Meeting with admissions tomorrow..what did you find helpful?

[RaptorRehaber]

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Hey folks,

I'm meeting with the director of admissions tomorrow at the U of MN and was wondering if any of you second-round appliers, who did the same, asked any questions you found to be particularly helpful when applying again?

I have the following questions already written down to ask:
1. How does the second-year application process differ from the initial?
ie. it's obviously not possible to raise your grades THAT much (mine went from a 3.09 to a 3.2 in one semester however) in eight months, so does the school do the same cut-off system for 2nd-round appliers or do they look for positive trends, last 45 credits etc?

2. I had some serious health problems during my freshmen and sophomore year which I believe impacted my grades, would it be appropriate to discuss these in the application? I don't want to act like I'm making excuses but it wasn't like I was out getting wasted instead of going to class, I believe these are legitimate reasons.

3. What types, and how much, of experience is competitive?

4. Do I need to completely re-write my personal statement?

Keep in mind, this is for Minnesota's preferences. Also, if anyone is interested in the answers, I can certainly post them after my meeting tomorrow.

 

[MickeysPet]

Posting the responses to your questions would be very helpful-thanks! I'm thinking of calling MN and scheduling a similar Q & A.

 

[shuvball1]

I have a meeting next week with admissions there, let us know any useful information that might offer please! 🙂 I'm really curious to know what parts of my application would make the biggest difference when improved. Especially since they said my grades met their criteria. Thanks!

 

[pressmom]

Hey folks,

2. I had some serious health problems during my freshmen and sophomore year which I believe impacted my grades, would it be appropriate to discuss these in the application? I don't want to act like I'm making excuses but it wasn't like I was out getting wasted instead of going to class, I believe these are legitimate reasons.

I had some health problems too and ended up withdrawing from my classes and taking a year off. I used my explanation statement in VMCAS for that. They may suggest you do that. I took a positive tone in it and explained what steps I had taken to ensure my health in the future.

 

[RaptorRehaber]

I had some health problems too and ended up withdrawing from my classes and taking a year off. I used my explanation statement in VMCAS for that. They may suggest you do that. I took a positive tone in it and explained what steps I had taken to ensure my health in the future.

That's what I was thinking. I just didn't want it to come off like I was making excuses or that I would be too much of a risk for a school to accept me. It's all under control now and my grades reflect where I was sick and where my normal level of academic achievements occur, so I just want to figure out the best way to discuss it.

 

[ShelterGirl]

1. How does the second-year application process differ from the initial?
ie. it's obviously not possible to raise your grades THAT much (mine went from a 3.09 to a 3.2 in one semester however) in eight months, so does the school do the same cut-off system for 2nd-round appliers or do they look for positive trends, last 45 credits etc?

It's really difficult to boost your GPA, especially if you have a master's or have taken a lot of classes. Mine only went up 0.2 from undergrad even though I had an A- average in grad school and straight As in post-bacc sciences. Some schools do look for upward trends, though - they tend to be the ones who ask for your last 45 credits GPA.

If your GRE scores are so-so, retaking it and hitting the percentiles out of the park should help with a number of schools. Experience, PS, and better LORs should help too - see below.

2. I had some serious health problems during my freshmen and sophomore year which I believe impacted my grades, would it be appropriate to discuss these in the application? I don't want to act like I'm making excuses but it wasn't like I was out getting wasted instead of going to class, I believe these are legitimate reasons.

I like Pressmom's answer 🙂

3. What types, and how much, of experience is competitive?

It really depends on the school. Cornell wants to see a lot of experience in a lot of areas, including research. UC Davis wants a couple thousand hours total between animal and veterinary, with some significant technical (i.e. clinical) experience. One thing that helped me last year was to specifically ask "If I got <insert type here> experience, would that strengthen my application?"

4. Do I need to completely re-write my personal statement?

I'm a big believer that you should. You will accrue a lot more experience in a year, you will further cement in your mind your reasons for wanting to be a veterinarian, and this will significantly impact your PS. Make sure to have multiple people review it too!

Also, carefully review who writes your LORs. You may or may not want to change them. I also found it helpful to send my recommenders information they didn't know about me through interacting with me - for example, I told my doc about my grades and degrees.

Good luck tomorrow!

 

[fargeese]

I asked about each area and whether I needed to do anything to improve it, and if so, in what way-grades, GPA, GREs, SA exp., LA exp. etc. They do write down what happens in these sessions, so if you can go back next year and show you did A, B, and C like they told you to, I think that reflects well on you.

I agree with Sheltergirl too, it is almost impossible to raise the GPA significantly in one semester, but it seems like they look at GPA and GREs as a unit (i.e. I had a lower GPA than the norm, but a higher GRE and I think they "averaged") so I would concentrate more on improving the GRE.

 

[RaptorRehaber]

Oh, I already went out and bought the vocab in the box and math workbook, haha.

 

[RaptorRehaber]

I had my meeting today, it went really well.

To sum it up:
Minnesota bases their resident admissions on a point system of 70 points.
20 points are awarded for the core (pre-req) GPA..not cumulative GPA. 25
points are awarded to last 45 credits GPA and 25 points are awarded for
GRE. Residents need to have at least 25 points to continue to the next level of admissions.

Second round-appliers are not treated any differently aside from the application stating that the applicant has applied before.

The vet school will average any re-taken courses that occur within a three
year period, if it has been over three years, they just take the new grade.
He advised me to focus on courses that I wanted to improve that were older
than three years, so my general chemistry which I got a C- in three years
ago will turn to an A if I re-take the class and do well.

He said explaining illnesses wasn't really a positive or negative for the application, but if I wanted to write something, keep it brief.

He liked my personal statement, he just suggested I re-write it with a narrower range of goals for what I wanted to do after graduation.

As for competitive experience, he said my numbers were fine, especially with my extracurriculars:
1730 hrs as a small animal/exotics assistant/tech.
60+ hrs raptor center
300 hrs kennel/grooming services
90 hrs mixed practice
Student Group president for anti-breed specific legislation
Community rabies clinics
plus nature center teaching volunteer work in high school.

As a complete side-note, I was looking into graduate schools as my plan B if I don't get in this year. I want to go into forensic medicocriminal entomology, anyone else an entomology nut?

Feel free to ask questions, I may have forgotten things.