I’m taking a study break to peruse through SDN and having a bout of PTSD, but also a good laugh, remembering how my mind was running rampant while anxiously waiting for an acceptance. This tedious wait seems to have the same affect on us as the 5 steps of grieving. We shall call it:
The 5 Steps of Vet School Acceptance
1. Denial: That application I just submitted was AWSOME!! No one can top what I’m about to bring to the table!! I am the epitome of a great vet student! Other end of the spectrum: Maybe I’m not good enough… maybe I don’t have what it takes…
2. Anger/Paranoia: Congratulations on your acceptance!! *internally: $*&#@! There goes one more seat that I could have filled* What do they have that I don’t?! Its b/c I said I wanted to do companion animal practice isn’t it… I should have lied and said Food Animal is LIFE!! Conspiracies!! This whole thing is a conspiracy!! I bet they watch this thread… I bet that person is actually administration and is connecting my IP address with my application we speak! That school sucks. They’re in farm country. They obviously only want cow vets! I wouldn’t go there even if I was accepted… If I were a male, I wouldn’t even be in this situation right now… I would have been accepted based on my genitalia in this female inundated profession!
3. Bargaining/statistical analysis: I interviewed in January and they still haven’t accepted some that interviewed in October… 1200 applications…. 600 interviews… 115 accepted… 10 people have already turned down their seat…. I’ve still gotta chance!!... right?!? I’m noticing a trend of early acceptance Friday emails… I’m going to email the schools and see if I’m right about this hunch… If 2 trains leave New York heading south going 52 MPH, there should be slew of acceptance emails sent out Wednesday at 4:45 EST…
4. Depression: Omg! I’m a loser! I’m never going to get in!! What am I going to do with my life?!! I’m going to be 30 and living in my mom’s basement!!!
5. Acceptance: Nah, man… Its cool. I’ll just work on myself and my application and have a go at it next cycle… Maybe I’ll get my Masters
I hope you guys can appreciate the humor/sarcasm/truth in the above, because being in that limbo waiting to hear back SUCKS and makes you go absolutely CRAZY!!
As someone who has been there and is now on the other side, maybe I can calm some angst with the things that I’ve pieced together since being here…
These early acceptances are for the Crème of the Crop or the folks they feel are the absolute ideal student/perspective veterinarian. They interview early in hopes to snatch these guys up before another school can. Being a new school, who had to put up one hell of a fight with the AVMA to be so, they really have to prove themselves and show the AVMA that they made the right choice in allowing LMU-CVM to exist. It only makes sense that LMU wants to fill the seats with the statistical “best of the best.”
But, as we are all beginning to see, the early acceptances are starting to turn down their invitations because they’ve received an acceptance from their in-state school. Of course, they did!! These people have amazing applications!! Plus, they’d be NUTS not to go IS and pay a fraction of the cost in tuition. Others may choose to attend a state University rather than this new private school, located in the desolate mountains of Virginia, with a still pending accreditation status. (You can do it c/o 2018! I believe in you!!)
This is why LMU interviews so many. They have to be prepared with a 2nd string… maybe even a 3rd and 4th string. This is also why you guys, as the anxious waiters, should not give up hope! If you are wait-listed in March, don’t give up hope! In April, after matriculation fees are paid and you have no status change, don’t give up hope! If it’s mid-May and you’re still hanging out on the waitlist, you should probably start seriously putting together your CV for that internship in North Carolina collecting genetic samples from coastal fish. (Boating experience preferred, but not required!) And as soon as you’ve decided that running PCR analysis for a year may not be all that bad, you just may look down at your phone to see you have a new email… and that email may be from LMU… and LMU just might be saying “Congratulations, a seat for the class of 202_ has become available!”
With that said, this is totally my own detective work. Nothing above can be taken as absolute fact. I’ve still yet to figure out the rhyme or reason to how they determine their next in line. And you definitely can’t assume that because you were accepted near the end that you are somewhat less deserving or less likely to succeed. I have a friend who didn’t get accepted until July, two weeks before classes started! As of right now, she is ranked first in the class.
Vet school acceptance is one of the world greatest mysteries, if you ask me. What’s not a mystery is my love for LMU. Even though I had some blips in my application, they were still willing to give me a shot when no one else would. If you asked the question, “Why did you choose LMU?” and the response you received was “Because it was the only school I got into” don’t think of that as a negative. Some of us didn’t get the opportunity to compare and contrast our vast list of acceptances to weigh the pro’s and con’s in making our final decisions of where we’d obtain our degree. LMU was the only school who saw something in us that no one else did… who looked at us as more than just a GPA and a test score. LMU is my dream vet school because they actually gave me the chance, and now my dreams of becoming a veterinarian are coming true.
So, my LMU-CVM hopefuls, take a deep breath, remain calm, remain sain, and hang in there!!! It ain’t over till the fat lady sings!
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