Future DVMs- C/O 2021!

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So excited!!!! Applying to UPenn this cycle....debating about applying to more, but honestly Penn is my #1 choice.

It is always a good idea to apply to more than 1 school as a backup in case you don't get into your #1 school. That way, if something happens, you did not waste a whole application cycle.

With the exception being you wouldn't attend the other school (backup) if that were the only one you were accepted to. Seriously, this is for everyone, don't waste the time, effort, and money applying to schools that you would not 100% attend if they were the only school to offer you an acceptance.

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With the exception being you wouldn't attend the other school (backup) if that were the only one you were accepted to. Seriously, this is for everyone, don't waste the time, effort, and money applying to schools that you would not 100% attend if they were the only school to offer you an acceptance.
I was implying that the person picked a second choice school as well he/she liked, but it was not the #1 choice. This is where researching schools comes into play. Yes, OSU was my first choice, but I also applied to other schools I wouldn't mind going to. With completing a Master's, I did not want to waste more time waiting to get into school. The con of applying to 1 school is that if you don't get in, you wait another year or even 2 (hopefully not) depending on how hard the school is to get into (not implying Nimbus's stats are meh). But if they are not going to be happy at any other school but your # 1 pick, then I'm inclined to agree with you.
 
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Looking back, yeah, I wish I had applied to more OOS schools. I got a lot more OOS love than I thought I would. But the VMCAS fees were simply too high for me to allow that. And honestly, I didn't see myself going to places like Missouri, Arizona, or Michigan (3 schools that got taken out of my app like a week before the deadline) for school because I don't know how happy I would have been so far away from home, even if these were the only schools that would taken me. Also, costs of interview traveling. BR (3 hr drive) and Starkville (nearly 6 hours) was hard enough on me financially and physically. Had I not withdrawn from the Ross process and gotten an interview, that would've been a 4 hour Dallas run. That would have been too much.

I know a lot of pre med advisors tend to tell people to have shortlists, but that's not practical for vet med sometimes. There's fewer schools, location becomes a big factor, OOS tuition is harder to pay off, and the application fees are astronomical. There's plenty of people in my state that just apply to their IS and it's just fine. Quite a few people I know that applied to only LSU this cycle got in. I did apply OOS to maximize my chances because I knew my IS was competitive (average science GPA almost 3.9) but I wouldn't necessarily recommend anyone else to do that if they didn't want to.
 
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I know a lot of pre med advisors tend to tell people to have shortlists, but that's not practical for vet med sometimes. There's fewer schools, location becomes a big factor, OOS tuition is harder to pay off, and the application fees are astronomical. There's plenty of people in my state that just apply to their IS and it's just fine. Quite a few people I know that applied to only LSU this cycle got in. I did apply OOS to maximize my chances because I knew my IS was competitive (average science GPA almost 3.9) but I wouldn't necessarily recommend anyone else to do that if they didn't want to.

That also brings up the question on whether or not a reduction of people applying OOS will wake up the industry to the debt:income ratio. As more and more people realize the actual monetary expense of going OOS, fewer are going to apply OOS. But we'd have to have a massive reduction to the point where seats are being filled and I don't see that happening any time soon.
 
That also brings up the question on whether or not a reduction of people applying OOS will wake up the industry to the debt:income ratio. As more and more people realize the actual monetary expense of going OOS, fewer are going to apply OOS. But we'd have to have a massive reduction to the point where seats are being filled and I don't see that happening any time soon.

I wonder about this a lot myself!
 
For anyone having to reapply this year, I recommend getting on VMCAS now and printing your application so you can reference it this cycle. That's what I did and it helped a lot. Unless they changed it this year and your information doesn't disappear. Plus if you print it now you can add your new experiences and everything to it and have a visual of how you have improved and see areas that might still be lacking. Sometimes, if you are like me, you're biggest problem in your application is how you describe your experiences. They told me my first year that I didn't show in depth experiences and I was too modest in how I wrote about them. So basically brag yourself up, don't lie though, but show the unique in-depth hands on experiences you got. So maybe improvement this round is even rewriting how you describe each experience.

2nd time applicant here. I saved mine to my computer a couple months ago just to be safe, but I really hope that some of the information is saved. I'd really hate to have to re-add EVERYTHING all over again.
 
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Good luck! Get all that excitement into your essay while it's still fresh in your mind.
Getting the excitement down is the easy part. I had the most trouble cutting down my essay into the character limit because I had too many things I wanted to share. Had to cut out half of my statement...

I had the same problem with ALL of my essays last cycle too. I had to keep re-editing and cutting out parts that I wanted to keep because I was way over the character limit!
 
Thanks!

I'd like to send last year's statement out to a couple of people and get some initial feedback before I go cutting it up. I was waiting for a readers thread to go up though. ;)

Yea I was rereading my personal statement from last cycle, and I actually really liked my essay. I thought it was a good summary of my experiences. However, due to the character limit I had to cut out paragraphs of information (I have a tendency to write too much when it comes to writing stuff), that I really really really wanted to include.
Since October 2015 (until August 2016) I have been interning with a non-profit relief agency called ADRA in Madagascar, I really want to change my essay to include lessons and experiences learned in this internship. I also really want to find a way to include a large section about my strong interest in International Veterinary Medicine and Veterinary Mission work. The problem is that I have no idea what should stay and what should go. Any suggestions from anyone who has been accepted would be greatly appreciated. I would love to send my PS to anyone who would be willing to read it.
 
2nd time applicant here. I saved mine to my computer a couple months ago just to be safe, but I really hope that some of the information is saved. I'd really hate to have to re-add EVERYTHING all over again.

I did that this year just in case... I put all my experiences, achievements and personal statement in a Google doc before I put it on VMCAS. Highly recommend because it made it easier to reference again, and if I had to apply again, I wouldn't have to re-write anything.
 
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I saw some mention of the stress associated with transcript delays. Just wanted to throw in that you need to be extra careful that the GRE scores are going to the right place. I experienced a glitch where the vet school selection for one of my schools was not available at the time I requested scores. GRE only gave a generic address option for the school. Not knowing any better, I chose it and thought everything was fine. My application was almost rejected by that school due to nonreceipt of GRE scores, but, thankfully, the school was understanding. Apparently, this is a common problem for that school. The GRE company, however, was unhelpful and refused to acknowledge the possibility of a system glitch. So, it likely has not been fixed.
My point is, request the scores as early as possible and follow up with the schools directly to confirm receipt.
Best of luck to everyone applying this cycle!


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FYI you can test VMCAS 2017 through April 14th. The link is on the VMCAS main page.
 
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For anyone else who is planning on applying for Texas A&M, I just checked TMDSAS and the application will open May 2nd!

Does anyone know if TMDSAS keeps any of our information from cycle to cycle?
 
When putting experiences into the application do they need to be in any specific order?


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When putting experiences into the application do they need to be in any specific order?


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Chronological, with most recent at the top. Which is a pain because you can't reorganize after you enter an experience, you have to delete and start over.
 
Chronological, with most recent at the top. Which is a pain because you can't reorganize after you enter an experience, you have to delete and start over.
I seriously had to delete all of my experiences and start over a good three times... I really hope they've fixed this so that VMCAS automatically arranges them in the correct order. Or at least added the ability to move them around.
 
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Chronological, with most recent at the top. Which is a pain because you can't reorganize after you enter an experience, you have to delete and start over.
Do they not automatically resort into chronological after input? I am pretty sure ours did, but that was three+ years ago. Sad if not.
 
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I seriously had to delete all of my experiences and start over a good three times... I really hope they've fixed this so that VMCAS automatically arranges them in the correct order. Or at least added the ability to move them around.

Wow, you have way more patience than me. I just left them how I entered them, so they were mostly chronological, but not perfect.
 
I don't think mine were chronological... Lol
 
Do they not automatically resort into chronological after input? I am pretty sure ours did, but that was three+ years ago. Sad if not.

At the start of last application cycle, VMCAS said they wouldn't and you'd need to order them correctly yourself. Which was a pain because there was no way to order them except putting them in correctly the first time (seriously VMCAS, give us some up and down arrows so we can move them around!). But towards the middle of the cycle, I'm pretty sure there was an update that VMCAS would automatically reorder them for you once you submitted because a bunch of people complained.

Didn't help me any, because I had already deleted all my experiences and reordered them myself when I realized I had forgotten somethings.
 
At the start of last application cycle, VMCAS said they wouldn't and you'd need to order them correctly yourself. Which was a pain because there was no way to order them except putting them in correctly the first time (seriously VMCAS, give us some up and down arrows so we can move them around!). But towards the middle of the cycle, I'm pretty sure there was an update that VMCAS would automatically reorder them for you once you submitted because a bunch of people complained.

Didn't help me any, because I had already deleted all my experiences and reordered them myself when I realized I had forgotten somethings.
Oh, really? So they did fix it? I don't remember that, but I'd submitted and got verified by mid-August, so...
 
They do rearrange after you submit! When I was going over the PDF later to prepare for interviews, that's how I saw I had put the date wrong for one of my experiences, so it was showing up at the top, when it had happened 2 years ago. I had actually placed it so chronologically it was in the right place, but when VMCAS did the auto-rearrange, it was moved to the typo-date.
 
Oh, really? So they did fix it? I don't remember that, but I'd submitted and got verified by mid-August, so...

I think they did in late June/ early July? I remember seeing a comment by one of the VMCAS people on their Q&A doc saying they had changed something, but I don't remember if it was about the experiences section or not. I think it was, because I remember being annoyed since I had spent so much time reentering them haha
 
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So... I think I sent my GRE scores to the wrong place when I sending them - how do I know If I sent it to the vet school instead of just to the school itself


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So... I think I sent my GRE scores to the wrong place when I sending them - how do I know If I sent it to the vet school instead of just to the school itself


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I would contact the admissions staff at the vet school directly to see if they received your scores.

VMCAS reorganized my scores, too- I definitely did not enter them in chronological order, but on the application pdf they were in the right order. :)
 
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Just some VMCAS updates - they are not offering professional transcript entry this year and if you started (or completed) an application last year you can roll over your data - just not transcripts, eLORs, or test scores. They also will be accepting GRE scores directly, but you'll have to check with your schools to see if they are using that service.
 
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Hi everyone! I'm looking at the test VMCAS right now and I have some quick questions for those who have applied before.
  1. If you worked closely with more than one doctor at hospital, should you list the doctors' names in your description? I didn't realize they don't give you a place for that.
  2. If you worked closely with the primary doctor/owner of the hospital (who will be submitting an eLOR) should I list him as my "supervisor" or should I list the ACTUAL supervisor who was a technician? (I did other work for him, such as training their trail horses and farmsitting.)
  3. Speaking of which...if I farm-sat and trained trail horses for a vet is that considered vet experience? I guess I gave their animals meds and stuff.
  4. Should you allow VMCAS to contact just about every experience you put down? Will they actually contact the people you list as your supervisors?
I can now relate to all the VMCAS complaints. This application is literally going to take me all summer. Omg.

Edit:
PS: My experiences are not automatically rearranging in chronological order. :shifty:
 
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Hi :) so I was also testing out the VMCAS and was wondering what to do about posting an on-going publication -i.e. the abstract is published but not the whole paper? I read the FAQ about putting published work in either the achievements section or under the description of the research experience itself, what is most commonly done?
Thanks! I'm way too excited (and slightly terrified) about finally getting to submit my app!


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Just some VMCAS updates - they are not offering professional transcript entry this year and if you started (or completed) an application last year you can roll over your data - just not transcripts, eLORs, or test scores. They also will be accepting GRE scores directly, but you'll have to check with your schools to see if they are using that service.
Thank goodness they're getting rid of professional transcript entry. That "service" was a nightmare.

Good luck to everyone applying this cycle! :D The VMCAS is a pain, but my recommendation would definitely be to get it done as early as you can, so that if there are problems you have plenty of time to resolve them.
 
Hi everyone! I'm looking at the test VMCAS right now and I have some quick questions for those who have applied before.
  1. If you worked closely with more than one doctor at hospital, should you list the doctors' names in your description?
  2. If you worked closely with the primary doctor/owner of the hospital (who will be submitting an eLOR) should I list him as my "supervisor" or should I list the ACTUAL supervisor who was a technician? (I did other work for him, such as training their trail horses and farmsitting.)
  3. Speaking of which...if I farm-sat and trained trail horses for a vet is that considered vet experience? I guess I gave their animals meds and stuff.
  4. Should you allow VMCAS to contact just about every experience you put down? Will they actually contact the people you list as your supervisors?
I can now relate to all the VMCAS complaints. This application is literally going to take me all summer. Omg.

VMCAS doesn't contact any of your experiences as far as I know... that's up to the schools and it just depends on the school whether they're going to check or not.

In my opinion you should allow them to contact every experience you put down.
 
So do you take the chance or rearrange them yourself?
I would clarify with VMCAS that they will rearrange. In the grandscheme of things I doubt the order of your experiences is going to make a huge difference. But if you're extra paranoid and have the patience and time to waste you can rearrange them yourself.
 
So do you take the chance or rearrange them yourself?

If they were dramatically out of order then I would probably change them because I don't trust VMCAS and it would bother me.

But it's a pain in the butt to change things so if it's just some small things here and there then I wouldn't worry about it at all.
 
Just some VMCAS updates - they are not offering professional transcript entry this year and if you started (or completed) an application last year you can roll over your data - just not transcripts, eLORs, or test scores. They also will be accepting GRE scores directly, but you'll have to check with your schools to see if they are using that service.

I was happy to find out about the data rolling over too! More time to work on the essays and supplemental applications. But inserting transcript information does take a very long time as well. It took me at least a few days to type everything in!

How would we send scores directly to VMCAS? Does VMCAS now have a code to send the score to? If our schools do approve of this option, then if I understand it correctly, we wouldn't have to send our scores to our schools?
 
I can now relate to all the VMCAS complaints. This application is literally going to take me all summer. Omg.

This was my reaction when I opened up VMCAS for the first time last cycle. I thought, " :eek: This is never going to be finished on time!"
Hopefully this time around VMCAS will go much more smoothly. But then again...it is VMCAS so I'm pretty sure even years from now when our kids are applying for vet school VMCAS will still be a pain in the butt.
 
One thing I will add for those of you who are reapplying: for things that VMCAS saved for you from last year, re-read the descriptions you put in for them and see if you need to edit them for clarity or update them at all.
 
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So I'm curious. What are y'all's thoughts of Lincoln Memorial University? I have read some information from some websites that say it is accredited and other places that say it is still waiting to obtain full accreditation. By looking at the program and the state of Tennessee I could say that I wouldn't mind going to school there, but I'm hesitant to even consider applying for schools that are not well known.
 
So I'm curious. What are y'all's thoughts of Lincoln Memorial University? I have read some information from some websites that say it is accredited and other places that say it is still waiting to obtain full accreditation. By looking at the program and the state of Tennessee I could say that I wouldn't mind going to school there, but I'm hesitant to even consider applying for schools that are not well known.
They have received provisional accreditation from the AVMA, meaning that they cannot become fully accredited until they graduate their first class (their first class matriculated in 2014, so like Midwestern they will not be able to be fully accredited until 2018 when that class graduates). However, this isn't necessarily a "bad" thing accreditation-wise - the AVMA does not hold it against students in the program if the school does not become fully accredited and they will not have to take the same licensing exams that students from non-accredited programs would need to take in order to practice in the United States (though, of course, they would still have to take NAVLE).

According to the AVMA:
When a student graduates from a veterinary school or college that is operating under any classification of AVMA COE accreditation, the student is considered a graduate of an accredited school for purposes of licensing examinations or other certification that requires graduation from an AVMA COE accredited institution as a prerequisite.

So from that perspective, you'd be fine. I think my bigger concerns with LMU (personally) are the cost of the program (tuition is about $44K a year, and they estimate total cost of living at ~$70k a year) and the lack of a teaching hospital. I'm not a fan the decentralized approach to the clinical year (where you go out into the community at large for every single rotation) and think it's important to have a teaching hospital that exists for the benefit of the students in the program.
 
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They have received provisional accreditation from the AVMA, meaning that they cannot become fully accredited until they graduate their first class (their first class matriculated in 2014, so like Midwestern they will not be able to be fully accredited until 2018 when that class graduates). However, this isn't necessarily a "bad" thing accreditation-wise - the AVMA does not hold it against students in the program if the school does not become fully accredited and they will not have to take the same licensing exams that students from non-accredited programs would need to take in order to practice in the United States (though, of course, they would still have to take NAVLE).

According to the AVMA:


So from that perspective, you'd be fine. I think my bigger concerns with LMU (personally) are the cost of the program (tuition is about $44K a year, and they estimate total cost of living at ~$70k a year) and the lack of a teaching hospital. I'm not a fan the decentralized approach to the clinical year (where you go out into the community at large for every single rotation) and think it's important to have a teaching hospital that exists for the benefit of the students in the program.

Yea ok that is good to know about the accreditation. As for the cost $44k a year is more reasonable than around $60k per year for Ohio and Minnesota. But $70k a year for the cost of living :eek:...that is a lot! I need to be able to afford housing, gas, and food for me and my cat wherever I attend vet school!
I didn't know about the lack of the teaching hospital; on first glance the website doesn't make it obvious.
 
Yea ok that is good to know about the accreditation. As for the cost $44k a year is more reasonable than around $60k per year for Ohio and Minnesota. But $70k a year for the cost of living :eek:...that is a lot! I need to be able to afford housing, gas, and food for me and my cat wherever I attend vet school!
I didn't know about the lack of the teaching hospital; on first glance the website doesn't make it obvious.

Ohio lets you apply to be a resident after year 1. Very few people actually end up paying $60K every year. It's a good option if you don't have an IS. Also, $70K for CoL is definitely not the highest you can go. For my IS the CoL is about $92k. However, the cheap tuition makes up for that.
 
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Ohio lets you apply to be a resident after year 1. Very few people actually end up paying $60K every year. It's a good option if you don't have an IS. Also, $70K for CoL is definitely not the highest you can go. For my IS the CoL is about $92k. However, the cheap tuition makes up for that.


ETA: $70k a year? That actually is high, sorry. Where are you getting that figure?
 
ETA: $70k a year? That actually is high, sorry. Where are you getting that figure?
It was on their website in the finances section. The number includes things like textbooks and transportation as well, but these are the numbers used to calculate how much a student may need to take out in loans I believe. I should have written cost of attendance rather than cost of living.
 
Ohio lets you apply to be a resident after year 1. Very few people actually end up paying $60K every year. It's a good option if you don't have an IS. Also, $70K for CoL is definitely not the highest you can go. For my IS the CoL is about $92k. However, the cheap tuition makes up for that.

That's good that students can apply to be a resident after year 1, helps to balance out the costs. I looked at their program, but the school doesn't particularly interest me. It is probably a good school for somebody, but not for me.

Luckily, I do have an instate school, Texas A&M, which is my number one choice. But since I am apply for 4 out of state schools as well, it is good to know about the cost of living in a place to figure out which locations and which programs will decrease the amount of debt I will be getting into!
 
I was happy to find out about the data rolling over too! More time to work on the essays and supplemental applications. But inserting transcript information does take a very long time as well. It took me at least a few days to type everything in!

How would we send scores directly to VMCAS? Does VMCAS now have a code to send the score to? If our schools do approve of this option, then if I understand it correctly, we wouldn't have to send our scores to our schools?
The way I interpreted it is that your coursework entry data rolls over, but you have to send in your transcripts again. But I could be wrong about that. I'm also not entirely sure how the GRE thing works. These were just updates they mentioned in a pre-vet student engagement email newsletter that I still receive for some reason. There weren't any details just yet.
 
The way I interpreted it is that your coursework entry data rolls over, but you have to send in your transcripts again. But I could be wrong about that. I'm also not entirely sure how the GRE thing works. These were just updates they mentioned in a pre-vet student engagement email newsletter that I still receive for some reason. There weren't any details just yet.

Yea I got the newsletter too. I interpreted it the same way for transcripts as well; I was just explaining how annoying and long the transcript entry process was. Because of that, it would be nice, if we didn't have to re-enter all of our course information. Also, I was just assuming someone might know some more information about how the GRE thing works.
 
Yea I got the newsletter too. I interpreted it the same way for transcripts as well; I was just explaining how annoying and long the transcript entry process was. Because of that, it would be nice, if we didn't have to re-enter all of our course information. Also, I was just assuming someone might know some more information about how the GRE thing works.
Yeah I've got nothing beyond what the newsletter said. I would think VMCAS will probably have their own code for sending GRE scores, and if your school is participating in that service you won't have to send scores to the school.
 
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Hi everyone! I'm looking at the test VMCAS right now and I have some quick questions for those who have applied before.
  1. If you worked closely with more than one doctor at hospital, should you list the doctors' names in your description? I didn't realize they don't give you a place for that.
  2. If you worked closely with the primary doctor/owner of the hospital (who will be submitting an eLOR) should I list him as my "supervisor" or should I list the ACTUAL supervisor who was a technician? (I did other work for him, such as training their trail horses and farmsitting.)
  3. Speaking of which...if I farm-sat and trained trail horses for a vet is that considered vet experience? I guess I gave their animals meds and stuff.
  4. Should you allow VMCAS to contact just about every experience you put down? Will they actually contact the people you list as your supervisors?
I can now relate to all the VMCAS complaints. This application is literally going to take me all summer. Omg.

Edit:
PS: My experiences are not automatically rearranging in chronological order. :shifty:

1) I wouldn't waste the characters listing out their names. You don't get much space in the description.
2) I would list the owner of the hospital (that's what I did) since you actually worked with them.
3) I wouldn't consider that vet experience. That seems more like animal experience.
4) I put that the schools could try to contact every single one of my experiences. One doesn't even exist any more, but it's up to the schools on whether or not to contact all of your experiences. Some do, some don't. I looked at it that I had no reason for them to not contact my experiences.

Hi :) so I was also testing out the VMCAS and was wondering what to do about posting an on-going publication -i.e. the abstract is published but not the whole paper? I read the FAQ about putting published work in either the achievements section or under the description of the research experience itself, what is most commonly done?
Thanks! I'm way too excited (and slightly terrified) about finally getting to submit my app!


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I would have put it under the research experience if it was research. If it wasn't research, then I would put it under achievements. That's up to you.
 
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