Hurray! Fun times all around...
Anyhow, since we've still got some time before acceptances go out, just a friendly reminder...
If you're not accepted, remember:
And carry a towel to wipe up tears/spilled drinks/injuries to others/etc.
If you get rejected, it's not the end of the world, though it'll seem it at the time. What you need to do is (1) don't tear up the letter and throw it away in frustration and (2) go out to dinner any how or something else that's fun to take your mind off it. When you get home, you'll be glad you followed (1) because the next part is very important: read the rest of the letter and at the bottom it'll have a phone number to call in the morning or whenever. That's the phone number to call Yolanda Brinkman to schedule an exit interview (or, more colloquially, a 'postmortem'). If you're in College Station you can go down to her office and sit with her one on one and go over it. If you're not, you can do it over the phone. It is some what frustrating though that this isn't done until May or June, so you only have about 3 months to *know* what you need to improve before next time.
Basically this is where they tell you how close you got to acceptance/waitlist in number of points and what you can do to improve.
Also remember that ANY changes help if it's likely to add points! The second time I applied I was, literally, 0.263 points (out of 250; or 0.1%) away from waitlist. I was 4.243 points (or 1.7%) shy of acceptance. The areas that hurt me most were:
- GPA which I really couldn't improve drastically at that point
- GRE which I could most certainly improve upon, if even a tiny bit
- 'Veterinary Experience Environment' which I lost 2 points on. Basically don't do all your experience in one setting or even in one clinic if possible.
- And I lost 17 points in my interview that time. It was out of 60 that year but the weight they apply to various sections is always changing. My first time the interview was only worth 40 points.
They'll break it down like that for you so you know, as close as possible, exactly what you need to do to improve on for next time. As you can see it comes down very close to the wire at times and there's drastic changes in positioning based upon just a few points. So I'd
highly recommend doing the exit interview.
Keep your spirits up!
)
