How much do vet schools care about "other" experience?

[Kota1000]

Hi guys! So I have a ton of veterinary experience, and minimal experience in other fields of work. I know with the experience I have, I could focus on getting other experience to have a more diverse veterinary application; however, I love working in veterinary medicine, and I honestly don't want to do anything else. To be brief, I have an opportunity to work in a veterinary emergency specialist department as a veterinary assistant during my first year of college or to work at my university doing an alumni-relations type job... I really want to work in the emergency department, but I feel like I need to diversify my experience in order to improve my chances at getting accepted. Any suggestions?

I have 2-3 years before apply to veterinary school, and I am planning on doing extracurriculars. I do have experience as an IT Specialist (~350 hours) for a construction company designing their website and various other tasks, but that's about it. My veterinary experience totals up to around 1500 hours so far.

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[MixedAnimals77]

I think you would be fine to take the vet job. What the other hours are really meant to do is show you're a person outside of vet med. That you have hobbies, sports, clubs, volunteer work outside of animals, etc that you can turn to. All the "other" skills are important because vet med is not life- we need to balance it to be healthy mentally, socially, and physically which is a challenge for many in vet med. Hope that helps!

 

[Kota1000]

I think you would be fine to take the vet job. What the other hours are really meant to do is show you're a person outside of vet med. That you have hobbies, sports, clubs, volunteer work outside of animals, etc that you can turn to. All the "other" skills are important because vet med is not life- we need to balance it to be healthy mentally, socially, and physically which is a challenge for many in vet med. Hope that helps!

This is super helpful! Thank you