How many schools did you apply to?

[cqs]

Creating this poll soley for my own curiosity!

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[Vet01]

Love the poll idea. The AAVMC posted that for the 2021-2022 application cycle, applicants applied to an average number of 5.37 different schools. Last cycle (2020-21) they said that applicants applied to an average of 4.89 different schools.

 

[battie]

The average had been 5 for quite a few years. Enough to increase your odds. There's a point where, depending on your application, applying to more schools produces diminishing returns. Tailoring your list to your app is definitely better than applying to every school out there.

My first cycle, I applied to 5, but 2 (maybe even arguably 3) of those schools were poor choices. Ended up with 1 waitlist. Cycle two, I applied to 2 schools (in state and the school that had waitlisted me); ended up waitlisted again. Third cycle, applied to 8 schools. Again 2-3 schools were poor schools to have on the list. Waitlisted *again* and finally accepted to a school I had not yet applied to.

 

[lurkingbcihatewaiting]

The average had been 5 for quite a few years. Enough to increase your odds. There's a point where, depending on your application, applying to more schools produces diminishing returns. Tailoring your list to your app is definitely better than applying to every school out there.

My first cycle, I applied to 5, but 2 (maybe even arguably 3) of those schools were poor choices. Ended up with 1 waitlist. Cycle two, I applied to 2 schools (in state and the school that had waitlisted me); ended up waitlisted again. Third cycle, applied to 8 schools. Again 2-3 schools were poor schools to have on the list. Waitlisted *again* and finally accepted to a school I had not yet applied to.

can i ask what made those schools poor choices? is that in terms of your odds/interests/location?

 

[battie]

can i ask what made those schools poor choices? is that in terms of your odds/interests/location?

Purely in terms of odds. The first cycle, I didn't get enough guidance prior to applying and made it up as I went. Third cycle was foolish hope. Lol. My application did not fit their average successful applicant at all.

Interest and location had 0 bearing on my choices for vet school because the degree is the same regardless of where it comes from.

Niche interests like repro and exotics may be better represented at some schools than others, but students from those schools don't necessarily have a leg up over students who don't due to opportunities outside of school.

 

[DVMDream]

I forget how many schools I applied to each year, the first year I know for sure it was 4-- the 3 WICHE schools and Western in CA.
The second year, I think it was 6? 7? I dunno. I think year 3 I did 6? 8?

It has been over 10 year since I first started applying, so hard to recall how many I applied to.

I can say some of them probably weren't good picks, I was young, naive, desperate and I definitely added in quite a few "long shots" that I probably shouldn't have.

 

[Trilt]

All my eggs in one, in-state basket.

Wasn't willing to go into out of state levels of debt.

 

[deleted676737]

I applied six years ago, got in on the first attempt. Initially, I applied to three schools but then added a fourth at the last second. That's all I was able to afford at the time and with my cumulative GPA being on the weak side (3.2), I figured that the best strategy was to apply selectively to schools where my higher science and last 45 hours GPAs and diverse experiences would be weighed more heavily in admissions formulae.

I wound up being accepted to three of the four schools. One directly, two off of waistlists. The latter two were poor choices financially, though, so I ended up attending the school where I had the direct admittance, as I was able to pay IS rates there. Life ended up taking me down another path after second year, so I'm glad that I made the decision that I did. I still have a stupid amount of debt, most of which is for a degree that I didn't even earn, but at least I'm not in the multiple hundreds of thousands I'd have been in had I chosen to attend an OOS school and found myself in a similar situation.

I generally agree with Battie. I understand that things have only grown more competitive in recent years and I feel like more people are applying, perhaps blindly, to ten or more schools per cycle but I... I don't know if that's the best way to go about it? Especially because I'm still seeing applicants getting rejected for silly things like missing a pre-req or not meeting a published GPA requirement, despite that information being more accessible now. It is ludicrously expensive, not to mention that when you apply to so many schools, if you're decently competitive, you're going to inevitably have to turn down multiple interviews due to time conflicts, though that admittedly might be less of an issue now given that many schools have moved to either not doing interviews or are doing them online.

Still, I think a better approach is to look at your application and really, honestly evaluate its strengths and weaknesses (the WAMC subforum is great for getting an additional perspective on this), then doing lots of research into schools that you may be interested in to see how well your particular strengths line up with what they value in their admissions process, how you stack up with previously admitted classes, and how their seat breakdown looks, then act from there. It's likely not the wisest decision to apply to, say, Texas A&M as an OOS student with a 3.0 cumulative GPA, for example, given the paucity of available OOS seats and the average GPAs of the few people who DO manage to snag those OOS seats.