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KazLZ

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Hello all, I'm going to be applying for the coming 2015 cycle which opens up May 13, on my birthday!!! I'm very insecure about my stats and I'm hoping to work on them as I go through the application process. I will be graduating with my B.S. in Biology on May 5 and hopefully after this semester my GPA will be a 3.6+ (Taking 6 credits and I'm doing well now, with A's in all of them it'll probably get there) My current GPA is a 3.56 and I'm unsure of my science GPA but once I get that I'll provide it. I haven't taken my GRE and I am planning on taking it May 1, I'll be using this next month to study for it. I hardly have any extra curricular activity other than Approx. 400 hours at a SA vet and 5 measly hours at a horse rehabilitation ranch. I'll spare everyone the excuses and just let it be known I slacked hardcore and left my experience portion of my application for the last minute. I want to apply to the UF CVM asap and I have a little extra incentive, I'm a Florida native and would like to go to a school closest to home and my girlfriend of 5 years got accepted into their dental school and will start August of this year. I'd like to get into whatever school accepts me and I will be applying to other schools, however the school I most want to get into is UF. My plan is to submit my UF application first and continue updating them as I gain a lot more experience this summer. My only obligations this summer would be to working and volunteering whereas before I would convince myself there's no way I can volunteer, work and study and still have some free time. Little did I know over the course of 4 years that could have added up to a whole lot of hours. SO after this long winded introductory paragraph, I still have some questions. Should I apply later when my application could potentially look better and I gain more diverse experience? Should I postpone my GRE exam and instead study longer to ensure a higher score that would help my application stand out? Should I apply early and constantly update the schools I apply to? Should I consider Ross University and apply to UF as the school in which I spend my clinical years in? All in all I want to be a veterinarian, but I also want to be a veterinarian close to the girl of my dreams. However, my primary goal is to be a veterinarian and if UF doesn't accept me and another school does I'll be attending there. Thank you for any advice you can provide and I hope I didn't bore you!

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Welcome to SDN! There's a thread stickied to the top of this forum titles "What are my chances." Post your stats there and there are a bunch of people who will give you awesome advice!
But my short advice would be to meet with a UF admissions counselor and talk to them to see how you can tailor your application to them, since that is your #1 school. And I hear that UF really like their equine experience (Gainesville being so close to Ocala and all). So I'd advise getting a crap ton of experience this summer and submitting your application as late as possible to have as many hours on your original app. There are some schools that won't accept updates after you hit submit, and idk if UF is one of these or not.
 
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Hello all, I'm going to be applying for the coming 2015 cycle which opens up May 13, on my birthday!!! I'm very insecure about my stats and I'm hoping to work on them as I go through the application process. I will be graduating with my B.S. in Biology on May 5 and hopefully after this semester my GPA will be a 3.6+ (Taking 6 credits and I'm doing well now, with A's in all of them it'll probably get there) My current GPA is a 3.56 and I'm unsure of my science GPA but once I get that I'll provide it. I haven't taken my GRE and I am planning on taking it May 1, I'll be using this next month to study for it. I hardly have any extra curricular activity other than Approx. 400 hours at a SA vet and 5 measly hours at a horse rehabilitation ranch. I'll spare everyone the excuses and just let it be known I slacked hardcore and left my experience portion of my application for the last minute. I want to apply to the UF CVM asap and I have a little extra incentive, I'm a Florida native and would like to go to a school closest to home and my girlfriend of 5 years got accepted into their dental school and will start August of this year. I'd like to get into whatever school accepts me and I will be applying to other schools, however the school I most want to get into is UF. My plan is to submit my UF application first and continue updating them as I gain a lot more experience this summer. My only obligations this summer would be to working and volunteering whereas before I would convince myself there's no way I can volunteer, work and study and still have some free time. Little did I know over the course of 4 years that could have added up to a whole lot of hours. SO after this long winded introductory paragraph, I still have some questions. Should I apply later when my application could potentially look better and I gain more diverse experience? Should I postpone my GRE exam and instead study longer to ensure a higher score that would help my application stand out? Should I apply early and constantly update the schools I apply to? Should I consider Ross University and apply to UF as the school in which I spend my clinical years in? All in all I want to be a veterinarian, but I also want to be a veterinarian close to the girl of my dreams. However, my primary goal is to be a veterinarian and if UF doesn't accept me and another school does I'll be attending there. Thank you for any advice you can provide and I hope I didn't bore you!
Applying earlier in the cycle isn't going to affect your application either way, so I would say wait until you have the experience. You can't submit VMCAS early for one school and not the others as far as I know, so if you did it early you would have to update all of the schools, and some will not accept updates. Better to wait until your application is as complete as possible.
That said, why not start getting more varied experience now instead of waiting until the summer? You said you're only taking 6 credits right now, do you have some free time (even a couple hours a week) that you could be using for shadowing or volunteering?
Also, you can post your stats in the "What are my chances" thread and get some detailed feedback there.
 
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Thank you for the advice and guidance everybody! I am currently volunteering and continuing to volunteer at the SA clinic, I applied to be a volunteer at an exotic animal clinic and hoping to hear back from there. As far as Equine experience, the place where I am currently volunteering is a 30 min drive and I'm currently working to pay for some living expenses so it gets a little costly for me. My semester is only a month away from being done and I plan on Volunteering 30+ hours a week in different places. I'm excited to gain new experience, I just hope its enough to get me in. I've seen some people's experience stats and frankly it's intimidating! I'm gonna go ahead and head over to the what are my chances thread and see what I can learn from there.
 
Thank you for the advice and guidance everybody! I am currently volunteering and continuing to volunteer at the SA clinic, I applied to be a volunteer at an exotic animal clinic and hoping to hear back from there. As far as Equine experience, the place where I am currently volunteering is a 30 min drive and I'm currently working to pay for some living expenses so it gets a little costly for me. My semester is only a month away from being done and I plan on Volunteering 30+ hours a week in different places. I'm excited to gain new experience, I just hope its enough to get me in. I've seen some people's experience stats and frankly it's intimidating! I'm gonna go ahead and head over to the what are my chances thread and see what I can learn from there.

Where do you live in Florida? I lived most of my life in Florida when I moved to the US and currently have 4 (kind of 5 at the moment. Whoops) horses in Central Florida at the moment. I'd be happy to give you some equine contacts and advise you to steer clear of as well.
 
Wait to submit your application until the end of the window so you can accrue those veterinary hours. Like Wildzoo said, you can't submit to specific schools separately and when you submit has no effect on when your application is looked at (unlike human medical schools).

As for experience, I understand the driving can get costly, but in my opinion, it's worth the extra cost to get that large animal or equine experience to balance out your application.
 
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