How many vet exp. hours do you work a year, in pre-vet

[ashashbobash]

just on average.

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[Chili_Cat]

This is going to vary greatly between people just based on how/where they’re getting their vet experience, but I got about 1000 in a year working in general practice, I worked Saturdays and sundays during school and full time in the summer

 

[Lsu22]

Focus on variety. Also try to do volunteer and paid work.

 

[JunieB10]

Ive done about 30 per week— so about 1500 vet exp hours per year (But I work at 2 different practices). I also do research and volunteering (animal related) over the summers when I’m not in school— about 100 hours per year. Little by little the hours begin to add up... and VARIETY is my goal

 

[katashark]

Try out a bunch of different things. You never know what might stand out on a future application.

 

[Polocrosse2017]

I’m getting about 650 vet hours a year. I’m not doing any during school so all on breaks and summer. I’m in a unique position being in an early admit program. I’m trying to up my leadership positions in non vet stuff and keep my grades up without burning out before vet school.

 

[EB73674]

I would say I get between 800-1000 hrs per year - I am a post-bacc student taking classes part-time (around 6-10 credits per semester), and I work around 20-35 hours per week between two clinics (technically part-time or volunteer at both to maintain flexibility). One clinic is a small-animal GP clinic, and the other is a mobile field service equine/large animal practitioner. I agree with the above statement to get as many varied hours as possible, at different clinics. And above all MAKE SURE your GPA/GRADES are the PRIMARY focus of your life/time - you can always get more hours, but you can't always fix a crap GPA. I'm now in that situation, and I'm thankful that my bosses are all flexible & understanding with my hours.

 

[Old-Country-Vet-Tech]

I have about 1k a year for my lg animal practice but I was working 10-15 hours a week 3 days a week during classes. Some long call weeks during summer I would come in at 7am and get home at 9 but vmcas doesn't let you count those outlier weeks. When I worked a 40hr week at a small animal clinic I worked oh..for the 3 or so months I temped there ( tech was on vacation in hawaii) about 3-400hrs.

If you are working part time this is about 20-30hrs a week. I tell all my pre-vet students to try if they can to take a year off after undergrad and work with a veterinarian full time. Even during the summer you could get 3-400 hours easy.

 

[Old-Country-Vet-Tech]

I would say I get between 800-1000 hrs per year - I am a post-bacc student taking classes part-time (around 6-10 credits per semester), and I work around 20-35 hours per week between two clinics (technically part-time or volunteer at both to maintain flexibility). One clinic is a small-animal GP clinic, and the other is a mobile field service equine/large animal practitioner. I agree with the above statement to get as many varied hours as possible, at different clinics. And above all MAKE SURE your GPA/GRADES are the PRIMARY focus of your life/time - you can always get more hours, but you can't always fix a crap GPA. I'm now in that situation, and I'm thankful that my bosses are all flexible & understanding with my hours.

I can't stress that enough to my students :/

 

[SportPonies]

I only worked part-time at a clinic (15-20 hrs a week) during school breaks. So I had about 400 hours of direct veterinary experience by the time I submitted my VMCAS, and maybe 600 by the time I started vet school.... and I know people in my class that had even less than I had.

However, I did also have 5000+ hours of formal equine experience and a lot of other volunteer work on my application. All schools are going to value things differently, so get your veterinary experience but also do research into what your schools are looking for. Do they want a ton of veterinary experience, or do they want to see varied animal experience, even if it doesn't include a vet? And like everyone said above, your GPA should be your first priority, without question.

 

[ResoluteMike]

I had maybe 4 per week of shadowing. Some weeks more and some less. 400ish total hours when I applied. I had a good variety of experience though.