Future DVMs- C/O 2021!

[lhmhtd]

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1. If you are shadowing a doctor, what do you put as your title in the experience sections?
2. In the experience section do you classify the type of experience as part time or temporary? I would think temporary since... its temporary. But aren't all jobs if you are trying to get into vet school? Lol
3. If you plan on shadowing after submitting the application, can you put current experience?

1. I'm sure someone else will have a more eloquent answer, but I'd say "Shadow"
2. A temporary job is one that you were hired for for a specified time frame and/or project. For example, I'm a full time temporary employee at a micro lab while the microbiologist is out on disability.
3. I'm confused by what you're trying to ask.

 

[LuckySpartan]

1. If you are shadowing a doctor, what do you put as your title in the experience sections?
2. In the experience section do you classify the type of experience as part time or temporary? I would think temporary since... its temporary. But aren't all jobs if you are trying to get into vet school? Lol
3. If you plan on shadowing after submitting the application, can you put current experience?

1. A shadow or observer
2. Temporary
3. If the start date is prior to when you submitted your application and ends after or doesn't have a end date then it is current 🙂

 

[FeenyFee]

1. I'm sure someone else will have a more eloquent answer, but I'd say "Shadow"
2. A temporary job is one that you were hired for for a specified time frame and/or project. For example, I'm a full time temporary employee at a micro lab while the microbiologist is out on disability.
3. I'm confused by what you're trying to ask.

Thank you for your answer. So for shadowing a doctor, would that be classified as part time? I'm unsure how to classify shadowing since part time doesn't sound right and neither does temporary.

So like you can classify experience as start date-end date or start date - till date when you click current experience. If I planned on shadowing after submitting my application, do I put current experience? Or the last day that I shadow before submitting my application? Not sure if that made anymore sense 😎

 

[cali_bear]

Related to what FF said: If you shadow 15 hours a week for months on end, wouldn't it be part time? And if it was a Saturday every week (or say a day here and there) at other clinincs for months on end, wouldn't it be considered per diem since it is "per day"? Am I thinking the right way? lol

 

[lhmhtd]

Thank you for your answer. So for shadowing a doctor, would that be classified as part time? I'm unsure how to classify shadowing since part time doesn't sound right and neither does temporary.

So like you can classify experience as start date-end date or start date - till date when you click current experience. If I planned on shadowing after submitting my application, do I put current experience? Or the last day that I shadow before submitting my application? Not sure if that made anymore sense 😎

Yeah that's a good point. I'd personally probably list it as part time, unless of course if was like <10 hours or so.

Are you already shadowing?

 

[WildZoo]

Thank you for your answer. So for shadowing a doctor, would that be classified as part time? I'm unsure how to classify shadowing since part time doesn't sound right and neither does temporary.

So like you can classify experience as start date-end date or start date - till date when you click current experience. If I planned on shadowing after submitting my application, do I put current experience? Or the last day that I shadow before submitting my application? Not sure if that made anymore sense 😎

You would put current experience for anything that you don't have an end date for yet.

 

[LuckySpartan]

Thank you for your answer. So for shadowing a doctor, would that be classified as part time? I'm unsure how to classify shadowing since part time doesn't sound right and neither does temporary.

So like you can classify experience as start date-end date or start date - till date when you click current experience. If I planned on shadowing after submitting my application, do I put current experience? Or the last day that I shadow before submitting my application? Not sure if that made anymore sense 😎

Shadowing is temporary not part-time (in my opinion). If you have a shadowing experience that will continue after you submit your application you put it as a current experience.

 

[battie]

So for unspecific prerequisites like two semesters of math, or two social science semesters, can we pick any that fulfill the requirements? Even if it's not the first ones we took? Thanks for the advice!

That's what I did. I picked whatever classes had the best grades that fit the requirements. If a school wants to substitute something different, they will.

 

[cdo96]

🙁

Come work with me! We're short staffed right now and you could have ALL THE HOURS and do ALL THE THINGS!

If you were in the north Texas area, I would take that up in a heartbeat. I was supposed to be able to learn catheters and blood draws this summer, but I'm back to cleaning kennels.

(And I know that cleaning kennels is an important thing- you learn so many important skills. But I gave up a different job opportunity to go back and learn more. So naturally, I'm bummed)


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[PrincessButterCup]

If you were in the north Texas area, I would take that up in a heartbeat. I was supposed to be able to learn catheters and blood draws this summer, but I'm back to cleaning kennels.

(And I know that cleaning kennels is an important thing- you learn so many important skills. But I gave up a different job opportunity to go back and learn more. So naturally, I'm bummed)


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Off topic, but . . .

I had a weird dream about catheters last night. My boss put one into a cat during a routine physical and got really mad at me because I wasn't keeping constant pressure on the catheter (?) and then the owner left and forgot about their cat, so I just stood in exam holding the cat's leg for the rest of the dream. It felt like forever.

 

[PrincessButterCup]

If you were in the north Texas area, I would take that up in a heartbeat. I was supposed to be able to learn catheters and blood draws this summer, but I'm back to cleaning kennels.

(And I know that cleaning kennels is an important thing- you learn so many important skills. But I gave up a different job opportunity to go back and learn more. So naturally, I'm bummed)


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Have you spoken with your boss to express this? Maybe he/she would be willing to have you part time as a kennel assistant, and part time in a tech role to learn the cool things? Do they realize they're going back on the job they'd promised you?

 

[cdo96]

Off topic, but . . .

I had a weird dream about catheters last night. My boss put one into a cat during a routine physical and got really mad at me because I wasn't keeping constant pressure on the catheter (?) and then the owner left and forgot about their cat, so I just stood in exam holding the cat's leg for the rest of the dream. It felt like forever.

That's a very weird dream haha. But that's awesome!


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[cdo96]

Have you spoken with your boss to express this? Maybe he/she would be willing to have you part time as a kennel assistant, and part time in a tech role to learn the cool things? Do they realize they're going back on the job they'd promised you?

The clinic kinda went to hell over the past couple months. They're bringing in a bunch of different people, a brand new vet straight from vet school, multiple people on maternity leaves. He said that this is where they need me, and that, if I wanted, I could go elsewhere. (But he's the one writing my LOR and don't want to have ANY hard feelings between us).

So I'm going to work there and be the best dang kennel tech there's ever been, and in my free time, I'm going to observe at a LA clinic. Next summer, I'll go elsewhere and be able to do something I'm excited about.


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[Misfit_Foster_Mom]

Question about listing experiences. I have had 40 some foster animals for multiple organizations. Can I list them under one umbrella experience or do I need to break it down by organization. Thanks!

 

[PrincessButterCup]

Question about listing experiences. I have had 40 some foster animals for multiple organizations. Can I list them under one umbrella experience or do I need to break it down by organization. Thanks!

I'd break it down by organization.

 

[bombai]

That apparently has changed, according to mht2k3 who spoke with a VMCAS representative, which is why we are all collectively frustrated.

I spoke with another representative and she said that there is no reorganization (even after submission). She checked with a supervisor, as well. 🙁

 

[cdo96]

So. If I have an entry or two for this summer, and they want them to be in chronological order, should I just put a couple vague positions for summer 2016, and then put in everything else afterwards


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[lhmhtd]

So. If I have an entry or two for this summer, and they want them to be in chronological order, should I just put a couple vague positions for summer 2016, and then put in everything else afterwards


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Yeah that's a good idea. Gosh this chronological order crap is turning out to be a HUGE nightmare.

 

[cdo96]

Yeah that's a good idea. Gosh this chronological order crap is turning out to be a HUGE nightmare.

Right? How hard is it to have a function on the application that orders them chronologically? It's super frustrating.


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[lhmhtd]

Right? How hard is it to have a function on the application that orders them chronologically? It's super frustrating.


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Apparently pretty difficult... sarcasm intended.
I think I'm just going to do what someone else on here said they did or were doing (?) and just jotting every one of my experiences in a word document and that way, in the unfortunate event they need to be reordered in VMCAS, it's a simple copy/paste step.

 

[brownswissfanatic]

ok so I just spoke to VMCAS on the phone about this. She did confirm that they DONT reorder for you. I said that I've already entered in a ton of stuff and the only current way of adding a newer entry is deleting everything I have on there and she basically said yes I would have to delete them in order to have everything order, or I would create the new one out of order and write somewhere explaining that I did that (which of course I'm not going to do).

I asked about people that are reapplying and imported all of their experiences and she didn't really have any answer except for saying that they will have to delete all their experiences and re-enter them or put them out of order.

WTF

Seriously?!??! That is freakin' ridiculous! There is no way I'm deleting everything just to add a new experience. I transferred over my application to make it easier and save time not to stress my self out and waste precious time that I could be spending writing my personal statement and getting more experience!

 

[floridajl]

So. If I have an entry or two for this summer, and they want them to be in chronological order, should I just put a couple vague positions for summer 2016, and then put in everything else afterwards


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Great idea! I never thought of doing this but it sounds so much easier.

 

[mmmdreamerz]

So. If I have an entry or two for this summer, and they want them to be in chronological order, should I just put a couple vague positions for summer 2016, and then put in everything else afterwards


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I did the same thing!

 

[supershorty]

You could always do your experiences in an Excel spreadsheet and then sort them by date before inputting them in VMCAS - that way, you can keep updating them as you think of them and not have to delete everything and keep starting over.

 

[finnickthedog]

So. If I have an entry or two for this summer, and they want them to be in chronological order, should I just put a couple vague positions for summer 2016, and then put in everything else afterwards


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Last year, before we knew that they would reorder, I added a couple placeholder spots to the top for any experiences I might pick up.

However, those slots won't help you if a.) you get more experiences than you planned for or b.) you forget an experience somewhere in the middle.

So, I still personally recommend doing it all in a separate document or spreadsheet until you're sure you have everything and the order is correct and then transfer everything over. It will take longer than just putting in the application... but worth it in my opinion to avoid potentially starting over.

 

[mht2k3]

another option, if you dont want to write everything out in a doc/spreadsheet is to just enter everything in whatever order you want.

then when you are sure you have everything, download one of the pdfs it generates, delete all the experiences that are out of order and copy and paste from the pdf.

will save you some work if you already have a ton of experiences listed in the app so you dont have to transfer them all to a doc/excel and then transfer back to the app.

 

[cdo96]

What kind of experience would working/volunteering at the vet school's open house be? I was in charge of teaching about some of the DI tools & showing kids cool X-Rays. I'm thinking vet, but that might be a stretch.

 

[TrashPanda]

What kind of experience would working/volunteering at the vet school's open house be? I was in charge of teaching about some of the DI tools & showing kids cool X-Rays. I'm thinking vet, but that might be a stretch.

If you were supervised by a vet: vet experience. If there were animals: animal experience. Neither: volunteering.

 

[mht2k3]

Whats the stance on animal ownership experience when the animal isn't a pet? Should I include that under animal experience?

For instance I've owned chickens since 2013. Should I put this down in animal experience? If so should I limit it to a certain set of hours or should I just estimate how many hours per week I deal with them and multiple it by the number of weeks since 2013?

 

[cdo96]

If you were supervised by a vet: vet experience. If there were animals: animal experience. Neither: volunteering.

Hmm.. I was supervised by vet students..

 

[TrashPanda]

Hmm.. I was supervised by vet students..

Then not veterinary. You could probably make a case for animal experience since VMCAS says it's for things "related to animals," but I think it's generally accepted that animals have to at least be present for it to be animal experience.

The "supervised by a veterinarian" requirement is a little silly in my opinion, or maybe I'm just bitter because I have a lot of wildlife rehab experience that doesn't count because no vet supervised it... But yeah. No vet? Not veterinary. VMCAS is clear on that.

 

[cheathac]

@cdoconn conn. I volunteered at a vet open house as well. I actually put it under volunteer work!


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[cdo96]

Okay. Thanks y'all!


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[WildZoo]

Whats the stance on animal ownership experience when the animal isn't a pet? Should I include that under animal experience?

For instance I've owned chickens since 2013. Should I put this down in animal experience? If so should I limit it to a certain set of hours or should I just estimate how many hours per week I deal with them and multiple it by the number of weeks since 2013?

Yes to animal experience, just estimate how much time you spent actually caring for them

 

[cohen2000]

Does anyone know the right way to add in prefixes and suffixes for evaluators? There are no specific places to put them, so I was thinking about just adding "Dr." to the first name section and "DVM" or "Ph.D" to the last name section. Is anyone else doing this?

 

[mht2k3]

Does anyone know the right way to add in prefixes and suffixes for evaluators? There are no specific places to put them, so I was thinking about just adding "Dr." to the first name section and "DVM" or "Ph.D" to the last name section. Is anyone else doing this?

Not sure you really need to.

When the evaluator actually fills everything in they add that kind of information themselves. they have to select if they are veterinarian or not and they add their occupation and professional title.

for instance one of my evaluators completed the evaluation and now on his section it says:

Occupation: professor
Professional Title: Assoc. Prof., Biology

etc

 

[cohen2000]

Not sure you really need to.

When the evaluator actually fills everything in they add that kind of information themselves. they have to select if they are veterinarian or not and they add their occupation and professional title.

for instance one of my evaluators completed the evaluation and now on his section it says:

Occupation: professor
Professional Title: Assoc. Prof., Biology

etc

Ok that makes sense. Thanks for the reply!

 

[Devastating]

I honestly would not even bother going through any method of deleting/reordering experiences if they were already submitted and got "scrambled". It's total BS that VMCAS expects us to order in a certain way and yet doesn't auto-reorder or at the very least allow the user to easily reorder, the onus should be on them and their program. I really doubt a school is going to look down on your application or toss it just because some experiences aren't in perfect order--the content's what they care about, putting it in chronological order for ease of reference is just a courtesy. One that's been made significantly harder for us applicants to do due to lazy programming. *grump*

 

[Trilt]

Is this the first year data rollover actually worked? I feel like it worked for one year then didn't the next at one point... I admit I kind of stopped paying attention after my applicant year but they've been promising that since '09 and I find it kind of hilarious (but horrible) if it still doesn't really work.

 

[TrashPanda]

I honestly would not even bother going through any method of deleting/reordering experiences if they were already submitted and got "scrambled". It's total BS that VMCAS expects us to order in a certain way and yet doesn't auto-reorder or at the very least allow the user to easily reorder, the onus should be on them and their program. I really doubt a school is going to look down on your application or toss it just because some experiences aren't in perfect order--the content's what they care about, putting it in chronological order for ease of reference is just a courtesy. One that's been made significantly harder for us applicants to do due to lazy programming. *grump*

I was searching for info in last year's thread, and there were all kinds of problems then too. It looks like the final application did end up reordering experiences, even though VMCAS initially said it wouldn't. But the consensus from schools was that applicants shouldn't worry too much if they didn't reorder anyway. Granted I know next to nothing about programming, but I can't imagine it's that hard to add the reordering feature sometime between now and September. I know VMCAS doesn't have a great track record, but I'm holding out hope.

 

[missdarjeeling]

Last year, before we knew that they would reorder, I added a couple placeholder spots to the top for any experiences I might pick up.

However, those slots won't help you if a.) you get more experiences than you planned for or b.) you forget an experience somewhere in the middle.

So, I still personally recommend doing it all in a separate document or spreadsheet until you're sure you have everything and the order is correct and then transfer everything over. It will take longer than just putting in the application... but worth it in my opinion to avoid potentially starting over.

Seconded. Having things saved elsewhere is a good idea. VMCAS is a piece of garbage. Seriously, I couldn't even put in my freaking phone number and have it save properly. I had to call and have someone do it for me. If you have your own copy of all your materials, if VMCAS goes screwy, you won't have to absolutely re-do everything. And it'll be nice and handy should you ever need any of that information after VMCAS is submitted. You can save what you submitted as a PDF, but it's much easier to copy/paste from your own Word files.

 

[deleted676737]

Is this the first year data rollover actually worked? I feel like it worked for one year then didn't the next at one point... I admit I kind of stopped paying attention after my applicant year but they've been promising that since '09 and I find it kind of hilarious (but horrible) if it still doesn't really work.

Rollover did not work last cycle (because VMCAS completely retooled the application). Apparently it does now, but it puts all of the experiences/achievements/etc out of order and they are, I guess, incapable of writing a program that actually lists entries in chronological order despite insisting that they need to be ordered by date, and there is no way to manually reorder entries, so... basically, the only solution a lot of this year's reapplicants have is to delete those original entries and start over.

So the rollover may as well not even work. The entire purpose is basically defeated when pretty much everything has to be reentered, anyway. Which is why we are recommending that applicants keep their experience data in an Excel or Word document. That, or download the PDF VMCAS generates to copy + paste from. Mainly to simplify things in case they make a mistake entering things; it alleviates a small, small fraction of the frustration.

As mentioned earlier, I honestly doubt that schools care all that much if things are or aren't in order. But, personally, I'd rather be safe than sorry. And this shouldn't even really be an issue.

 

[deleted676737]

Seconded. Having things saved elsewhere is a good idea. VMCAS is a piece of garbage. Seriously, I couldn't even put in my freaking phone number and have it save properly. I had to call and have someone do it for me. If you have your own copy of all your materials, if VMCAS goes screwy, you won't have to absolutely re-do everything. And it'll be nice and handy should you ever need any of that information after VMCAS is submitted. You can save what you submitted as a PDF, but it's much easier to copy/paste from your own Word files.

Oh, yeah. I'd completely forgotten about the phone number bug. I had that one, too. I've seriously lost track of how many random VMCAS glitches we found in last cycle's thread.

 

[finnickthedog]

Rollover did not work last cycle (because VMCAS completely retooled the application). Apparently it does now, but it puts all of the experiences/achievements/etc out of order and they are, I guess, incapable of writing a program that actually lists entries in chronological order despite insisting that they need to be ordered by date, and there is no way to reorder entries, so... basically, the only solution a lot of this year's reapplicants have is to delete those original entries and start over.

So the rollover may as well not even work. The entire purpose is basically defeated when pretty much everything has to be reentered, anyway. Which is why we are recommending that applicants keep their experience data in an Excel or Word document. That, or download the PDF VMCAS generates to copy + paste from. Mainly to simplify things in case they make a mistake entering things; it alleviates a small, small fraction of the frustration.

Well, it did at least rollover my coursework properly.

 

[deleted676737]

Well, it did at least rollover my coursework properly.

Well, that's something, I suppose. Good to hear.

 

[BrownSwissCows]

Well, it did at least rollover my coursework properly.

Glad it worked for you, only sorta worked for me. The coursework is there, but I can't edit my university info to reflect that I graduated now, I don't have the form that's supposed to be sent with your transcript which I know I'm going to need because all that in progress stuff is now done, and I can't add any other schools in the event I decide to take an online animal nutrition course.

I know what I'm doing tomorrow morning....

 

[vetmedhead]

VMCAS's response to this thread:

 

[finnickthedog]

Glad it worked for you, only sorta worked for me. The coursework is there, but I can't edit my university info to reflect that I graduated now, I don't have the form that's supposed to be sent with your transcript which I know I'm going to need because all that in progress stuff is now done, and I can't add any other schools in the event I decide to take an online animal nutrition course.

I know what I'm doing tomorrow morning....

Email them. Mine said "still attending" too but they will change that for you. I was peeved when I first saw that but they actually handled that quickly for me.

Also, the button for the form showed up for me randomly sometime after I had them change it but if you can't access the form you can always add your VMCAS ID# to the address (the instructions explain this) and they'll match it that way because the address gets printed on the transcript. They explain how to do this for people who are ordering online and therefore can't attach the form (which is what I was doing).

It should let you add new schools though... but that I can't answer.

 

[mht2k3]

Sorry for all the questions, but I have another question on experience:

Are people adding in leisure activities in their animal experience if it involved animals?

When I was living in Argentina, we travelled down to Patagonia and did a 5 night horseback riding trek though the national park there with this women: http://www.caroljones.com.ar/the-rides.html

Basically it was a solid day of horseback riding each day and then setting up camp for the night in different locations. Should I put this down as animal experience?

On a somewhat related note, When I was a kid (like 10-12) I went to horseback riding camps in the summertime. We would ride horses but also learn how to take care of them and deal with saddles, etc. I'm hesitant to put those hours down because it was SO LONG AGO (I'm 36 now, so this was like 25 years ago). I dont know, I go back and forth between putting everything imaginable down, and leaving stuff out because it was so long ago and seems like it wouldn't really benefit the application.

 

[sheltermed]

How are you guys filling out the "Status" of your experiences? Part time/full time/temporary/etc. I've said part time for most things, because the others didn't seem to fit. Not sure what's "proper" in this case!