Help with "Experiences"?

[flotus]

Hi, all.

I have just finished adding all of my experiences into VMCAS. I don't think I am lacking in any particular experience area. However, I am debating on adding any "hobbies" or pet ownership. Should I?

I don't want it to look like I'm fishing for hours. I just don't have another place in the application to talk about "me" totally exclusive of vet med. For example, I want to talk about my love for cooking and how I am working on my own cookbook. But, how would I even tally the hours up for culinary arts (I cook every day!)? Is this silly to even include?

Other hobbies I have include creative writing, horseback riding, and interior decorating

I am in a similar situation because I grew up in a suburban neighborhood but my family's farm was a quick drive down the street and they had horses/cows/chickens etc. and I have not listed that anywhere. There is probably 1,000 hours of animal experience/ownership that I want to list but seems silly/fishing?

What should I do?

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[zenarcade]

I would definitely list your family farm hours. I think as far as listing pet ownership goes, it's okay, but don't try to make it seem like you are inflating your hours- I listed mine, but I used the lowest estimate for hours I could. I also listed several hobbies, many of which aren't very significant, but I think it's good to show that you are a well-rounded applicant in areas other than vet med.

 

[EB73674]

I was told specifically to NOT list pet ownership hours, as it does look like it inflates your hours a bit, but working on a family farm is very different - that's a much more unlikely experience for someone to have. I'd list those hours but not pet ownership. As for your other stuff, do you have any specific accomplishments/recognitions/club hours for any of your hobbies? I believe there's a space for that on VMCAS! I also believe I remember having space in one of the essays for hobbies or "who are you outside of vet med" types of answers - I discussed loving music & dancing!

 

[KCgophervet]

As a counter - when I applied eons ago the admissions people at U of MN specifically told us to include pet ownership. I vote include them - its all animal experience and schools can always choose to ignore looking at an experience if they don't consider it valid but if you don't include it they won't even have that option.

 

[flotus]

I was told specifically to NOT list pet ownership hours, as it does look like it inflates your hours a bit, but working on a family farm is very different - that's a much more unlikely experience for someone to have. I'd list those hours but not pet ownership. As for your other stuff, do you have any specific accomplishments/recognitions/club hours for any of your hobbies? I believe there's a space for that on VMCAS! I also believe I remember having space in one of the essays for hobbies or "who are you outside of vet med" types of answers - I discussed loving music & dancing!

I have no significant accomplishments apart from a creative writing publication in early high school.
They really are just personal hobbies! Thanks for the advice.

 

[flotus]

As a counter - when I applied eons ago the admissions people at U of MN specifically told us to include pet ownership. I vote include them - its all animal experience and schools can always choose to ignore looking at an experience if they don't consider it valid but if you don't include it they won't even have that option.

Thank you for the advice! I’m thinking I will list the farm experience and that kind of includes pet ownership, but I won’t inflate hours even though I definitely could and call it thousands.

 

[SkiOtter]

Add both. I added hobbies like baking and such as extracurriculars (put “self” or something like that as my supervisor) even though I don’t have any awards or achievements from them my second cycle. It shows you are a more well rounded person and that your entire life does not revolve around vetmed. For writing, if you participated in NaNoWriMo, definitely add that in. I also ride horses and I added that as animal hours because I was grooming, interacting with horses, etc and it definitely counts as hours spent with animals.

Added personal pets too and put the start year as when I actively started helping care for the pets (feeding, walking, medicating as they got older and geriatric, etc) and just low balled it at like 300h/year or something iirc since it probably was about an hour a day. The family farm you should definitely put in there and give a rough estimate of how much you helped. Don’t low ball it too much. I assume you had at minimum 1-2 hours of helping daily? Put it down.

Like KC said, if a school doesn’t want to count that as actual extracurriculars or animal experience, they will just disregard it.

 

[that redhead]

There may also be secondary essays that allow you to give more details on your hobbies/who you are. You can also talk about hobbies at interviews