Am I slacking in extracurriculars and activties?

[Caterpillar]

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Hi! I know that I should not do activities just because I think I should in order to get into vet school but I have a question... does it seem like I'm slacking on the whole extracurricular thing? I'm a member of a co-ed service fraternity (which takes up a lot of my time because we do a lot of volunteer work. I plan to try to get a leadership position in it), and my school's pre-vet club. Part of me wants to do more, but I feel really busy already... I'm also a resident assistant (This feels like a 24/7 job right now. Ugh.), I have a part-time job cleaning up a lab (5-10 hours per week), and I do research for credit 5-10 hours per week. Should I try to branch out with my extracurriculars or take it easy because I have other things taking up my time?

 

[LetItSnow]

Hi! I know that I should not do activities just because I think I should in order to get into vet school but I have a question... does it seem like I'm slacking on the whole extracurricular thing? I'm a member of a co-ed service fraternity (which takes up a lot of my time because we do a lot of volunteer work. I plan to try to get a leadership position in it), and my school's pre-vet club. Part of me wants to do more, but I feel really busy already... I'm also a resident assistant (This feels like a 24/7 job right now. Ugh.), I have a part-time job cleaning up a lab (5-10 hours per week), and I do research for credit 5-10 hours per week. Should I try to branch out with my extracurriculars or take it easy because I have other things taking up my time?

That sounds like a pretty full load.

The only thing I'd consider long-term is how much veterinary experience you have. If you have worked as a tech/assistant/whatever, or shadowed for a thousand hours, or all your research experience counts as veterinary (I don't have a clue how they separate out hours anymore on the application) ... you're probably fine. But if you don't have a lot of veterinary experience, keep in mind you're going to want at least 400-500 hours on the low end, and plan accordingly.

Being active in the community is huge - I think a lot of people don't appreciate how good it looks on an application - but in the end veterinary experience is the more important of the two.

 

[that redhead]

I agree with LIS but it's worth reiterating: make sure that you have vet experience hours in there as they're the most important activity on your application.