Help! I need advice about M.S. before Vet School

[kate1800]

Hi everyone,

I am currently conflicted about getting my M.S. before vet school. I am in the last month of my first semester in a M.S. program in Conservation Medicine (i.e., public health side of vet medicine), and I work part-time at an emergency vet hospital. The M.S. is a 2-year, thesis-based program.

My main reasons for doing grad school were to help make me a more competitive applicant, and NOT because I am interested in going into public health as a veterinarian. My cumulative undergrad gpa is eh (3.3), but my last 45 from undergrad is a bit better (3.5).

Honestly, my heart is just not in this M.S. program, and I feel that I am doing it for all the wrong reasons. Part of me just wants to work full-time as a vet assistant and re-take vet school pre-reqs//work on getting my pre-req gpa up, but that would mean I would drop out of my M.S. program. And if I do that, I don't want future vet admission committees to think that I can't finish anything/can't "handle" grad school rigor (I have all As as of now in grad school).

What do you guys think? Should I drop grad school since I am not in it for the right reasons, and just work full-time/make money/re-take pre-reqs? Or, should I see my M.S. through?

Thanks everyone!

---

Members don't see this ad.

 

[LetItSnow]

There's no perfect answer.

I personally think that given the financial dynamics in vet med, it is fruitless to spend two years doing a degree that you have little interest in solely to get into vet school if you don't plan to do something with both degrees. You're taking on more debt while simultaneously decreasing the amount of career time you have to manage a financial recovery (or, if you are able to pay out of pocket without accumulating debt, you're at the very least decreasing the amount of time before you can be on a positive financial trajectory).

On the other hand, if it's the only way you're going to get into vet school, you may have to. But I would think a GPA of 3.3 ought to be competitive 'enough' if all the other pieces are in place - if you can write great essays, get amazing recommendations, interview well, and have lots of hours of diversified experience.

But, let's say you only recently started working in that ER and don't have really any other vet med exposure ... in that case, you're likely going to need to spend time rounding yourself out, so it might make sense to tough out the program both to gain some academic standing as well as to bring another tangible accomplishment to the table.

It's hard to give pat generalized answers to individual-specific questions, but those are some of the things I'd think about.

 

[battie]

Also, theres the consideration of will you use this master's degree if you're never accepted into veterinary school? You're absolutely right that a 3.3 is suboptimal for acceptance in a fair number of programs. But if you're never going to use this degree, regardless of your acceptance to vet school, there are other things you could be doing to get into vet school

 

[Georgethecat]

Might be helpful to do a full What Are My Chances post listing all of your gpa's: undergrad cumulative, undergrad science gpa, undergrad last 45 gpa. And include info on if you've retaken any of your pre-req's. Some schools accept the retake and others average the 2 grades. What vet schools are you considering and have completed all of the pre-req's for. What are your vet experience hours? Any research or extracurriculars, etc.?

I agree that 2 years spent on a masters degree that you're paying for and will not use is a hard pill to swallow.

 

[kate1800]

There's no perfect answer.

I personally think that given the financial dynamics in vet med, it is fruitless to spend two years doing a degree that you have little interest in solely to get into vet school if you don't plan to do something with both degrees. You're taking on more debt while simultaneously decreasing the amount of career time you have to manage a financial recovery (or, if you are able to pay out of pocket without accumulating debt, you're at the very least decreasing the amount of time before you can be on a positive financial trajectory).

On the other hand, if it's the only way you're going to get into vet school, you may have to. But I would think a GPA of 3.3 ought to be competitive 'enough' if all the other pieces are in place - if you can write great essays, get amazing recommendations, interview well, and have lots of hours of diversified experience.

But, let's say you only recently started working in that ER and don't have really any other vet med exposure ... in that case, you're likely going to need to spend time rounding yourself out, so it might make sense to tough out the program both to gain some academic standing as well as to bring another tangible accomplishment to the table.

It's hard to give pat generalized answers to individual-specific questions, but those are some of the things I'd think about.

Thank you so much for your input! I definitely think I will be able to write great essays/have great letters of rec. The hospital I work at is a clinic that sees normal exams during the day for both SA and exotics, has a surgery unit for both SA and exotics, and then is open 24/7 for emergencies. I work mostly in the treatment/icu unit, but I can definitely move around to other departments (exams, surgery, exotics, etc.) while working there. Ideally, I would instead take this next 1.5 years to work full-time here, re-take a couple pre-reqs and then also work on getting LA hours/possibly zoo hours if they open back up.

In total, I have probably about 600 hours so far working at this hospital since June, + about 100 hours shadowing at another clinic first. Now, I am just trying to determine if the M.S. is worth it, or should I just work on getting my hours/experience up and re-taking classes.

Thanks again for the input

 

[katykat2222]

Hi! I know this is a little late to the conversation, but I thought I'de provide my own input since your case is similar to my own. I'm not a vet student yet since this is my first application cycle, but I've spent a good deal of time mulling over this predicament myself and talking to others about their opinions. Normally I'de agree 100% with what everyone else is saying, but since you've already started the degree that makes it a completely different situation.

Bottom line is, you need to prioritize your risks.

1. Dropping out will look bad regardless, but if you don't perform well it could defeat the purpose of doing an MS degree in the first place. On the other hand, even though your grad school grades are good now, if you drop out you may have a hard time convincing vet schools that you dropped out for good reasons, particularly if you don't have anything to reason your undergraduate grades (e.g. having to split your attention on other things like vet/animal experience hours, jobs, life experiences, etc).
   1. If you got a 3.3 cum undergrad GPA with nothing to reason it away with, then got your first(?) part-time job and started your masters degree at the same time only to drop out after the first semester, it will look very suspicious that you didn't just see yourself getting overwhelmed if you continued (even if that's not the case). (Congrats on raising your last 45 GPA btw, I know exactly how hard that is.)​
2. Classes are the easy part. Unless you've got a really great setup (thesis topic available for you to work on, tuition waiver, funding ready to go, an advisor that is easy to work with, and a department that is on top of things), you will struggle if you're not interested particularly because you are expected to lead the project yourself.
3. The MS degree will put you 2 (probably 3) years out from vet school (like someone already said, less time for you to work on paying vet school loans back), but if you plan to be out of vet school that long either way, this point may not matter. However, unless you have a tuition waiver, your degree will only be adding to your future loans (which will already be hard enough to pay off).
4. If you're looking at schools that prioritize GPA and GRE more than a holistic approach, you're probably better off trying to make the MS degree work (more often than not vet schools average your class retakes with your original grade, so unless you know you can ace the course, retakes may not actually help you. At that point you can really only change your last 45 credit GPA, unless you find a school that only looks at retake grades). Every vet school looks at students differently. Make sure you know how your school of choice looks at applicants.
5. Check yourself for reality. In the current pandemic world, it's unlikely you will be able to branch out and try new experiences (research, laboratory animals, equine, farm animals, wildlife, shelters, zoos, etc.), and that's unlikely to change anytime soon. Not impossible to do, but unlikely. If you only have small animal/exotics clinic hours, it's probably worthwhile to stick with the MS degree to add variety (research experience) to your resume while bringing your GPA up.

For me, I just graduated last May from my 3-year MS degree. I decided to go for it because I knew I could do much better and was committed to making it work even if it took an extra year. It ended up being the best decision I ever made because even though I was not interested in my MS thesis topic (at all...), I got to meet a bunch of wonderful people (all of my LORs came from the people I met through my degree), learned new skills (which added value to my application), finally joined a pre-veterinary club (and got experience as a committee member showing leadership skills), gained so much more variety on my resume/application than I would have had, and opened so many new doors for me. It ended up working out for me, but I know it doesn't work out for a good amount of people. And don't get me wrong, while it's provided so many good things for me, it's also come with more than it's fair share of headaches and long crying sessions.

Cost was my deciding factor though, if I didn't get my tuition waiver I would not have done the MS degree.