Chances at getting into vet school Class 0f 2011

[vetstudent2011]

Hey you guys!
I have a question to ask. I'm currently a senior this yr at NCSU and I want to go to our vet school. I have a really low GPA (I'm talking below a 2.6), and I want to know if I stand a chance at vet school in NC or any other state. I haven't taken the GRE yet, and I currently work at PetSmart and am looking for some more animal experience in any area. I don't plan on applying until 2010 or 2011. I won't be graduating until probably fall 2010 o spring 2011. What do you think? ( I'm a minority and female, I do have plans to raise my GPA as much as I can before I leave ( I have ~49 credits to complete, I've also worked my entire undergraduate career, and have a minor in health,medicine and human values (I wanted to be a PA before deciding to become a vet), and I plan to also minor in ANS-hence why I have 49 credits to go). Those who have made it into vet school without a stellar GPA but a good GRE please reply. I'm looking for a glimmer of hope.
Thanks,
vetstudent2011

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[lailanni]

You should seriously consider a Caribbean school. Their average GPA is around 3.0 and below. That would be your best bet. It would be a long shot to get into a US school with your current numbers.

Or you can go for a masters, keep your grades up, show the adcoms that you can handle a hard science load, get some veterinary experience and you may have a better shot at US schools.

You will need veterinary experience with a DVM, so you will want to get into a clinic/research, etc as soon as you can to start building hours.

You may want to take a look at the successful applicants threads, there are some who have gotten in with lower GPAs, and see the kinds of experiences they had.

 

[Ben and Me]

The minimum overall GPA for NCSU in state applicants is a 3.0. You also have to have a 3.3 in the required courses and a 3.3 for the last 45 credit hours.

At the info session I went to last spring, the admissions people were quick to emphasize that that is the MINIMUM. The average successful applicant had over a 3.6 in all 3 areas.

They do have "Alternate Eligibility," which you can read about on the website. Apparently it is pretty hard to be considered for that though. The following is from the website:

Alternative eligibility
It is recognized that applicants may not meet the minimum academic standards. In certain cases, applicants that do not meet the minimum GPA requirements may be considered for admission based on alternative evidence of academic qualification as determined by the admissions committee. Consideration under "Alternative Eligibility" applies only to GPA requirements and not the other admissions requirements (C- or better in required courses, no more than two required courses remaining in the spring semester of the admissions cycle, lack of prerequisites, etc.). Alternative eligibility must be requested at time of application by completing the appropriate sections on the Supplemental Application.
Please contact the Student Services Office if you have a question concerning "alternative eligibility."

You mentioned working at PetSmart. Do you work at one of the vet clinics at PetSmart (Banfield), or just in the pet supply area?

NCSU requires a minimum of 400 hours of veterinary experience to even apply...and I get the feeling that if you're planning on applying under Alternate Eligibility, you should probably have a lot more than that.

But you do still have time to pull up your GPA some, and also to really excel in those last 45 hours.

 

[IvyLynx]

I'm a jr/sr at NCSU too, I'll pm you.

 

[CatVet2Be]

Your current stats will certainly make it more difficult but not impossible to get into a US school. If you do extraordinarily well during your last 49 credits (As close to a 4.0 as humanly possible) and retake some classes you haven't done well in then you can get your GPA up to a point where though it may not be very competitive it won't automatically rule you out. A really strong GRE score will also help make up for some of the points you'll lose on GPA during the admissions review procedures. Worry more about your stats than experience at the moment because you can always take a year to get varied experience but it'll take a lot longer to undo bad grades. Also try to make sure your prereq GPA is strong. Being a minority won't make much of a difference if you can't surive the first cuts, and unfortunately being female definitely doesn't help since 70-80% of vet school students are female. Kind of cool that we've taken over the field but it certainly doensn't help set us apart from other applicants.

 

[sumstorm]

My GPA is a 3.4 and I am struggling fo admissions. Currently 4 out of 6 rejections. IS for NCSU and waiting to hear. I have over 1k hours of vet experience, and over 12k of animal experience. I have signficant experience with zoo animals, marine species (including mammals, turtles, sharks, etc), wildlife, livestock, and companion animals. I also have physiological research, toxicology research, and international research. I also have been responsible for necropsies on all fields. I also worked 40-50 hours while attending classes all 4 years of undergrad, and 80+ hours on every break. All of the numbers are well supported (provable via logs maintained by the organizations I worked with and by things like W-2's.) My GRE's are decent. My biggest limitation is that I graduated 7 years before the application, but did teach undergrad science labs and take science courses the past 3 semesters to make up for that. My GPA for the past 3 semesters is 3.9 and I am still working full time as a vet assistant.

So, there are calculators available that would tell you what getting 4.0's in your remaining credits will do for your GPA. I would take a look and be realistic...are you really able to get 4.0's in everything? how about 3.7's? What does each do to your GPA? The other things would include getting lots of vet experience in a wide variety of fields. Also, you need to have a good reason beyond working for your GPA to be low. Has it improved over the course of undergrad? Did you learn how to balance full time work with courses? My early GPA was lower than my last couple of years. To be honest, if working full time isn't helping with a 3.4, it may not help with something less.

Also, I think you will need to have a compelling reason for deciding to go into vet med. Not wanting to be a PA won't be enough. What made you decide? For me, I have always moved towards vet medicine, however the extreme poverty that I experienced as a child made undergrad nearly impossible to afford, and without any parental support in undergrad or after, I couldn't justify taking the additional debt load (plus without co-signers for loans, there were other issues, and I was under 21 when I graduated.) I have learned a lot in my working career that would actually be very beneficial to a vet (inventory control, management, customer service, etc.)

Of course, just my opinion.

 

[Pandacinny]

Just to keep things in perspective, some of Sumstorm's stats are pretty abnormal. I mean, her GPA is normal, but her experience is completely out of the park as far as diversity, quality, and hours go. Don't think you'll need to get tens of thousands of hours of experience and travel overseas and publish a paper to get in (not that any of that would hurt!) You will need to improve your GPA, though, and should try clarifying your goals. Getting some experience should help you do that.

(Sumstorm, I'd say absolutely don't give up hope until you hear from your IS. You sound like a great candidate to me!)

 

[rouxeny]

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[sofficat]

I'd say just do your best, try to get as much experience as you can and go from there.
And just to clarify, your title "chance to get into vet school class of 2011" is misleading and confusing. If you are applying in 2011 (and accepted to start 2012), then you would be class of 2016. Right now, second year vet students are class of 2011. No big deal, you probably just misunderstood and that's ok. Just think back to high school, when you started high school in, say year 2002, you weren't class of 2002, you were class of 2006.
Anyway, you have a bit of time to work your hardest on this and to figure out if this is even what you really want to do. There's a good chance you may have to apply 2 or 3 times to get in, or to even get an interview, but for those who are really dedicated to this field it is completely worth it.
Good luck!

 

[jaydog12]

Well it could be worse, I just got accepted to U. of Missouri. My overall GPA is at 3.85 (3.9 science GPA) and I have a lot of animal experience (40k roughly), but I only have 500 hrs of small animal/exotic and 200 equine vet experience. My GRE score is only 1050 (pretty much crap in terms of vet admissions) and no research experience since I spend most of my time dealing with animal rescue and foster work (I do work with someone who has a PhD in Animal Behavior). My stats are not that impressive in terms of others, but it was enough to get into Mizzou, so there is some hope.

 

[david594]

Well it could be worse, I just got accepted to U. of Missouri. My overall GPA is at 3.85 (3.9 science GPA) and I have a lot of animal experience (40k roughly), but I only have 500 hrs of small animal/exotic and 200 equine vet experience. My GRE score is only 1050 (pretty much crap in terms of vet admissions) and no research experience since I spend most of my time dealing with animal rescue and foster work (I do work with someone who has a PhD in Animal Behavior). My stats are not that impressive in terms of others, but it was enough to get into Mizzou, so there is some hope.

How old are you?

 

[jaydog12]

I am a 22 year old guy living by the Jersey Shore and doing.....stuff

 

[WildlifeSaver]

40k? That's impressive

 

[jaydog12]

Everyday, I have to foster and work with a dog that has some behavioral issues, and so I spend a lot of hours dealing with dogs that were neglected, abandoned, and abused.

 

[david594]

Everyday, I have to foster and work with a dog that has some behavioral issues, and so I spend a lot of hours dealing with dogs that were neglected, abandoned, and abused.

So accordingly you account for nearly every waking hour of your entire life that you were at home.

I think this is the reason many schools specify that you list hours of "Animal experience" excluding time with your household animals.

 

[jaydog12]

The foster dogs that my family and I take in do not stay with us, they get adopted out to families. I have been doing this since my freshman year of high school. I have to sometimes take dogs on transports that take me to Pittsburgh, Boston, and Nashville (I am from Central Jersey). I have to make home visits to potential adoptees and take the foster dog to see if the person/family is compatible with the dog. Heck, I have to explain to some people that are denied to adopt the dog the potential problems they have in their household that would be problematic for the dog. I sometimes have to do behavioral rehabilitation with some of the dogs we get because of the prior environment the dogs were situated in. These foster dogs are not animals my family owns in the house. I called a number of vet schools and they said this was acceptable as animal experience as long as the animals do not become a member of my family permenantly and to show proof that I am part of a rescue organization.

 

[rouxeny]

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[CorporateFatCat]

Speaking of fostering, I was just pondering how to put down animal experience for raising assistance dogs. I mean, yeah they are with me all day at school and I spent hours at home training and caring for them, but it didn't seem appropriate to say I'm clocking 60 hours a week for animal experience. I was conflicted filling out VMCAS because it doesn't seem right. I ended up trying to estimate the hours spent in public, training, and with classes. Still, I feel kind of silly....

 

[BlacKAT33]

I think if you list these foster hours as animal experience it is fine as long as you are honest and explain that they are living with you daily while you take care of them and any of their special needs.

When you apply on VMCAS they differentiate between veterinary experience and animal experience and you can't list one thing in both sections so its not like you'd be "cheating" and saying you had an insane number of veterinary experience by fostering.

In the end, if someone gets an interview and they wrote down they had an insane number of animal experience hours they WILL be asked about it. Anyone who exaggerated on their app will get caught and if you were honest from the beginning then there is no need to worry!

 

[georgie339]

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[Minnerbelle]

Speaking of fostering, I was just pondering how to put down animal experience for raising assistance dogs. I mean, yeah they are with me all day at school and I spent hours at home training and caring for them, but it didn't seem appropriate to say I'm clocking 60 hours a week for animal experience. I was conflicted filling out VMCAS because it doesn't seem right. I ended up trying to estimate the hours spent in public, training, and with classes. Still, I feel kind of silly....

Yeah I'm with you on that. I did lots of fostering while I was teching at the humane society, and I always took home the really sick ones. I pretty much ended up setting up a mini-clinic in my bathroom and tended to some animals every couple of hours throughout the night. During the day I took some of the really sick ones to work with me. I only counted the number of hours I was actually providing veterinary care for the animals, and even then I was very conservative. I didn't want this stuff to detract from the rest of my vet hours from the same place (but then again, I put fostering as a part of my job description for my vet tech job)

 

[PigsRock]

My mom used to be the supervisor of our local shelter and she'd sometimes bring litters of kittens home that were underage. I included the hours (I underestimated the hours to around 45) mostly to show diversity. Even though I want to do food animal/government vet med, I can make a little kitten poop!