Lacking large animal expirience

[heyyimhayley]

I was wondering if anyone had any insight to which schools expect you to have experience in all areas, versus which are okay with you lacking in certain areas, if you have extensive experience in others?

For background, I have no large animal experience. I'm hoping to have ~20-30 hours of shadowing a large animal veterinarian by the end of the summer, but other than that I have nothing! I went to college in a big city with no large animal places commutable without a car. I do have almost 2000 hours in small animal, and ~700 in exotics, and my GPA/GRE are slightly above average for most schools. I was wondering which schools this will limit me the most and least for?

Thanks

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[SummerTheLynx]

I was wondering if anyone had any insight to which schools expect you to have experience in all areas, versus which are okay with you lacking in certain areas, if you have extensive experience in others?

For background, I have no large animal experience. I'm hoping to have ~20-30 hours of shadowing a large animal veterinarian by the end of the summer, but other than that I have nothing! I went to college in a big city with no large animal places commutable without a car. I do have almost 2000 hours in small animal, and ~700 in exotics, and my GPA/GRE are slightly above average for most schools. I was wondering which schools this will limit me the most and least for?

Thanks

I feel like that there are many pre-vets in this similar situation. In terms of actual food animal experience, I only had around 20-30 hours of experience when applying (although I am guessing you are lumping equine into this mix, which I did have around 100 in). I don't think that any school is going to be like, "Well, this person looks like a good applicant, but oooohhhh, minimal large animal experience.... Yeah, we're going to have to reject this applicant." I mean, ideally, you would be able to obtain a bit more experience in food animal, and a bit of experience in equine, just to obtain increased breadth. But I would be inclined to think that no school has a large amount of food animal experience as a prerequisite.

If I recall, Florida is fond of equine experience, and Kansas likes a bit of large animal experience, but once again, I don't think that lacking these types of experiences will automatically disqualify you. I applied to a fairly limited amount of schools, so other people may be able to weigh in on other school's preferences.

 

[WildZoo]

I was wondering if anyone had any insight to which schools expect you to have experience in all areas, versus which are okay with you lacking in certain areas, if you have extensive experience in others?

For background, I have no large animal experience. I'm hoping to have ~20-30 hours of shadowing a large animal veterinarian by the end of the summer, but other than that I have nothing! I went to college in a big city with no large animal places commutable without a car. I do have almost 2000 hours in small animal, and ~700 in exotics, and my GPA/GRE are slightly above average for most schools. I was wondering which schools this will limit me the most and least for?

Thanks

UTK let me in with no large animal experience (and I mean 0). And I had fewer total hours than you - 250 zoo, 200 shelter, 580 private practice (small animal/exotics/wildlife). While having no large animal experience was a detriment for me with other schools, like Florida, I think having some experience (the 20-30 hours you mentioned), extensive experience in other areas, and good academics probably puts you in a better position. But keep in mind - this stuff is largely a mystery to all of us.

 

[Gemgrrrl]

I was wondering if anyone had any insight to which schools expect you to have experience in all areas, versus which are okay with you lacking in certain areas, if you have extensive experience in others?

For background, I have no large animal experience. I'm hoping to have ~20-30 hours of shadowing a large animal veterinarian by the end of the summer, but other than that I have nothing! I went to college in a big city with no large animal places commutable without a car. I do have almost 2000 hours in small animal, and ~700 in exotics, and my GPA/GRE are slightly above average for most schools. I was wondering which schools this will limit me the most and least for?

Thanks

I only had about 20 hours of LA veterinary experience. I did have non-veterinary LA experience from my family's dairy farm, but I don't live in the same state so it wasn't extensive. I didn't feel like it had a negative impact on my application.

I'm not sure about which schools will be focused more on this. I think it would depend more on what you plan to do. If you put on your application that you're planning to track LA and you have no LA experience, they might be concerned that you don't know what you're getting yourself into.

 

[Gemgrrrl]

The truth:

But keep in mind - this stuff is largely a mystery to all of us.

 

[Felixor90]

I think that a lot of schools just look for a broad range of experiences. I had like 10 LA hours, but made up for that with exotics, zoo, rehab, and alternative medicine experiences that I think made up for the lack of LA experience. I also emphasized that I wanted to stick to exotics so maybe that helped. But as mentioned above, we're all blind to how they make decisions.

 

[heyyimhayley]

Although I am guessing you are lumping equine into this mix.

Yep, no equine either. The 20-30 hours I have planned would be shadowing a mixed practice vet. So hopefully I'll get to see some equine and some food animal too...

 

[heyyimhayley]

I think that a lot of schools just look for a broad range of experiences. I had like 10 LA hours, but made up for that with exotics, zoo, rehab, and alternative medicine experiences that I think made up for the lack of LA experience. I also emphasized that I wanted to stick to exotics so maybe that helped. But as mentioned above, we're all blind to how they make decisions.

Hi! I just tried to send you a PM, but it wouldn't let me for some reason. I plan on having a focus in exotics too, so I was wondering if you had any suggestions on how to emphasize that/use that to my advantage?

 

[WildZoo]

Holla at the exotics people in this thread

 

[Felixor90]

Hi! I just tried to send you a PM, but it wouldn't let me for some reason. I plan on having a focus in exotics too, so I was wondering if you had any suggestions on how to emphasize that/use that to my advantage?

Well, the largest portion of my experience was with exotics and I wrote far more for those sections than for the others. I was way more thorough about explaining what I did as a tech while working with the exotics than I was for the non-exotics side. I was hoping that would get them to look at me as "the exotics guy" when reading my application and hopefully not be as critical of me not having LA experience. For some supplemental applications, I wrote about how it's important to have experiences with all to know what you want to do, but how I had a passions for exotics and that's why I focused on that. I then went on to briefly describe all the different animals I've worked with since it showed my diverse experiences better. For example, saying "most of my experience has been with birds, lizards, large cats, zebras, etc." sounds much more diverse than saying "most of my experience is with exotics." I then talked about my exotics experience during my interviews.

I turned on my messages thingy again, so if you have any specific questions, PM me.

 

[AniSci]

UTK let me in with no large animal experience (and I mean 0). And I had fewer total hours than you - 250 zoo, 200 shelter, 580 private practice (small animal/exotics/wildlife). While having no large animal experience was a detriment for me with other schools, like Florida, I think having some experience (the 20-30 hours you mentioned), extensive experience in other areas, and good academics probably puts you in a better position. But keep in mind - this stuff is largely a mystery to all of us.

I got rejected from UTK (my own undergraduate school) even though I had virtually 0 L/A vet experience; my graduating GPA was awesome, my GRE was average, I had a lot of S/A vet (which I want to go into anyway--honestly I have no desire to go into large or farm animal medicine) experience, and since I'm an animal science major I had quite a bit of large animal experience (most of which was usually supervised by a vet anyway) just from labs we did in school. I also had great recommendation letters and I've volunteered at my local shelter, done some extra curricular stuff during high school with animals, and volunteered in other ways throughout college.

The interview, I'll admit, could've been better. But I don't understand how going through a terrifying interview should be a way to determine if you'll be a good veterinarian/doctor etc. ANYWAY.

Looking back on it, have you been able to narrow down how you managed to get in without any L/A vet experience?

I know of someone I had classes with who applied spur of the moment, just on a whim (for whatever reason O_O), without any experience at all and winging the interview. She got accepted to UTK and is currently a student. Again, I guess anything is possible.

 

[WhtsThFrequency]

I got rejected from UTK (my own undergraduate school) even though I had virtually 0 L/A vet experience; my graduating GPA was awesome, my GRE was average, I had a lot of S/A vet (which I want to go into anyway--honestly I have no desire to go into large or farm animal medicine) experience, and since I'm an animal science major I had quite a bit of large animal experience (most of which was usually supervised by a vet anyway) just from labs we did in school. I also had great recommendation letters and I've volunteered at my local shelter, done some extra curricular stuff during high school with animals, and volunteered in other ways throughout college.

The interview, I'll admit, could've been better. But I don't understand how going through a terrifying interview should be a way to determine if you'll be a good veterinarian/doctor etc. ANYWAY.

Looking back on it, have you been able to narrow down how you managed to get in without any L/A vet experience?

I know of someone I had classes with who applied spur of the moment, just on a whim (for whatever reason O_O), without any experience at all and winging the interview. She got accepted to UTK and is currently a student. Again, I guess anything is possible.

Yeah, screw job interviews. Useless things!

 

[dyachei]

I got rejected from UTK (my own undergraduate school) even though I had virtually 0 L/A vet experience; my graduating GPA was awesome, my GRE was average, I had a lot of S/A vet (which I want to go into anyway--honestly I have no desire to go into large or farm animal medicine) experience, and since I'm an animal science major I had quite a bit of large animal experience (most of which was usually supervised by a vet anyway) just from labs we did in school. I also had great recommendation letters and I've volunteered at my local shelter, done some extra curricular stuff during high school with animals, and volunteered in other ways throughout college.

The interview, I'll admit, could've been better. But I don't understand how going through a terrifying interview should be a way to determine if you'll be a good veterinarian/doctor etc. ANYWAY.

Looking back on it, have you been able to narrow down how you managed to get in without any L/A vet experience?

I know of someone I had classes with who applied spur of the moment, just on a whim (for whatever reason O_O), without any experience at all and winging the interview. She got accepted to UTK and is currently a student. Again, I guess anything is possible.

yes.

it was unlikely the fact that you had 0 large animal experience was what got you rejected.

 

[WildZoo]

I got rejected from UTK (my own undergraduate school) even though I had virtually 0 L/A vet experience; my graduating GPA was awesome, my GRE was average, I had a lot of S/A vet (which I want to go into anyway--honestly I have no desire to go into large or farm animal medicine) experience, and since I'm an animal science major I had quite a bit of large animal experience (most of which was usually supervised by a vet anyway) just from labs we did in school. I also had great recommendation letters and I've volunteered at my local shelter, done some extra curricular stuff during high school with animals, and volunteered in other ways throughout college.

The interview, I'll admit, could've been better. But I don't understand how going through a terrifying interview should be a way to determine if you'll be a good veterinarian/doctor etc. ANYWAY.

Looking back on it, have you been able to narrow down how you managed to get in without any L/A vet experience?

I know of someone I had classes with who applied spur of the moment, just on a whim (for whatever reason O_O), without any experience at all and winging the interview. She got accepted to UTK and is currently a student. Again, I guess anything is possible.

Other parts of my application stood out I guess. To me they seem to do things very holistically once you get to the interview stage. They have to narrow the hundreds of interviews down to about 85 people. And, they are also trying to build a class - so it's not always just whether an individual will make a good vet, but whether they feel that individual will fill a niche in the class, what they'll contribute, etc. I really can't tell you why I got in without any large animal experience, but maybe they liked my other experience and liked how I answered their questions about my lack of LA stuff in my interview. I suppose they just thought I was a good fit.

 

[WildZoo]

@AniSci did you do a file review or ask them what to improve about your application?

 

[Mad Jack]

I got rejected from UTK (my own undergraduate school) even though I had virtually 0 L/A vet experience; my graduating GPA was awesome, my GRE was average, I had a lot of S/A vet (which I want to go into anyway--honestly I have no desire to go into large or farm animal medicine) experience, and since I'm an animal science major I had quite a bit of large animal experience (most of which was usually supervised by a vet anyway) just from labs we did in school. I also had great recommendation letters and I've volunteered at my local shelter, done some extra curricular stuff during high school with animals, and volunteered in other ways throughout college.

The interview, I'll admit, could've been better. But I don't understand how going through a terrifying interview should be a way to determine if you'll be a good veterinarian/doctor etc. ANYWAY.

Looking back on it, have you been able to narrow down how you managed to get in without any L/A vet experience?

I know of someone I had classes with who applied spur of the moment, just on a whim (for whatever reason O_O), without any experience at all and winging the interview. She got accepted to UTK and is currently a student. Again, I guess anything is possible.

The interview is the single most important part of any application. It's a good test of how you perform under pressure, and relevant because a good portion of your job will be done under extremely stressful circumstances. Once you have an interview, the rest of your application means nothing- they've already shown they like you enough to let you in the door. They just need to make sure you can handle some stress and that they like you first.

 

[Trilt]

The interview is the single most important part of any application. It's a good test of how you perform under pressure, and relevant because a good portion of your job will be done under extremely stressful circumstances. Once you have an interview, the rest of your application means nothing- they've already shown they like you enough to let you in the door. They just need to make sure you can handle some stress and that they like you first.

This is not necessarily true, depending on the vet school. Some have pretty clearly demarcated point systems for the different aspects of the application.

I don't know the details because it was well before my time, but my school actually completely did away with interviews after they looked into it and determined their class didn't change significantly between who they would have selected without and with them. Was nice to not have to worry about that whole shebang.

 

[Mad Jack]

This is not necessarily true, depending on the vet school. Some have pretty clearly demarcated point systems for the different aspects of the application.

I don't know the details because it was well before my time, but my school actually completely did away with interviews after they looked into it and determined their class didn't change significantly between who they would have selected without and with them. Was nice to not have to worry about that whole shebang.

A mediocre interview won't hold one back, generally. But most medical schools, at least, have a special category reserved for people that completely and utterly fail their interview catastrophically- people who look okay on paper, but when you spend five minutes with them you're just like, "oh god, this person shouldn't ever touch a patient." Hence why the interview is important- it's easy to do well in classes. But you can tell a lot about a person pretty quickly in person that might otherwise be covered up by clever personal statement writing and hard work in class. Or occasionally they just say something so awful, so mind-bendingly stupid that they'd be disciplined if they were a student, and thus aren't exactly the sort of person you want in your class, because they'll just be trouble.

80% of the time, the interview goes relatively okay. 15% of the time, it goes really well. But 5% of the time, you identify someone that really shouldn't be there. Interviews have a very strong negative predictive value for psychosocial issues, but a very poor positive predictive value for student success.