Untraditional applicant questions about vet experience and online pre-req

[AllieLane]

Hello everyone,

I am glad to find this forum to ask my questions since I am an untraditional applicant and don't know anyone who is in or applying for vet schools. I mainly have questions about the pre-req and vet experience.

Start with vet experience: I am actually not quite sure what kind of experience can be categorized as "vet experience". I already got a MA in psychology, and working on my MS in animal science. I have tons of research experience (4-5 years as undergraduate research assistant and graduate student), some animal experience (volunteer at shelters and no-kill non-profit), but zero clinical experience. I will be applying for class of 2021 so I still have about a year to work on that. My question is: what kind of experience is vet experience, and how to get that? Since I will be in school for the following year, part-time jobs as vet assistant/vet tech are not for me. I am thinking about apply to volunteer at one or two clinics/hospitals and zoos, but again, will that be VET experience, or just some more ANIMAL experience for me?

My second question is, if I take some of the pre-req (i.e. physics and general chem) online, what I should do with the lab? I was double majored in Bio and psychology as undergraduate, so I have plenty of upper level bio courses, but need to take a few more inorganic chem and general physics. Again, since I will be a graduate student in the following year, I am not sure how many classes I can take in school, and that's why I am thinking about doing some of them online. For example, I have 1 inorganic chem lab in my transcript, and if the requirement is "General/Inorganic chem w/ lab, 8 credit", does that mean I just need 7 more credit of lecture? I will make sure to check with the vet school I am interested in applying, but would also like to know how you guys would do in such an situation.

Sorry for typing so much and thank you for reading all of them (if you are still reading Any advice will be greatly appreciated!

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[Doktor Timo]

You can probably find a variety of threads answering the question, but "vet experience" specifically is medical experience under the supervision of an actual veterinarian. Anything else is just general "animal experience."

 

[Jess Monster]

1. Vet experience is any type of experience (paid or unpaid) in which you are directly supervised by a veterinarian. Work completed under the direction of a PhD or a MD may also count in some circumstances. This experience can be non-clinical (research under a vet, public health, etc.), though, it is always best to have some clinical exposure, even if brief. A link to a flowchart from VMCAS.

2. I would say that the expectation is that every chemistry and physics has an accompanying lab that you should plan to take unless specifically told by admissions that it is not a requirement. Meeting credit hours is less important than meeting course content standards. So, yes, you could find a bunch of lectures to piecemeal together 7 credits of inorganic chemistry, but if those courses don't cover the required material, you still haven't met the pre-requisite education.

In my opinion, online courses work fine when it's only lecture based material. If you have to take labs as well, you should consider taking those courses at your current school first. You'll need to look up semester/quarter credit limits but, unless your program is extremely demanding, you should be able to squeeze in at least one extra course per semester. If you can't, it might be worth your time to look at community colleges with cheap tuition in driving distance that offer night classes or hybrid courses (online lectures, in class labs).

When I was in my first year of grad school, I retook biochemistry and my second physics course in one quarter. The former didn't have a lab and was easy to squeeze into my graduate schedule. The latter was a course that required three lectures and two long labs every week that just would not fit. I ended up taking that course at a CC at night. It was a rough quarter, but it worked out in the end.

 

[AllieLane]

You can probably find a variety of threads answering the question, but "vet experience" specifically is medical experience under the supervision of an actual veterinarian. Anything else is just general "animal experience."

Thank you so much for your response! Yea I did a little research and I guess vet shadowing is something I should be looking for.

 

[AllieLane]

1. Vet experience is any type of experience (paid or unpaid) in which you are directly supervised by a veterinarian. Work completed under the direction of a PhD or a MD may also count in some circumstances. This experience can be non-clinical (research under a vet, public health, etc.), though, it is always best to have some clinical exposure, even if brief. A link to a flowchart from VMCAS.

2. I would say that the expectation is that every chemistry and physics has an accompanying lab that you should plan to take unless specifically told by admissions that it is not a requirement. Meeting credit hours is less important than meeting course content standards. So, yes, you could find a bunch of lectures to piecemeal together 7 credits of inorganic chemistry, but if those courses don't cover the required material, you still haven't met the pre-requisite education.

In my opinion, online courses work fine when it's only lecture based material. If you have to take labs as well, you should consider taking those courses at your current school first. You'll need to look up semester/quarter credit limits but, unless your program is extremely demanding, you should be able to squeeze in at least one extra course per semester. If you can't, it might be worth your time to look at community colleges with cheap tuition in driving distance that offer night classes or hybrid courses (online lectures, in class labs).

When I was in my first year of grad school, I retook biochemistry and my second physics course in one quarter. The former didn't have a lab and was easy to squeeze into my graduate schedule. The latter was a course that required three lectures and two long labs every week that just would not fit. I ended up taking that course at a CC at night. It was a rough quarter, but it worked out in the end.

Thank you SOOOO much, the link is very helpful! And I realized that I anyway need to work under a vet for reference purpose.

I will try to figure out a way to squeeze in at least one physics course into this semester since I don't have any physics lab on my transcript yet. I can imagine the semester to be tough since I will also be an teaching and research assistant. But it's very encouraging to know that you did it and it worked well! Hope it will also work out for me and I will come back to update about my upcoming crazy semester