But, the question is: Are the people who don't get in on their first try just mediocre students who have no vet experience or poor grades? Or do they have all the credentials, but the vet school is just testing them?
Every year there's a group of very bright people with lots of experience who despite having done pretty well in recent coursework don't get in because they for one reason for another had a shoddy UG gpa. Sometimes it takes a lot to overcome that, and many times it means more than one application cycle.
There's also always a group of people who didn't know just what it would take to get in, or people who know they're kind of borderline but they want to apply "just to see."
But then, there's also always a group of people who have the "average" stats or even "above average" stats all around that end up not making it.
Because I clearly have nothing better to do (cough cough, like studying for imminent exam), I decided to make a graph that I think represents vet school admissions. Since there are so many hoops to get through to even get to the application stage, I feel like the normal distribution is skewed a bit to the right so that the average applicant ends up being people with pretty good qualifications. And given that something close to 50% of applicants don't matriculate (right?) I think it looks kinda like this.
http://i782.photobucket.com/albums/yy109/minnerbelle/crapshoot.jpg
So if you're somewhere between good and great, your name might as well be on a dartboard for any particular vet school (unless there's something sparkly and irresistable about you that catches people's attention). It's the dreaded, "you're a solid candidate, but we have so many qualified applicants this year" group. And what's worse is that criteria change for what makes someone a great or awesome applicant from school to school so it makes it really a big crapshoot.
So at least from what I've seen on these boards, it seems to be more a matter of how broadly/smartly people apply in terms of good/great applicants getting accepted. I think it's kind of rare to see solid applicants not get in anywhere if they've applied broadly to schools that accept lots of OOS students as well as their IS. I have a hard time believing that someone with solid academics/experience would be rejected by all 28 or so vet schools (that person would be incredibly unlucky). But then again, applying broadly/smartly for admissions doesn't necessarily mean applying smartly for your career and future. If my IS was waaaaay cheaper than any of the other OOS schools, I would have been much more concerned about getting accepted to that IS school over getting accepted just anywhere.
