Future DVMs- C/O 2021!

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NimbusC said:
Lastly, here is a question to answer your question (which may be silly......), have there been cases of students who have shadowed (solely observed) at a veterinary hospital and have had top-notch LORs generated from this? I was leaning towards the "yes, but very few" territory due to my current situation. I am standing around politely and injecting my questions when I can, but I was thinking something more hands-on (i.e. a job) would generate a better LOR and would increase my chances of acceptance? Or is there equal value in a LOR from a veterinarian period? (Of course if the letter is compelling enough and of superior quality as well).
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I am one of those cases. I only shadowed in a clinical setting on Saturdays for 9 months and maybe only once or twice actually touched an animal. However, I was there every week and asked a lot of questions and still felt involved in the cases. The vet that wrote me an LOR also knew my position that I wasn't really interested in the clinical setting though. While I opted to not see the LOR, I'm very confident that she wrote me a good letter. However, I also had LORs from my graduate advisor/PI and a vet pathologist that I worked closely with on a couple projects.
 
SandstormDVM said:
Me. All 2,500 or so of my veterinary experience hours were shadowing; I was never able to find a paid position in a vet-related setting, so I settled for shadowing on the side while working unrelated jobs. As far as I'm aware, it was a perfectly fine letter (or at least good enough to get me accepted, clearly!). I had about 970 hours with the veterinarian who wrote it, however, so she knew me quite well. YMMV.
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I appreciate your response and I greatly respect your mileage dude 😉 !!!! To be honest I just didn't know and I appreciate you calming my nerves over shadowing 🙂 I may keep all 3 veterinary gigs I have going then.....hmmmm
 
lilylilac said:
I am one of those cases. I only shadowed in a clinical setting on Saturdays for 9 months and maybe only once or twice actually touched an animal. However, I was there every week and asked a lot of questions and still felt involved in the cases. The vet that wrote me an LOR also knew my position that I wasn't really interested in the clinical setting though. While I opted to not see the LOR, I'm very confident that she wrote me a good letter. However, I also had LORs from my graduate advisor/PI and a vet pathologist that I worked closely with on a couple projects.
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Definitely noted and I respect your experience as well!! I just didn't know that solely shadowing could be okay 😵, so I appreciate your response greatly!! My nerves are starting to calm down 🙂 -

I was on edge with my post so much due to advice from a UPenn administrator a few weeks ago (they weren't the loveliest of email correspondents -__-), she just ran around my question and just kept cramming down my throat the importance of getting hands-on experience. However, the folks I've spoken with on the phone were more concerned with other facets I brought to the table than what I did exactly with my experience. Idk sometimes it just feels like a giant guessing game regarding what the reviewers are looking for.....:bang: I wish I was Beast Boy.....he would probably get accepted into vet school eaaaasyyyyy🤣
 
NimbusC said:
I was on edge with my post so much due to advice from a UPenn administrator a few weeks ago (they weren't the loveliest of email correspondents -__-), she just ran around my question and just kept cramming down my throat the importance of getting hands-on experience. However, the folks I've spoken with on the phone were more concerned with other facets I brought to the table than what I did exactly with my experience. Idk sometimes it just feels like a giant guessing game regarding what the reviewers are looking for.....:bang:
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I interviewed at Penn and they did ask me how much hands on experience I had through my shadowing and they did seem concerned that I didn't have any. I got waitlisted there.
 
NimbusC said:
have there been cases of students who have shadowed (solely observed) at a veterinary hospital and have had top-notch LORs generated from this?
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It probably was not top notch but it was my only vet letter and I did get waitlisted so I'm sure it was good enough.

I have done some paid, hands on work for her now, but at the time all I had done was about 200 hours of shadowing. Granted, she's also my vet so she knew me to some extent in that way too.

Mind you, the letter probably wasn't as good as it could have been because a few months after VMCAS was submitted and I had been working temporarily for her for a few weeks she said she felt she had a lot more to write about and could have written me a better letter at that point. So yeah, doing some actual work in my case definitely gave my LOR writer more to work with... but it's not like she wasn't able to write me a decent letter before that.
 
lilylilac said:
I interviewed at Penn and they did ask me how much hands on experience I had through my shadowing and they did seem concerned that I didn't have any. I got waitlisted there.
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Thanks for mentioning this, noted!
 
finnickthedog said:
It probably was not top notch but it was my only vet letter and I did get waitlisted so I'm sure it was good enough.

I have done some paid, hands on work for her now, but at the time all I had done was about 200 hours of shadowing. Granted, she's also my vet so she knew me to some extent in that way too.

Mind you, the letter probably wasn't as good as it could have been because a few months after VMCAS was submitted and I had been working temporarily for her for a few weeks she said she felt she had a lot more to write about and could have written me a better letter at that point. So yeah, doing some actual work in my case definitely gave my LOR writer more to work with... but it's not like she wasn't able to write me a decent letter before that.
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Noted and that's my case as well. I'm shadowing my current vet whom I've known her for almost 2 years now, but I've only been allowed to shadow at her clinic for the past few months (liability reasons). So I'm likely going to take this part-time vet job, and perhaps keep shadowing at my vet as well.....although out of courtesy I may change vets, sigh decisions decisions.

Thank you for sharing your experience!
 
I don't think it's necessarily that LORs from shadowing are necessarily inferior to letters from a more hands on position, it comes down to time spent with that veterinarian. Usually people who need to use a letter from just a shadowing experience have lower vet hours overall than people who have actually had a job. It's much easier to rack up thousands of hours on a job than just via shadowing, which translates into the vet knowing you better.

That said, my only letter from a vet came from a shadowing experience and when I interviewed at Iowa State one of my interviewers actually seemed impressed that I had manged to get 400 hours shadowing with a single clinic. I applied at 4 schools and was waitlisted to all 4, but I feel that it was mostly due to a lack of hours overall, not that my LOR wasn't good.
 
While we're on this subject-- I have a question too! If I apply with 3500 hours of small animal paid veterinary assistant experience with a good letter of rec, 50 hours of research (will not be asking him for a letter of rec) and then community involvement experience (where I will ask the two areas for a letter of recommendation) would that look bad? My goal is to have another set of veterinary or animal experience before I apply, but if it's not possible, I don't want my experience to be a negative, and would wait to apply until I can get another set of experience. Thoughts?
 
c0smopolitan said:
While we're on this subject-- I have a question too! If I apply with 3500 hours of small animal paid veterinary assistant experience with a good letter of rec, 50 hours of research (will not be asking him for a letter of rec) and then community involvement experience (where I will ask the two areas for a letter of recommendation) would that look bad? My goal is to have another set of veterinary or animal experience before I apply, but if it's not possible, I don't want my experience to be a negative, and would wait to apply until I can get another set of experience. Thoughts?
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I'm not sure what you think looks bad here, those are some serious hours. Are you worried about diversity of experiences? You've more than demonstrated at least an in depth understanding of small animal medicine, so you shouldn't be super concerned if that lines up with your interests. Look at the schools you want to apply to as well - some explicitly ask for a certain number of hours in certain areas or highly recommend hours in certain areas (diversity of experiences).

For what it's worth, I got in to several very competitive programs with well over 80% of my experiences at the clinic of an animal control facility.
 
vetmedhead said:
I'm not sure what you think looks bad here, those are some serious hours. Are you worried about diversity of experiences? You've more than demonstrated at least an in depth understanding of small animal medicine, so you shouldn't be super concerned if that lines up with your interests. Look at the schools you want to apply to as well - some explicitly ask for a certain number of hours in certain areas or highly recommend hours in certain areas (diversity of experiences).

For what it's worth, I got in to several very competitive programs with well over 80% of my experiences at the clinic of an animal control facility.
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Diversity of experience was really my main concern. Im not sure if I'll have any actual "animal" experience or other veterinary experience when I apply and I wasn't sure if that would be a red flag or not. I'll more than likely only be applying to Michigan (my IS) and Guelph. Potentially Illinois, though I'm not sure yet. If you don't mind me asking- what experience did you have?
 
c0smopolitan said:
While we're on this subject-- I have a question too! If I apply with 3500 hours of small animal paid veterinary assistant experience with a good letter of rec, 50 hours of research (will not be asking him for a letter of rec) and then community involvement experience (where I will ask the two areas for a letter of recommendation) would that look bad? My goal is to have another set of veterinary or animal experience before I apply, but if it's not possible, I don't want my experience to be a negative, and would wait to apply until I can get another set of experience. Thoughts?
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I had very similar stats - 4,000 hours SA (but no research), and nothing in the large animal department. I was extremely worried that it would hurt me, but I got into LSU on the first try. Granted, I had high GPA and good GRE scores and LSU weights academics pretty heavily. And of course if you are able to broaden your experiences, all the better. It's just not an automatic disqualifier if you don't. 🙂
 
WardenN7 said:
I had very similar stats - 4,000 hours SA (but no research), and nothing in the large animal department. I was extremely worried that it would hurt me, but I got into LSU on the first try. Granted, I had high GPA and good GRE scores and LSU weights academics pretty heavily. And of course if you are able to broaden your experiences, all the better. It's just not an automatic disqualifier if you don't. 🙂
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Thanks for the insight! My goal is to get another sector or two of experience before applying, but if it's not possibly at least I can feel confident between my smal animal and research.
 
I always say don't do research only because you feel like you have to. It's certainly not for everyone. However, if you're interested, try it. I tried it and even though I know I never want to be a scientist, it was a learning experience. You don't need research to get in to vet school. 🙂
 
A little late to the party but I plan to apply this application cycle for the first time. I'm graduating undergrad in 2 weeks, so I'll have a year off. My instate is MN and I'm not sure if I want to apply anywhere else - maybe WI?
Looking forward to finally doing this! :happy:
 
1doggeek said:
A little late to the party but I plan to apply this application cycle for the first time. I'm graduating undergrad in 2 weeks, so I'll have a year off. My instate is MN and I'm not sure if I want to apply anywhere else - maybe WI?
Looking forward to finally doing this! :happy:
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Welcome to the party! 🙂


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vetmedhead said:
I'm impatient for this cycle to move quickly so everyone can get in and I can know who my future classmates will be.

:yeahright: Go faster, time!
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Obviously missed this somewhere, but why did you end up deferring to c/o 2021?
 
vetmedhead said:
Didn't defer, I'm doing a 5 year dual degree program so I'll be working on the masters portion of it this year and then the DVM portion after that so I'll be C/O 2021. 🙂
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Ah, gotcha. That's seems like an awesome program setup! I'm hoping to do a combined VMD/MPH, but Penn doesn't have a formal MPH track for their vet students so I'm not entirely sure how that's going to work out 😕.
 
jcc3sa said:
Ah, gotcha. That's seems like an awesome program setup! I'm hoping to do a combined VMD/MPH, but Penn doesn't have a formal MPH track for their vet students so I'm not entirely sure how that's going to work out 😕.
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An MPH is actually the degree I'll be getting! It's very formal at CSU though, all of the dual degree students have to apply at the same time they apply to vet school and you can't do their dual programs if you've been accepted as a plain DVM student, which is interesting compared to how other schools do it.
 
Holy crap I can't believe it opens next week....I don't know what I'm feeling... too many feelings all smashed together I suppose 🙂
 
I can't believe it's almost time to apply again but I'm excited to get started. Still nervous, but not as much as I was last year.

I've got a file review by phone scheduled this week and some fun plans for the summer that I hope will improve my chances this year.

I'm ready to roll! 😉
 
Just something I want to throw out there for you all as well: if VMCAS opens before your finals are over, don't start VMCAS until you're done with your classes. It's a really stressful thing to begin and you don't want to take your focus away from your studies.

If your classes/finals are over by the time VMCAS opens, then feel free to stress yourself out by starting VMCAS. 😉
 
finnickthedog said:
I can't believe it's almost time to apply again but I'm excited to get started. Still nervous, but not as much as I was last year.

I've got a file review by phone scheduled this week and some fun plans for the summer that I hope will improve my chances this year.

I'm ready to roll! 😉
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By file review, do you mean with a school you applied to last year? Cause I know that some people at the vet school from Ok state do file reviews and tell us what we should improve on our application, but my lady never got back to me. So. :/ yeah


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cdoconn said:
By file review, do you mean with a school you applied to last year? Cause I know that some people at the vet school from Ok state do file reviews and tell us what we should improve on our application, but my lady never got back to me. So. :/ yeah


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Yeah, it's with the school I applied to last year.
 
brownswissfanatic said:
For anyone else who is planning on applying for Texas A&M, I just checked TMDSAS and the application will open May 2nd!

Does anyone know if TMDSAS keeps any of our information from cycle to cycle?
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Yes! Most of the information rolls over!
 
brownswissfanatic said:
Yea ok that is good to know about the accreditation. As for the cost $44k a year is more reasonable than around $60k per year for Ohio and Minnesota. But $70k a year for the cost of living 😱...that is a lot! I need to be able to afford housing, gas, and food for me and my cat wherever I attend vet school!
I didn't know about the lack of the teaching hospital; on first glance the website doesn't make it obvious.
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The 70k yearly cost of living includes that 45k of tuition. So expenses like housing/utilities/groceries/pets, travel, books/supplies, health/dental/life/car insurance, entertainment....etc amounts to about 25-30k. Housing in Harrogate is actually pretty cheap if you rent a house with other people. Could be between 300-600/mo. Starting this fall they will have pet friendly on campus housing. If you are seriously interested, don't hesitate to PM me! I will be a firstie this year, so I can help with the interview process, what campus is like, stuff to figure out after getting that amazing acceptance call. The current students are really nice and are willing to pitch in as well! I will be stalking the lmu c/o 2021 forum once it is up.
 
cdoconn said:
7 days!


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the-ring-samara.png

First thing I thought of.
 
LyraGardenia said:
The application system for Texas A&M. I think they might be the only US school that still doesn't use VMCAS.
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Tuskegee does their own application as far as I can tell. I do think the list of US schools that don't use VMCAS could be counted on one hand.
 
lianali said:
Tuskegee does their own application as far as I can tell. I do think the list of US schools that don't use VMCAS could be counted on one hand.
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I thought Tuskegee moved at least partly to VMCAS starting last cycle...? I didn't apply there myself, so take that with a grain of salt, but I remember seeing it in the list of selectable schools.

But, yeah. Very, very few vet schools still do not participate in VMCAS at all. Texas A&M is the only one I know of for sure.
 
SandstormDVM said:
I thought Tuskegee moved at least partly to VMCAS starting last cycle...? I didn't apply there myself, so take that with a grain of salt, but I remember seeing it in the list of selectable schools.

But, yeah. Very, very few vet schools still do not participate in VMCAS at all. Texas A&M is the only one I know of for sure.
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Yeah. I need to email Tuskeegee and find out their application requirements. Their website doesn't provide much information.
 
LyraGardenia said:
The application system for Texas A&M. I think they might be the only US school that still doesn't use VMCAS.
Click to expand...

Oh wow! Texas was one I considered planning on applying to. I probably will still if the app is not too much trouble. Is it easy to navigate, and is it something we can easily copy and paste our information from VMCAS into?

I know that Tufts was one that hadn't used VMCAS yet until maybe last year. Does Tufts now use VMCAS? Does anyone know if Texas is still the only one not using VMCAS?
 
PreVetMed said:
Oh wow! Texas was one I considered planning on applying to. I probably will still if the app is not too much trouble. Is it easy to navigate, and is it something we can easily copy and paste our information from VMCAS into?

I know that Tufts was one that hadn't used VMCAS yet until maybe last year. Does Tufts now use VMCAS? Does anyone know if Texas is still the only one not using VMCAS?
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Tufts and Tuskegee both joined VMCAS this cycle. Texas A&M is the only vet school currently not using VMCAS in any capacity.

http://www.veterinarypracticenews.com/Tuskegee-Joins-VMCAS-Clearinghouse/

I knew I wasn't going crazy! 😛
 
PreVetMed said:
Oh wow! Texas was one I considered planning on applying to. I probably will still if the app is not too much trouble. Is it easy to navigate, and is it something we can easily copy and paste our information from VMCAS into?

I know that Tufts was one that hadn't used VMCAS yet until maybe last year. Does Tufts now use VMCAS? Does anyone know if Texas is still the only one not using VMCAS?
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Yeah Tufts moved to VMCAS as of last year. They have supplemental questions but no supplemental application. They still have the supplemental fee though. 😛
 
PreVetMed said:
Oh wow! Texas was one I considered planning on applying to. I probably will still if the app is not too much trouble. Is it easy to navigate, and is it something we can easily copy and paste our information from VMCAS into?

I know that Tufts was one that hadn't used VMCAS yet until maybe last year. Does Tufts now use VMCAS? Does anyone know if Texas is still the only one not using VMCAS?
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I believe TAMU is the only one not using VMCAS. TMDSAS is not a huge headache, but it's different enough from VMCAS that you should pay attention closely when filling it out. They ask a lot more personal questions (things like high school attended, are you dependent on a military veteran, have you ever received snap benefits, etc.). My suspicion was that TX law may have required them to ask those questions.

TMDSAS requires you to attach a picture of yourself to your application.

Biggest difference is in character counts. I believe they give you 5000 characters for your personal statement but only 300 for experiences/awards/extracurriculars/etc. (this is half of what VMCAS gives you).

I will also add that TMDSAS tells you not to include anything from high school/before college (TAMU's supplemental, however, allows you to enter from any time and encourages you to do so).
 
So I had a question, when would be the best time to submit the VMCAS application? I'm taking a summer physics class, so it'll be after I get my transcript sent back to my undergrad, I know they said you should be S.E.T. by August 15th, and that its always better to submit it early, but was anyone else curious about when the best time to submit was?


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cdoconn said:
So I had a question, when would be the best time to submit the VMCAS application? I'm taking a summer physics class, so it'll be after I get my transcript sent back to my undergrad, I know they said you should be S.E.T. by August 15th, and that its always better to submit it early, but was anyone else curious about when the best time to submit was?


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Speaking as someone who submitted on September 14th (just before midnight, so basically the 15th), don't do that. It's stressful and it's way too easy for things to go wrong.

Speaking as a procrastinator: submit on September 15th! Everything worked out fine for me!

(no but seriously, DON'T DO THAT)
 
vetmedhead said:
Speaking as someone who submitted on September 14th (just before midnight, so basically the 15th), don't do that. It's stressful and it's way too easy for things to go wrong.

Speaking as a procrastinator: submit on September 15th! Everything worked out fine for me!

(no but seriously, DON'T DO THAT)
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I should also add as a procrastinator that I turned in the TMDSAS application literally two hours before it was due. Don't do that! Never do that! I wish I could fight the younger me who decided to do that.
 
I recently had a meeting with the admissions coordinator of Purdue. He said to submit it early August.. In case anything goes wrong. I am also taking a summer class so I'm not sure what to do with that either... Can you send the transcript twice after you get the grade? It's Genetics.. So a prerequisite...


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cheathac said:
I recently had a meeting with the admissions coordinator of Purdue. He said to submit it early August.. In case anything goes wrong. I am also taking a summer class so I'm not sure what to do with that either... Can you send the transcript twice after you get the grade? It's Genetics.. So a prerequisite...


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I agree with your advisor that August is a good time. Not sure about summer classes, maybe try emailing VMCAS to ask about it.
 
cdoconn said:
So I had a question, when would be the best time to submit the VMCAS application? I'm taking a summer physics class, so it'll be after I get my transcript sent back to my undergrad, I know they said you should be S.E.T. by August 15th, and that its always better to submit it early, but was anyone else curious about when the best time to submit was?


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I recommend attempting to have everything ready (or set) by the 15th like they suggest.

I submitted Sept. 1st last year--which was the day I was finally able to send my transcript off--and that worked out okay for me. I'm probably going to aim for a little bit sooner this year but I doubt I'll be submitting as early as the 15th.

If you can't send your transcript in that early because of summer classes or whatever you will probably be just fine submitting a little later. Just don't leave it until the last minute. You don't want to go to submit near midnight on the deadline only to find VMCAS is down or something.
 
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