Diversifying Experience Hours

[Lucy410]

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I'm a career-changer and I've been devoting all of my time (since last summer) to taking pre-reqs and getting experience hours. I'll be applying next year for Fall 2017 admission.

My question is about how I should diversify my experience hours. Since June I have been working about 18-20 hours per week as a veterinary assistant at a primary care cats-and-dogs-only private practice, and volunteering 3 hours hours per week in a veterinary assistant-type volunteer role at a shelter spay/neuter clinic. My employer (the private practice) has given me some great clinical experience - I vaccinate, draw blood, do dentals, work with clients, take radiographs, etc., and the vet has given me great feedback so I'm pretty confident he'll give me a good letter of rec.

I also have some older veterinary and animal experience - about 200 hours volunteering in wildlife clinics, 160 hours shadowing a large animal vet, and 4,000+ hours working as an animal caregiver & adoption counselor at a shelter. Almost all of this is pre-2007, though.

This summer I'll be going away for 2-3 weeks to shadow a large animal vet, and I'm debating whether or not to end my work at the private practice at that time. The thing that concerns me is that nearly all of my experience is small animal, and mostly private practice. I have little recent exotics experience and zero research experience.

My goal at this point is to become a small companion animal and/or exotics veterinarian. I'm not really interested in becoming a researcher. My top choice schools are Davis, UPenn, Tufts, and Colorado.

So - should I stick with what I'm doing for another year, or leave my vet assistant job to do some volunteering with exotics? I don't think I'll be able to get veterinary hours with exotics - they would probably just be animal hours.

(ETA: I've received feedback before that research hours aren't that important if you don't want to go into research, so I'm thinking that wouldn't be the best way to spend my time.)

Thank you!

 

[that redhead]

If you enjoy your work at the small animal clinic and/or the shelter, there's no need to end those jobs provided you get the 2-3 weeks of large animal experience. It would be nice if you could find a clinic that sees exotics in addition to dogs and cats, but that's more for your personal interest.

You could always consider volunteering at a nearby zoo, aquarium or wildlife center, but I think having large animal and some shelter work should provide a good balance. Best to cultivate solid relationships with those vets and continue to build your hours there than to have only a few hours in a big range of places.

 

[StartingoverVet]

I applied to those 4 schools with only SA private clinic experience (and as a non-trad as well)
Penn, Davis, and Tufts don't really care about diversified experience.
Penn especially wants you to get experience in the area you are interested in most.

Colorado was the only one I didn't get an outright acceptance (wait listed, and I could have gotten in off it)... and they specifically said my app would have been better with more diversity.

You picked schools that are pretty easy going on this issue.

The answer would be very different at some other schools out there perhaps.

 

[Njnealon]

Hey! you could also look for animal-related jobs outside of veterinary medicine. For example, I got some exotic animal experience working at a park. It was the best job ever (maybe I'm just partial to turtles! haha) But in all seriousness, it was a great learning opportunity for me, because I learned a lot of husbandry that I was never familiar with, only growing up with a dog.

Additionally, research experiences could sometimes lead to new animal experiences, depending on what the project is. Ecology-based projects might involve wild-animal field work, etc. Biomedical sciences might use rodent models; I worked in labs like that, and got a lot of laboratory animal experience. The pro to that is there is usually a lab-animal veterinarian overseeing some aspect of the project, so it could also be a great opportunity to ask questions and learn about another lesser-known sector of vet med!

A lot of my friends also applied for internships at a local zoo, and shadowed zookeepers, nutritionists, animal caretakers, etc. Again, it wasn't strictly under a veterinarian, but there is likely a veterinarian that comes to the facilities and makes rounds!

 

[Minnerbelle]

I feel like your experience is fairly diverse esp if you're going to spend 2-3 weeks with a large animal vet. I will say that your experience is far more diverse than mine was, and I didn't even have the nontrad excuse!

I had 0 large animal vet experience. I just kind of glossed over that by doing 7 months of animal experience at a sanctuary that had some large animals along with wildlife and exotics. The only actual vet experience I had was like 700 hrs of shelter medicine... half of which was back in high school. Never did any shadowing or anything at all in small animal even. I got myself to stand out with 2 years of full time biomedical research experience where I was treated more as a researcher than a data collecting monkey. I also set up and ran a small cat rescue for a year on a volunteer basis.
Everything together amounted to 6000 hrs... But again only 700 involved any work with veterinarians and that was at one shelter. You can say I had a lot of depth in a couple experiences, but not very diverse. my gpa and GRE were fine but not stellar, though I had a lot of extra science courses on my transcript.

I did make sure to have a cohesive story and took the time to present myself well on my apps so that my experiences and career aspirations made sense. I made sure to put together a story that was unique to me and no one else.

I applied to all 4 schools (Tufts IS) you are looking at, and I got accepted into all except for Davis. I was invited to the first round of interviews for Penn and accepted 2 days later. Ohio State even accepted me on the spot at my interview. So getting into school without diversity of vet experiences appears to not have been a fluke.

No one thing I did was all that phenomenal, and nothing that anyone else couldn't have done. But I didn't follow the path that most people applying to vet school do, and that made me stand out. The point of sharing my story isn't to say you should do what I did, but to tell you that you don't have to overextend yourself to follow all the guidelines that get tossed around just to check off all the boxes. Making each experience more meaningful is just as important, if not more.

Good luck, and really take advantage of the fact that you have a background story that sets you apart from the majority of applicants just by virtue of being a nontrad. It sounds like you have a good amount of experience, and fairly diverse already! So moving forward, I would think about taking the opportunities where you would gain most from the experience, when it comes to choosing what to do next.

 

[Cephal0pod]

Ohio State even accepted me on the spot at my interview.

Quick question that is somewhat tangential to OP's because I'm curious (sorry for the temporary thread hijacking)-- how often do on-the-spot acceptances at interviews happen, and what did that look like for you? I've heard rumors of this but didn't know if it was actually a thing or not. Did they just tell you at the end of your interview that they'd like to offer you a seat, or...?

 

[Minnerbelle]

I don't know how often it happens, and I'm sure that's also school dependent. Details are fuzzy from 5 years ago, but I finished my actual interview and walked over to the office to pick up my luggage and head for the airport. That's when someone stopped me and offered me a seat. So I guess they deliberated quickly after the interview and made the decision.

 

[Cephal0pod]

Gotcha! That's a pretty awesome way to end an interview 🙂 Thanks!

 

[pp9]

Quick question that is somewhat tangential to OP's because I'm curious (sorry for the temporary thread hijacking)-- how often do on-the-spot acceptances at interviews happen, and what did that look like for you? I've heard rumors of this but didn't know if it was actually a thing or not. Did they just tell you at the end of your interview that they'd like to offer you a seat, or...?

Bahaha I was gonna ask the same thing.

I was told a 'rumor' by a tour guide when I did a tour at Ohio State 2 years ago...that one student was offered a seat without having been interviewed at all (his application was that impressive). The adcom literally picked up the phone and called him. There is an identity-revealing bit to that 'rumor' that I won't disclose that explains why the application was so incredible.

I have also heard that an applicant to Florida had extensive equine experience and they called her the day after her interview.

Can't verify either of those for obvious reasons, but Minnerbelle's story makes it clear that they do happen. @Minnerbelle, out of curiosity, would you say Penn accepted you rather quickly as well? I'd like to hear more about how you made your application work that well for you. Having great experience is obvious, but sometimes I feel like it can be rather difficult to communicate that you'd be a great choice via VMCAS.