). I'm not sure if this accurate from what everyone here says, but it is something to consider for entering information. Does anyone know if schools would like experiences and achievements in chronological order or had experience with that?

 

[cheathac]

Another question about transcripts (to me this is the hardest part). I took the Calculus BC Exam in high school and got a score of 3. For Purdue, you had to have received a 4 to not have to take Calculus there. I took I and II and got a B and B+ respectively. The AP still transferred as credits (electives), both showing up as MA1XXXX Calculus for 4 credits and MA1XXXX Calculus BC as 3 transferred credits on my Purdue transcript as AP. When I'm choosing which classes I want to fit the prerequisites for schools, can I use either of these transferred credits or do I have to use one of the two Calculus classes I took at Purdue?

 

[floridajl]

I have one of those too!! It's actually still in our kitchen... It says "vetrinarian" with a terrible drawing of myself doing a physical exam on a dog.

And there's a note from my teacher that says "Hayley you will be a kind and caring veterinarian"

For someone who is a terrible speller... I never spelled that word wrong since

My first grade career plan insists that I'd grow up to be a "veteran." And I was so convinced for years that I was right since veterans are called vets too.

 

[mht2k3]

I just called VMCAS and they told me that experiences and achievements WILL NOT reorder (even after submission--which is what I read it would do from an earlier post). I'm not sure if this accurate from what everyone here says, but it is something to consider for entering information. Does anyone know if schools would like experiences and achievements in chronological order or had experience with that?

ugh, if this is true its really stupid! If they aren't going to re0rder on submission, they should at least give you the ability to reorder them yourself. The way it stands now if you forgot to put something in before entering some experiences that happened in the past you will have to go and delete those!

for what its worth at least the pdf does group them by type of experience so IF they dont reorganize you just have to make sure that they are in order per type of experience and not overall

 

[WildZoo]

I just called VMCAS and they told me that experiences and achievements WILL NOT reorder (even after submission--which is what I read it would do from an earlier post). I'm not sure if this accurate from what everyone here says, but it is something to consider for entering information. Does anyone know if schools would like experiences and achievements in chronological order or had experience with that?

If that's true then **** them, because they definitely reordered last year and I don't know why they would get rid of that feature. Except it's VMCAS, so of course they would. I don't know if the schools care about the order or not.

 

[finnickthedog]

I just called VMCAS and they told me that experiences and achievements WILL NOT reorder (even after submission--which is what I read it would do from an earlier post). I'm not sure if this accurate from what everyone here says, but it is something to consider for entering information. Does anyone know if schools would like experiences and achievements in chronological order or had experience with that?

ugh, if this is true its really stupid! If they aren't going to re0rder on submission, they should at least give you the ability to reorder them yourself. The way it stands now if you forgot to put something in before entering some experiences that happened in the past you will have to go and delete those!

for what its worth at least the pdf does group them by type of experience so IF they dont reorganize you just have to make sure that they are in order per type of experience and not overall

Plus that screws over those of us who rolled over data. We can't possibly enter the most recent first because all our experiences prior to this past year are already on there. Anything new will end up at the end.

 

[deleted676737]

I just called VMCAS and they told me that experiences and achievements WILL NOT reorder (even after submission--which is what I read it would do from an earlier post). I'm not sure if this accurate from what everyone here says, but it is something to consider for entering information. Does anyone know if schools would like experiences and achievements in chronological order or had experience with that?

ugh, if this is true its really stupid! If they aren't going to re0rder on submission, they should at least give you the ability to reorder them yourself. The way it stands now if you forgot to put something in before entering some experiences that happened in the past you will have to go and delete those!

for what its worth at least the pdf does group them by type of experience so IF they dont reorganize you just have to make sure that they are in order per type of experience and not overall

This is absolutely ridiculous if it is true. They reordered upon submission last year; I literally cannot think of a single reason why they would change that for this cycle.

Seriously, screw VMCAS. How freaking difficult is it to write a program that can, gasp, display a list of entries in chronological order!? I don't know how much schools will mind if you leave them unordered, but... geez. You guys are paying $200+ for this service, for pete's sake.

Good to see that some things truly do never change.

 

[deleted676737]

Plus that screws over those of us who rolled over data. We can't possibly enter the most recent first because all our experiences prior to this past year are already on there. Anything new will end up at the end.

I was just wondering how this would affect reapplicants. That majorly sucks.

 

[floridajl]

I just called VMCAS and they told me that experiences and achievements WILL NOT reorder (even after submission--which is what I read it would do from an earlier post). I'm not sure if this accurate from what everyone here says, but it is something to consider for entering information. Does anyone know if schools would like experiences and achievements in chronological order or had experience with that?

Now I'm going to be really paranoid about having everything in order. Hopefully the schools don't care too much. What I did before inputting any experiences was write them all down in a Word document. That way I could just copy/paste descriptions and reorder anything if I happened to remember something else. I did this about a week ago, and just put my experiences in a couple days ago, to give my brain time to think about everything I did in high school. And if I do happen to remember something later and need to delete everything and start over, I'll have it all saved. But hopefully that doesn't happen.

 

[deleted676737]

Now I'm going to be really paranoid about having everything in order. Hopefully the schools don't care too much. What I did before inputting any experiences was write them all down in a Word document. That way I could just copy/paste descriptions and reorder anything if I happened to remember something else. I did this about a week ago, and just put my experiences in a couple days ago, to give my brain time to think about everything I did in high school. And if I do happen to remember something later and need to delete everything and start over, I'll have it all saved. But hopefully that doesn't happen.

Although it wound up not mattering last cycle, this is actually what I did. I ended up reentering all of my experience entries three times because I was so overly paranoid about them being in order. Worked pretty well! I would definitely recommend doing something similar to this year's applicants if it is really true that entries do not reorder upon submission.

 

[finnickthedog]

Now I'm going to be really paranoid about having everything in order. Hopefully the schools don't care too much. What I did before inputting any experiences was write them all down in a Word document. That way I could just copy/paste descriptions and reorder anything if I happened to remember something else. I did this about a week ago, and just put my experiences in a couple days ago, to give my brain time to think about everything I did in high school. And if I do happen to remember something later and need to delete everything and start over, I'll have it all saved. But hopefully that doesn't happen.

I kept my experiences in a word document last year because there was a lot of confusion early on about whether it would reorder or not.

Unfortunately that doesn't help me this year.

 

[mht2k3]

ok so I just spoke to VMCAS on the phone about this. She did confirm that they DONT reorder for you. I said that I've already entered in a ton of stuff and the only current way of adding a newer entry is deleting everything I have on there and she basically said yes I would have to delete them in order to have everything order, or I would create the new one out of order and write somewhere explaining that I did that (which of course I'm not going to do).

I asked about people that are reapplying and imported all of their experiences and she didn't really have any answer except for saying that they will have to delete all their experiences and re-enter them or put them out of order.

WTF

 

[mht2k3]

its not a huge deal now, since I've primarily just entered in my employment experiences and they are in the correct order but I'll have to delete some of the awards because they are out of order.

I'll just create an excel sheet so I can copy and paste from there.

Also, as a computer programmer, it just seems absolutely crazy that they wouldn't auto order this stuff for you (or provide a way for you to manually order them).

so should the order be date started or date ended? for instance if an experience that started in 2013 and is still on going vs an experience that I started in 2015 but ended in early 2016, which one should go ahead of the other? I'm assuming date ended?

 

[BrownSwissCows]

I've waited before starting to reapply because I figured there would be some bugs. Honestly I'm not going to worry about the order. Seems absurd that people would know all the experiences they will have at this point considering that VMCAS closes in 4 months. I wouldn't want to go and delete everything just because I got a new experience.

 

[WildZoo]

its not a huge deal now, since I've primarily just entered in my employment experiences and they are in the correct order but I'll have to delete some of the awards because they are out of order.

I'll just create an excel sheet so I can copy and paste from there.

Also, as a computer programmer, it just seems absolutely crazy that they wouldn't auto order this stuff for you (or provide a way for you to manually order them).

so should the order be date started or date ended? for instance if an experience that started in 2013 and is still on going vs an experience that I started in 2015 but ended in early 2016, which one should go ahead of the other? I'm assuming date ended?

I would think date ended

 

[finnickthedog]

ok so I just spoke to VMCAS on the phone about this. She did confirm that they DONT reorder for you. I said that I've already entered in a ton of stuff and the only current way of adding a newer entry is deleting everything I have on there and she basically said yes I would have to delete them in order to have everything order, or I would create the new one out of order and write somewhere explaining that I did that (which of course I'm not going to do).

I asked about people that are reapplying and imported all of their experiences and she didn't really have any answer except for saying that they will have to delete all their experiences and re-enter them or put them out of order.

WTF

You have got to be kidding me.

I may have to just contact the school to see if they care because this is bull to expect that I'll delete everything just re-enter it. The rolled over experiences aren't in chronological order anyways. They're grouped by category but then only some of them are in order and the rest are a mess. So it's not even just my most recent experiences that will be off if I leave them.

 

[deleted676737]

ok so I just spoke to VMCAS on the phone about this. She did confirm that they DONT reorder for you. I said that I've already entered in a ton of stuff and the only current way of adding a newer entry is deleting everything I have on there and she basically said yes I would have to delete them in order to have everything order, or I would create the new one out of order and write somewhere explaining that I did that (which of course I'm not going to do).

I asked about people that are reapplying and imported all of their experiences and she didn't really have any answer except for saying that they will have to delete all their experiences and re-enter them or put them out of order.

WTF

I think people should raise hell about this. Seriously. Especially reapplicants who, from what I understand (correct me if I'm wrong), have all of their experiences imported, probably out of order, and have no other choice but to delete those older entries and start over... effectively making the whole "rollover" thing kinda pointless.

Like I said, I'm not sure how much schools actually care about things being in order, but now that it is confirmed that entries will not automatically be rearranged upon submission, I personally would err on the side of caution.

For now, it may be a good idea to input experiences into a Word or Excel document first so that, God forbid you make a mistake and have to reenter things again, you will not have to start from scratch and can just copy + paste info into the application.

 

[floridajl]

ok so I just spoke to VMCAS on the phone about this. She did confirm that they DONT reorder for you. I said that I've already entered in a ton of stuff and the only current way of adding a newer entry is deleting everything I have on there and she basically said yes I would have to delete them in order to have everything order, or I would create the new one out of order and write somewhere explaining that I did that (which of course I'm not going to do).

I asked about people that are reapplying and imported all of their experiences and she didn't really have any answer except for saying that they will have to delete all their experiences and re-enter them or put them out of order.

WTF

That's AWFUL. Especially for reapplicants. What an awful system.

Mine are ordered by date ended. I have a few that are basically the same situation (one started and ended in the middle of another ongoing one), and the advice I received said order by ending date, so list the ongoing experience first even though it started earlier.

 

[mht2k3]

I've waited before starting to reapply because I figured there would be some bugs. Honestly I'm not going to worry about the order. Seems absurd that people would know all the experiences they will have at this point considering that VMCAS closes in 4 months. I wouldn't want to go and delete everything just because I got a new experience.

Well what they were saying is that they just send over the data like its been entered and thats what the schools see. So its just about presentation to the veterinary schools. Technically they don't *have* to be in any order, but it might look bad, like you wouldn't want your resume out of order when applying to a job.

 

[deleted676737]

its not a huge deal now, since I've primarily just entered in my employment experiences and they are in the correct order but I'll have to delete some of the awards because they are out of order.

I'll just create an excel sheet so I can copy and paste from there.

Also, as a computer programmer, it just seems absolutely crazy that they wouldn't auto order this stuff for you (or provide a way for you to manually order them).

so should the order be date started or date ended? for instance if an experience that started in 2013 and is still on going vs an experience that I started in 2015 but ended in early 2016, which one should go ahead of the other? I'm assuming date ended?

I'd say date ended. That's how I did it last cycle, anyway.

 

[finnickthedog]

Last cycle the experiences seemed to reorder by category and THEN by date. So should we be entering them by category too or just date?

 

[bombai]

Last cycle the experiences seemed to reorder by category and THEN by date. So should we be entering them by category too or just date?

When I spoke with VMCAS the person said that it would reorder by type of experience (not date). But, she was also not completely clear. I explained what I had heard and she spoke to a supervisor. I am going to put things in order by type of experience and then enter them. On another note--I have entered many achievements and when I made a PDF it reordered some of them in a completely weird way. I asked her about this and she had no idea--in other words, will ordering our achievements really help if they are reordered in another way? Not sure!

 

[battie]

Another question about transcripts (to me this is the hardest part). I took the Calculus BC Exam in high school and got a score of 3. For Purdue, you had to have received a 4 to not have to take Calculus there. I took I and II and got a B and B+ respectively. The AP still transferred as credits (electives), both showing up as MA1XXXX Calculus for 4 credits and MA1XXXX Calculus BC as 3 transferred credits on my Purdue transcript as AP. When I'm choosing which classes I want to fit the prerequisites for schools, can I use either of these transferred credits or do I have to use one of the two Calculus classes I took at Purdue?

I would use the actual classes you took (the higher grade if at all possible) because you got elective credit for it, not calculus/math credit.

 

[aggievethopeful2021]

So I find that the fact that VMCAS doesn't automatically put our experience in order to be infuriating. I input all my experiences in chronological order. However, I put them in chronological order from the start date. From what I've read on here, should I reorganize them according to end date? Or do you think start date would be ok? I have them all on a Word document, so it wouldn't be the end of the world if I have to delete them all and reorganize, but it would be really annoying.

 

[Coopah]

So for unspecific prerequisites like two semesters of math, or two social science semesters, can we pick any that fulfill the requirements? Even if it's not the first ones we took? Thanks for the advice!

 

[heyyimhayley]

Are you kidding? I misspelled it up until my freshman year of high school.

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I mean it's the only word I can spell correctly. I've always cringed at the pronounciation "vetinarian" too since then.

So I find that the fact that VMCAS doesn't automatically put our experience in order to be infuriating. I input all my experiences in chronological order. However, I put them in chronological order from the start date. From what I've read on here, should I reorganize them according to end date? Or do you think start date would be ok? I have them all on a Word document, so it wouldn't be the end of the world if I have to delete them all and reorganize, but it would be really annoying.

They do reorganize it, but not until after you submit... Unless that's a this year change that I missed, you don't have to stress about it. But they do have to be by end date!

 

[Coopah]

I mean it's the only word I can spell correctly. I've always cringed at the pronounciation "vetinarian" too since then.


They do reorganize it, but not until after you submit... Unless that's a this year change that I missed, you don't have to stress about it. But they do have to be by end date!

That apparently has changed, according to mht2k3 who spoke with a VMCAS representative, which is why we are all collectively frustrated.

 

[cdo96]

So I was supposed to be getting MORE duties and more hours this summer. But my vet just called to tell me that because they're hiring a new vet, they're giving me even less duties than last summer and less hours. :/


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[PrincessButterCup]

So I was supposed to be getting MORE duties and more hours this summer. But my vet just called to tell me that because they're hiring a new vet, they're giving me even less duties than last summer and less hours. :/


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Come work with me! We're short staffed right now and you could have ALL THE HOURS and do ALL THE THINGS!

 

[finnickthedog]

Come work with me! We're short staffed right now and you could have ALL THE HOURS and do ALL THE THINGS!

I'm on my way.

 

[FeenyFee]

1. If you are shadowing a doctor, what do you put as your title in the experience sections?
2. In the experience section do you classify the type of experience as part time or temporary? I would think temporary since... its temporary. But aren't all jobs if you are trying to get into vet school? Lol
3. If you plan on shadowing after submitting the application, can you put current experience?