Hmmmm

Veterinary Science Graduate Programs from U. of I.
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WayNoWay

WayNoWay

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Hey everybody! So I'm another one of those late bloomers on deciding about being a vet. First of all I'm a junior so I have little time. I have some questions about the whole getting experience stuff. 1) Why is it required to have so many vet hours? 2) Will I be at a serious disadvantage if I applied at the end of my senior year with less hours than most considering that I just figured out this is what I want to do? I'm envious of people that have known what they wanted to be since they were like 6.
 
If you are applying to schools with minimum hours, you will have to have the min hours. Do you have other animal experience? How about research experience? Is there anything else that would make you stand out (work FT while attending FT, fellowships, etc?)

The biggest reason for vet hours is to make sure you know what the field is about, and know some of the negatives and that it isn't all playing with animals.
 
I didn't understand why we needed the hours until I got the hours. You really do need to see it for yourself.

Feel free to apply with less, but keep working on them in case you don't get in your first try. You may, and if so, good for you. If not, you'll be more prepared the following year. 🙂
 
I also decided to apply my junior year. Luckily, I already had some decent animal experience, but to get enough vet experience I had to work my butt off the spring and summer before I senior year (the year I applied). It paid off not only with an acceptance into vet school but with confirming in my mind that veterinary medicine is the right profession for me - the good and the bad sides of it. The good news is that lots of people decide to go to vet school junior year, senior year, ten years after school... and many on this forum who decided to apply late in the game have successfully made it into vet school and done well. If you don't get in your first try, you can always spend another year getting more experience and then re-apply. That was my plan if I didn't get in, to spend a year working in the field and apply the next fall. Good luck!
 
I pretty much only had a summer and a christmas break worth of clinic experience, but that was 40+ hrs/week of shadowing time at more than one clinic at a time. There were times when I left a 10 hr day at one clinic to spend the night shadowing at an ER overnight. I ended up with like 500 hrs, and was accepted at a few places on my first try. So no, I don't think you have to have 2,000 + hrs in. However, I also showed dogs professionally for almost 10 years before, so my total animal hours were 20,000+.
 
I think for experience, it's more about the quality than the quantity. As long as you can show the ad coms that you know what the field is about, you have a good chance of getting in provided everything else checks out. I would start by getting as much experience as you can right now, and more importantly, diversify! It seems like admission committees like to see applicants who have looked into different aspects of vet med.
 
True, I had SA, LA, specialty and ER experience, even though I pretty much knew already what area I wanted to work in. Just to show I tried most of it.👍
 
Hey thanks for all of the responses! Yea I don't really have much experience at all as of right now. I think I have a total of like 9 hour...lol, but I'm starting to volunteer at the humane society, shadowing my vet back home, and doing research with one of my professors this summer.

P.S. One more week of school this semester for me! No more micro, biochem, physics and stats!
 
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