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I talked to my advisor, and we cut out Cornell and Tufts because he said I couldn't get into those (though Tufts I'm not sure about). He also told me not to bother with the CA schools or the southern schools, because he said they generally only take students from the surrounding states. (Which may be true, but I also think he was sort of talking out his ass, now) He sort of listed a few schools he thought I could get into, and I took his word (soooo dumb!!!!).
In terms of how many, the head of my department once said that since almost all the schools are on the VMCAS and can therefore see which schools you applied to, if you apply to only one or two, you look cocky. If you apply to more than 8, you look desperate and like you don't know what you want (yet I know someone who applied to 18 and got in to two schools). So I applied to seven. Selected my last two out of the VMSAR based on average GPA.
Looking back, I was a total ******* when it came to applying. I didn't do nearly enough research, I took my advisor's word as more or less gospel. My advise is to do your own research. Decide what is financially feasible for you (applying costs a ton of money, make sure you meet the prereqs, look into the specific programs (tracking, non, etc), cost of living, everything. You'll make a better decision about where to apply, and you'll be better prepared for interviews in terms of knowing more about the schools.
Yup, your advisor was talking out of his ass. I know people from my state (MD) who have gotten in and gone all over the south, including UF, LSU, and UTK. The person who went to LSU did not even get in to VMRCVM but was admitted to LSU. Two of the five OOS people (nine admitted) who are attending UC Davis this year are from MD.
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I agree about doing a lot of research about acceptance rates, acceptance profiles, cost, etc. You may end up surprised by the schools you end up picking. Then, throw in a couple random "reach" schools that you don't see yourself getting in to, because you might be surprised and end up getting in to your reach school and waitlisted elsewhere, like me! Do your research but don't assume you can divine the intentions of the all-mighty adcoms.
As cowgirla and others said, I find the school numbers figure highly suspect and, as HopefulAg said, my last interview went the best. It seems to me that the only people on here who really got questioned about the number of schools they applied to were the ones with more than a dozen schools. I applied broadly, with 9 schools total, and ended up completely surprised by where I did/didn't get in, so I'm very glad that I did not cut my list down any more. In fact, if I had felt less pressed for time with supplemental applications (I had pneumonia last summer and couldn't do as much ahead of time as I had planned), I might have applied to more and not regretted it. From a pure probability standpoint, you stand a better chance of getting in (or getting off the waitlist) SOMEWHERE if you apply to more than 1 or 2 schools, not to mention the fact that every school is looking for something slightly different (and what that something is is hard to divine and may change from year to year), so you cover your bases better by applying to more schools. Some of it depends on your personal goals -- is it important to you that you go to vet school in a particular location or range of locations (I have a friend whose fiance works in international relations, so she's only applying to Penn, RVC/London, and somewhere in Germany) or to a particular school? If so, it makes sense to only apply to places where you would actually attend. It makes more sense to apply to more schools
This is as finances allow - it costs money to do the supplemental, VMCAS fee, and test score/transcript fees, and it is EXPENSIVE with a capital EXPENSIVE to go to interviews. I ended up spending $500-600 PER OOS interview for plane fares, hotels, and transportation. This is a drop in the bucket compared to the cost of tuition and living for the next 4 years, not to mention the opportunity cost of another year working at a relatively low-paying job instead of earning a vet's salary, but if you don't have the cash flow, then you don't have the cash flow. I spent most of the money in my bank account on fees, etc. My interviews were funded in part by grants from the International Bank of Mom and Dad.
All right, now that I've flapped my gums, er, fingers for a while, a little more about how I picked schools. I used a highly scientific semi-random process that followed logic in some places and deviated from others.
My first cut-off was, yes, that I did not want to go somewhere that was even more humid and oppressive in summer than Washington, D.C., in whose suburbs I currently exist (I can't call it living during the summer when it is 90+ degrees and 99% humidity). Without actually thinking about the continental climate thing, I decided that I would not apply anywhere farther south than D.C. except VA Tech, my in-state school. I am an equine/LA person, so it's not like I can spend my summers in a cozily air conditioned clinic and get stuff done. I'm the person who starts wearing T-shirts on walks when the temp goes above 45*F (if I'm riding and working up a sweat, I'll take off my jacket and trot around the indoor ring in a polo shirt when it is 30* - my friends think I'm crazy). There were numerous times this winter when I was too lazy/unmotivated to put on socks and shoes just to get stuff from my car or do a little more snow-shoveling, hence the appearance and naming of the "snow sandals" (they're OK as long as you shovel in front of you -- I found out the hard way that, no matter how warm you feel, your toes WILL go numb in less than 5 minutes walking through 2' snow in Tevas). Also, yeah, I'm biased against red states and states where more people believe in God than in evolution. It's a personal flaw of mine.
Other factors I considered:
- places where I had heard good things about their equine program (kind of a sad excuse for a reason to go somewhere given the sampling bias)
- places in the mid-west that take lots of OOS people
- places that do not use grades in the final reckoning -- Illinois and Minnesota claim that they don't (my dad finds it hard to believe that MN does not since I didn't get in after my interview and my experience is my strong point, but, hey, since when can we actually predict WHAT intangibles schools are looking for); Mississippi allows some sort of grade forgiveness, but failed the humidity and red state tests.
- randomness:
- I liked the sound of Cornell's PBL program.
- I'm sorry to the Western folks, but I was very put off by the fact that they did not have a teaching hospital. JMHO, YMMV, etc.
- Applied to UC Davis and CSU because they had been at the top of my little mental list of wow, I would love to go there, for years.
- Wisconsin and Tufts kind of randomly got axed due to time constraint.
Things I wish I had considered:
- Obtaining IS tuition after the first year.
- NC State's alternative eligibility program and obtaining IS tuition after first year - given my experience and very high GRE score, I think I would have had a shot at alternative eligibility (and it's not THAT much hotter than D.C., is it?), but I nixed them due to the latitude rule and the fact that they discourage OOS students with less than a 3.4 GPA.
- WSU's tier system - again, I don't have the greatest GPA, but I positively rocked the GRE, so I might have had a chance.
My final list (with comments - brevity is not my strength when it comes to SDN):
VMRCVM (IS) - waitlisted, then called off the waitlist mid-April
UPenn - rejected w/o interview
Cornell - rejected
Illinois - rejected w/o interview
Iowa - waitlisted after interview (OK, so I messed up the climate thing here - ISU gets wicked hot and still humid during the summer, but I LOVED the school. LOVED it.)
Minnesota - rejected after interview
Michigan - waitlisted, then got an email offer this past week (crap, I told VMRCVM and Iowa to take me off their waitlists, forgot to email MSU, but it was really awesome to get some love from them - I have a long-distance crush on their adcom, since they sound SOOOO nice in all of their letters and emails)
CSU - rejected, along with 1600 or so other people
UC Davis - accepted and attending! holy cow! I heard later on here that UC Davis appears to like people who have a lot of experience (AVERAGE # experience hours is 3000, much more than most schools, and average GPA is slightly lower than the most grade-oriented) and who know where they're going in life. Honestly, I thought I had a better shot at CSU than UCD, but apparently not.
OK, that's it for now, sorry for the novel.
ETA: Wow, how did I miss page 2 of this thread?
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