Internship Options

[123wanttob]

Hello!

Third year student here-- I am looking into where I might want to do an internship after I graduate because I want to extern fourth year at some of my top choices. I was looking into Wheat Ridge Animal Hospital and saw it asked for class rank on the externship application...when I check I was shocked at how low I was. I have a 3.2 GPA but am ranked 85%...

I have a LOT of experience-- I work in the teaching hospital, am conducting research in small animal surgery, am president of our class, president of a club, I was a wet lab coordinator. I've visited lots of hospitals-- AMC in New York, Angell in Boston, another busy ER in North Carolina, did veterinary work in south america, worked as a technician for years.

I want to be an emergency vet, but I want a good internship and am not geographically constrained. What do you guys recommend? Because I am freaking out...

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[SocialStigma]

If you apply to an internship through VIRMP then class rank and GPA is part of the application, so they will find out sooner or later. I would apply broadly to a variety of academic and private private institutions, and definitely try to complete externships at the places you're most interested in. Some places will red flag your application automatically based on class rank and some won't care as long as your application is solid in other ways (LORs, experience, etc).

 

[racccjlm]

Sounds like you have some great experience. Class rank and GPA do come in to play. I echo what SocialStigma suggested - try to extern at the places you're most interested in for internships so that you can build personal connections that allow them to see past the numbers. I have a friend that did her rotating internship at Wheat Ridge and she raved about it.

 

[JaynaAli]

I think my students last year said that Wheat Ridge won't/can't even let you come visit if you aren't in the top 50% of your class. But there are also great internships out there that maybe aren't the "big names" but will still be useful experience. I was below 50% on my class with a similar GPA to yours and I matched to a great, but smaller VCA hospital. I had visited for a week, and I think that played a large part into me matching there. It wasn't renown for its awesomeness, but I learned a ton and I spent more rotations on ER than some other people I know because there were less services to rotate through since it was a smaller hospital.

 

[VetMedSurvivalGuide]

Visiting and making a good impression sometimes can make some of those requirements go away (for externships). You can also check what their VIRMP internship program description says to see if you'd be able to apply there the following year. If you don't meet some of the criteria you might want to look at other places to extern.