Is It Really Harder To Get Into Vet School Than Med School?

[alliecat44]

I know people on this forum really don't want to hear this, but due to declining applicant numbers and increasing class size the current statistics are 2.1 applicants for each seat in veterinary schools.

http://www.avma.org/onlnews/javma/feb11/110201a.asp

More people are going the smart route and pursuing more logical careers (is my interpretation).

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[NStarz]

I know people on this forum really don't want to hear this, but due to declining applicant numbers and increasing class size the current statistics are 2.1 applicants for each seat in veterinary schools.

More people are going the smart route and pursuing more logical careers (is my interpretation).

It may not do much for the MD vs. DVM argument, but that makes me super happy!!

 

[LetItSnow]

I know people on this forum really don't want to hear this, but due to declining applicant numbers and increasing class size the current statistics are 2.1 applicants for each seat in veterinary schools

Man. Given how many schools are 10:1 ... where are all these schools that must be at a 1.5:1 ratio???? Which ones are they?

ETA: I just realized it's an apples/oranges comparison since the 2.1:1 number is overall, and any individual school's 10:1 isn't accounting for people applying to multiple schools. But still.... which schools are at 2:1 and 3:1?

 

[alliecat44]

Man. Given how many schools are 10:1 ... where are all these schools that must be at a 1.5:1 ratio???? Which ones are they?

Read the article I linked to. I think it alludes to some of them.

 

[Cautionary Tail]

It may not do much for the MD vs. DVM argument, but that makes me super happy!!

No complaints from this corner, that's for sure. Let the MDs think what they will, I just want in!

That said, most of the MDs I know are still under the (potentially errant) assumption that getting into veterinary school is much harder than getting into med school. In fact, every MD I've encountered in undergrad has attempted to coerce me into jumping the fence because "nobody gets in" to DVM programs. A few of them have even shared stories about (multiple) friends who went into human med because they didn't think they had a shot at vet school.

 

[LetItSnow]

Read the article I linked to. I think it alludes to some of them.

I did read it ... did I just miss where they named names?

 

[Cautionary Tail]

Man. Given how many schools are 10:1 ... where are all these schools that must be at a 1.5:1 ratio???? Which ones are they?

ETA: I just realized it's an apples/oranges comparison since the 2.1:1 number is overall, and any individual school's 10:1 isn't accounting for people applying to multiple schools. But still.... which schools are at 2:1 and 3:1?

I know that, of 700-some applicants, Western will accept 160 and waitlist even more (no IS/OOS distinction). Nowhere near 3:1, but better odds than most.

 

[Minnerbelle]

Man. Given how many schools are 10:1 ... where are all these schools that must be at a 1.5:1 ratio???? Which ones are they?

ETA: I just realized it's an apples/oranges comparison since the 2.1:1 number is overall, and any individual school's 10:1 isn't accounting for people applying to multiple schools. But still.... which schools are at 2:1 and 3:1?

yea, If you have 400 people who apply to all 28 vet schools, and they get into just 1 school each, those 400 people increase the number of applicants by 399 for each of the 27 schools they got rejected from. However, ALL 400 of those people would be counted as students that matriculated (The lucky half of the 2.1:1 ratio). This is the extreme hypothetical situation, but you can see how this would result in a 2.1:1 ratio overall vs. a 10:1 ratio reported by individual schools.

There are some vet schools that do accept well over 1/3 of their in state students. Based on the 2009 VMSAR Auburn (45/111 IS, 34/103 contract), Illinois (88/215), Iowa (61/112), Louisiana (55/155), Mississippi (40/70), Missouri (60/134), Ohio (101/249), Oklahoma (58/130), Oregon (40/97), Purdue (35/99), Tennessee (62/147), TAMU (122/293), Washington (56/148), Wisconsin (60/165).

 

[nyanko]

I know people on this forum really don't want to hear this, but due to declining applicant numbers and increasing class size the current statistics are 2.1 applicants for each seat in veterinary schools.

They actually state in the article that the applicant numbers still trend towards increasing, but that the available seat numbers are outpacing them (rising at a faster rate). So I don't really know that more people are choosing not to apply.

Also interestingly, looking at the chart it appears as if most of the growth occurred from the mid 90's to the mid 00's and the numbers are actually more stable now...

 

[Cautionary Tail]

There are some vet schools that do accept well over 1/3 of their in state students. Based on the 2009 VMSAR Auburn (45/111 IS, 34/103 contract), Illinois (88/215), Iowa (61/112), Louisiana (55/155), Mississippi (40/70), Missouri (60/134), Ohio (101/249), Oklahoma (58/130), Oregon (40/97), Purdue (35/99), Tennessee (62/147), TAMU (122/293), Washington (56/148), Wisconsin (60/165).

Wow. Things I wish I'd taken into consideration when deciding where to do the whole undergrad thing, haha. As an OOS-er with no contract options, I pretty much ignored the IS stats in the VMSAR. They're even better than I'd anticipated.

 

[alliecat44]

Aaaand it means that the schools are all competing over the same most-qualified applicants.

 

[psilovethomas]

Sigh, I must admit, I've been looking into med school like LSD. The only thing that is holding me back from applying (could easily find MD's to shadow-Mom has worked in a pharmacy for 10+ years and knows some of them really well and the MCAT doesn't seem too daunting) is the fear of "what if?"
What if I do go to med school and 10 years later find myself wondering what life would be like as a DVM?

 

[LetItSnow]

Sigh, I must admit, I've been looking into med school like LSD. The only thing that is holding me back from applying (could easily find MD's to shadow-Mom has worked in a pharmacy for 10+ years and knows some of them really well and the MCAT doesn't seem too daunting) is the fear of "what if?"
What if I do go to med school and 10 years later find myself wondering what life would be like as a DVM?

How does shadowing work in the MD world? I would have expected there to be privacy issues that are very hard for an MD to overcome.

I know I'd be less-than-pleased if I went in for an appointment and had to disrobe in front of some young shadower likely to burst into a fit of giggles at my less-than-manly-man aging body.

(Seriously, though, wouldn't patient privacy be an issue, even with a signed confidentiality agreement?)

 

[nyanko]

Aaaand it means that the schools are all competing over the same most-qualified applicants.

I mean, I keep hearing this "most-qualified applicant" business and to be honest, I'm not quite sure that I agree as to its relevancy.

Can someone explain to me why it really matters whether, out of the pool of applicants who could reasonably be expected to succeed, your school gets the "top-ranked" one vs the "bottom-ranked" one based on predictors that are at best loosely correlated with success?

 

[sumstorm]

I looked this up a couple of years ago. I don't have the numbers in front of me, but the stats can be looked up from AVMA & AMA and when I last looked at it, the stats were comperable. IE ~the same total percentage of applicants admitted to med school wasn't very different than to vet school. now, those stats did NOT include schools that didn't use VMCAS or AMCAS.

one thing a med school admissions counselor noted is that many vet schools seem to limit their application pool by requireing one or more 'non-standard' pre-req (ie nutrition, genetics, speech, business) while a lower percentage of med schools had a non-standard pre-req.

 

[alliecat44]

I mean, I keep hearing this "most-qualified applicant" business and to be honest, I'm not quite sure that I agree as to its relevancy.

Can someone explain to me why it really matters whether, out of the pool of applicants who could reasonably be expected to succeed, your school gets the "top-ranked" one vs the "bottom-ranked" one based on predictors that are at best loosely correlated with success?

nyanko, I agree with you in the sense that we really have very few (and very poor) studies that actually look at predictors of success outside of the veterinary curriculum itself (e.g., vet school GPA). What qualities ensure people make the best veterinarians (not veterinary students)? Nobody's really looked at that in any meaningful way.

However, our dean was quoted in the article as saying,
"I see an increase in class sizes at an increasing number of schools, and the applicant pool is not going up much, and students graduate with larger debt. That points to a potential crisis in the applicant pool if it isn't already here," he said. "At K-State, we're still getting really good students, but I can say even with a 2 percent increase (in the number of applications) this year, 20 to 30 percent of the applicants I look at probably won't be successful academically. So even though the national number may say 2-to-1, if you really look at the qualifications of those people, that's just applications, not qualified applications. When you take 20 to 30 percent out of that number, it makes this an even bigger crisis."

It reminds me of a conversation I had with the head of our surgery service the other day when talking about the match results. There were something like 87 applicants for the 1 surgery resident position we have open. Pretty much everyone applies to all the residencies because they're so competitive and there are only about 30 residencies available per year. His insight was that--while it sounds like your chances of matching are about 3/8--your chances are actually a lot LESS if you don't happen to be one of the thirty or so candidates that every institution actually ranks. In other words, everyone is competing for the same appealing residency candidates--and for the 50-60 others, there is a zero chance.

I know they're not exactly the same, but I think there's a similar principle to which they allude in that article.

 

[nyanko]

Well I mean, I guess my point is that if a school is admitting students who are actually incapable of doing the work, isn't that going to work itself out in the end? Yeah, it'll be inconvenient and may be costly but if the attrition rates start going up noticeably I would think things would tend to even themselves out over time.

As far as the actual job market after graduation goes and the impact that the # of students graduating each year has on that, I feel like it's a whole other animal altogether. IMO that issue is more of the motivation for a lot of criticism of the admissions process and the declining ratio. People trying to disguise it as concern over the quality of students are IMO lying to themselves, whether they know it or not.

It reminds me of a conversation I had with the head of our surgery service the other day when talking about the match results. There were something like 87 applicants for the 1 surgery resident position we have open. Pretty much everyone applies to all the residencies because they're so competitive and there are only about 30 residencies available per year. His insight was that--while it sounds like your chances of matching are about 3/8--your chances are actually a lot LESS if you don't happen to be one of the thirty or so candidates that every institution actually ranks. In other words, everyone is competing for the same appealing residency candidates--and for the 50-60 others, there is a zero chance.

So then if everyone applied for all the residencies and there are 30 available, simply numerically speaking there will be 30 people filling those slots out of the 87 who applied. I don't get your point...there is still numerically speaking a 1/3 match rate in that case. I don't think anyone applying to anything thinks of their chance at admissions in terms of strict numbers of applicants accepted vs those not - at least not when thinking rationally about it (the reason why a lot of people in this thread trying to cite numbers are full of fail). That would only work if the names were drawn out of a hat or something - of course each individual person is going to have a chance that is weighted according to the strength of their application AND the numbers and strength of other applicants.

 

[psilovethomas]

How does shadowing work in the MD world? I would have expected there to be privacy issues that are very hard for an MD to overcome.

I know I'd be less-than-pleased if I went in for an appointment and had to disrobe in front of some young shadower likely to burst into a fit of giggles at my less-than-manly-man aging body.

(Seriously, though, wouldn't patient privacy be an issue, even with a signed confidentiality agreement?)

IDK, but I know my pre med friends shadow MD's at large hospitals (must dress professionally, of course).

 

[LetItSnow]

IDK, but I know my pre med friends shadow MD's at large hospitals (must dress professionally, of course).

Huh. My sister is a peds intensive care doc specializing in cardiology. I once asked her about shadowing before she went into med school and she just looked at me like I was crazy, shook her head, and said "We didn't really do that sort of thing."

But then, that would have been ... eh ... 10-12 years ago, I guess.

 

[psilovethomas]

Huh. My sister is a peds intensive care doc specializing in cardiology. I once asked her about shadowing before she went into med school and she just looked at me like I was crazy, shook her head, and said "We didn't really do that sort of thing."

But then, that would have been ... eh ... 10-12 years ago, I guess.

I cannot answer your questions, but you can venture to the pre allo forum and you *might* find some answers.

 

[nyanko]

I cannot answer your questions, but you can venture to the pre allo forum and you *might* find some answers.

Haha, "answers" are the last thing I think you'll find in the pre-allo forum.

Med schools care about shadowing and clinical experience a lot less.

 

[No Imagination]

Jesus, I can't look. What friggin necro brought back this thread?

 

[hunterjumper12]

How does shadowing work in the MD world? I would have expected there to be privacy issues that are very hard for an MD to overcome.

I know I'd be less-than-pleased if I went in for an appointment and had to disrobe in front of some young shadower likely to burst into a fit of giggles at my less-than-manly-man aging body.

(Seriously, though, wouldn't patient privacy be an issue, even with a signed confidentiality agreement?)

I was pre-med for a year (I know, don't shoot me! ) and I spent a significant amount of time shadowing (about 250 hours). My university had a physician shadowing program that you could apply for (but was pretty competitive to get into). I also did some shadowing with some docs that I knew personally as well. In both instances, the patient was asked if they were comfortable with me in the room, as well as if they were OK with the doctor showing me their condition. In the year I spent shadowing, I never had a person say they didn't want me to see something, so I got to see some pretty interesting conditions. Some people even volunteered for me to see things -- they were very open about their condition

 

[GellaBella]

How does shadowing work in the MD world? I would have expected there to be privacy issues that are very hard for an MD to overcome.

I know I'd be less-than-pleased if I went in for an appointment and had to disrobe in front of some young shadower likely to burst into a fit of giggles at my less-than-manly-man aging body.

(Seriously, though, wouldn't patient privacy be an issue, even with a signed confidentiality agreement?)

I used to actually work in a Drs office when I was considering pre-med. I went in asking if I could shadow him and he offered me a job. I got like $10/hr to call patients in from the waiting room, take their history, do their initial workup (temp, pulse, blood pressure, check out whatever was ailing them, take throat swabs and run the lab tests) and then report it all to the dr. In the down time I helped organize the office.

No one had any problem with me being there and when the Dr entered the room I would go with him and he always explained that I was a student interested in possibly going to medical school and no one ever had any problem with that.

Maybe if he was an OB/GYN or a proctologist they might have had an issue, but as a general practictioner no one minded and usually they would let me do more to them knowing I was a student. It was pretty cool.

Also you could shadow at the medical school associated with my graduate school and you can shadow doctors in the hospital here at UPenn if you have an interest in pre-med. It really hasn't been an issue at all as long as you're not leaving afterwards and going "oh my god, Mrs. XYZ came into the hospital today and you'll never believe why she was there!!" but most pre-meds I think take the shadowing part of their application pretty seriously and I don't think thats often a problem

 

[david594]

Well I mean, I guess my point is that if a school is admitting students who are actually incapable of doing the work, isn't that going to work itself out in the end? Yeah, it'll be inconvenient and may be costly but if the attrition rates start going up noticeably I would think things would tend to even themselves out over time.

But vet school isn't necessarily that hard though.

With less applicants to vet schools, chances are they will be taking more students who would previously be considered under-qualified. The result of which would be somewhat of a left shift and a narrowing of the bell curve. You would have more students performing poorly and less students doing really well.

A few more students might fail out, but most would end up in the low-passing 65-75% range

 

[Bigcatlover]

How does shadowing work in the MD world? I would have expected there to be privacy issues that are very hard for an MD to overcome.

I know I'd be less-than-pleased if I went in for an appointment and had to disrobe in front of some young shadower likely to burst into a fit of giggles at my less-than-manly-man aging body.

(Seriously, though, wouldn't patient privacy be an issue, even with a signed confidentiality agreement?)

Granted this was 15 or so years ago....but my dad is a pediatrician and when I was younger I wasn't allowed to go with him to work for "take your daughter to work day" so I always spent the day with a vet instead (which I preferred anyway).

Also, even longer ago...when my dad went to medical school at least one of his classmates was going to medical school because he couldn't get into vet school

 

[Alisa]

Just thought you guys will appreciate this

http://www.xtranormal.com/watchmovies/movie/6868901/?listtype=TOPRATED&page=4

 

[l2vet]

"....But you are not a real doctor. Like me."

ROFL. I <3 xtranormal! So much!

 

[bbeventer]

Just thought you guys will appreciate this

http://www.xtranormal.com/watchmovies/movie/6868901/?listtype=TOPRATED&page=4

I love laugh every time I watch that!

 

[TomTheK9Fixr]

This thread is much ado about nothing. Which is tougher?? ->Who cares! We are all gonna be/are vets... Which means we will be cardiologist/ob-gyn/surgeons/radiologists/blah blah I am sure you know where I am going with that blurb... Also, MD's make more money buuuuuut they pay wayyyyyy more malpractice insurance. And they have to deal with insurance companies. Right now, as a licensed/practicing therapist, I too have to bill daily medicaid/private insurance encounters, and it takes hours upon hours and it makes wanna me vomit I hate it soooo much... In the end, this is a fantastic field and I cannot wait to sit in my first class, and think to myself, ahhhh... Ok carry on people

 

[LivestockDoc]

Haha, "answers" are the last thing I think you'll find in the pre-allo forum.

Med schools care about shadowing and clinical experience a lot less.

Oh how I wish that were true! Instead I'll be delayed yet another year if I do the med school thing b/c they place enormous emphasis on clinical experience, and mine's all veterinary.

This week, I'll be shadowing a spine surgeon and a hand surgeon, and later this month, I'll be shadowing in the ED at the local hospital. The hospital had me sign a confidentiality agreement. I presume the surgeons will as well, but that seems to be all that is required.

 

[nyanko]

Every person I know who got into medical school basically used clinical experience and shadowing as a checkbox thing. The same is not true for veterinary school. Maybe it's different if you're old, idk.

 

[breenie]

Oh how I wish that were true! Instead I'll be delayed yet another year if I do the med school thing b/c they place enormous emphasis on clinical experience, and mine's all veterinary.

This week, I'll be shadowing a spine surgeon and a hand surgeon, and later this month, I'll be shadowing in the ED at the local hospital. The hospital had me sign a confidentiality agreement. I presume the surgeons will as well, but that seems to be all that is required.

I had ~1000 hrs of clinical experience for vet school admission, and most of my med school friends had <100hrs. You're expected to obtain it, but not in the volume of vet med...

ETA: Also, I had ~400 hrs of research experience at application time, while they all had 1000+ hours. There seems to be more of an emphasis/desire for research experience in med school applications. Different strokes for different folks.

 

[gone2dogs]

Oh how I wish that were true! Instead I'll be delayed yet another year if I do the med school thing b/c they place enormous emphasis on clinical experience, and mine's all veterinary.

This week, I'll be shadowing a spine surgeon and a hand surgeon, and later this month, I'll be shadowing in the ED at the local hospital. The hospital had me sign a confidentiality agreement. I presume the surgeons will as well, but that seems to be all that is required.

Oh LSD! Somehow I feel a tiny bit responsible for all this... but you are certainly wasting no time exploring this option!

So will you be staying put for the next year then? Maybe we will be neighbors for a year?

 

[libster06]

There are some vet schools that do accept well over 1/3 of their in state students. Based on the 2009 VMSAR Auburn (45/111 IS, 34/103 contract), Illinois (88/215), Iowa (61/112), Louisiana (55/155), Mississippi (40/70), Missouri (60/134), Ohio (101/249), Oklahoma (58/130), Oregon (40/97), Purdue (35/99), Tennessee (62/147), TAMU (122/293), Washington (56/148), Wisconsin (60/165).

I don't understand this stat?

 

[twelvetigers]

It's the number of IS seats to total IS applicants... of course it will change yearly and is probably a bit approximate, but you can see that being an IS resident of some of these states will increase your 'odds.' (Says the grumpy OK resident.)

 

[No Imagination]

Some of those stats dont look right. I didnt dig into any of them, and I may be misreading something, but I dont think TAMU really has 293 seats. Ergh, I may be wrong, but some of them seem VERY high.

 

[EllieGirl89]

Some of those stats dont look right. I didnt dig into any of them, and I may be misreading something, but I dont think TAMU really has 293 seats. Ergh, I may be wrong, but some of them seem VERY high.

That doesn't say TAMU has 293 seats, that says TAMU has 293 in-state applicants for 122 seats.

 

[sumstorm]

Some of those stats dont look right. I didnt dig into any of them, and I may be misreading something, but I dont think TAMU really has 293 seats. Ergh, I may be wrong, but some of them seem VERY high.

I think they have ~130 seats.

That would be one of the big differences between vet school and med school....more options to apply to with every state (I think?) having a med school.

 

[light10]

Some of those stats dont look right. I didnt dig into any of them, and I may be misreading something, but I dont think TAMU really has 293 seats. Ergh, I may be wrong, but some of them seem VERY high.

I think it's that TAMU has 293 applicants for 122 seats. That sounds about right. Basically, if you divided the numbers given, you'd get approximately the IS acceptance rate (so 122/293= 41% of IS applicants to TAMU take a seat there, or 68/112 = 54% of Iowan applicants take a seat at ISU).

 

[david594]

Here is the AVMA article talking about the state of the veterinary school applicant pool:

http://www.avma.org/onlnews/javma/feb11/110201a_pf.asp

It's definitely a good read.

 

[nyanko]

Linked and discussed a bit on the last page.

 

[No Imagination]

Yeah, gotcha - totally misread that stats

Great link for anyone thinking making the move to another state for IS consideration (also don't forget to look for states with nice low GPA's