michigan state

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Right. The good thing is that flights to Detroit are pretty cheap (at least from NYC) and it's only about a 1 1/2 hour drive to East Lansing. I have absolutely no idea what this letter is going to say... it's probably better that way, though!
 
i'm personally not a fan that they did not interview this round.
for those that are lucky enough to be accepted, visiting is an issue.
The other schools that interviewed, gave tours, welcome dinners have a big leg up.
I know that I personally will not be able to visit michigan to make a decision (if I was admitted). And that sucks.
 
I know that I personally will not be able to visit michigan to make a decision (if I was admitted). And that sucks.

Ditto.
 
Finally.

and I'm waitlisted. 🙁

There's no ranking or any indication of where I am on the waitlist, or even of how many people are on the waitlist. I'm going to call tomorrow and see if I can find anything out.

I completely want to go to vet school and this is my IS school and where I thought I'd be admitted. I've been accepted to a graduate program in a different state and I have no idea what to do right now. Do I accept the other offer? What if I sign a lease somewhere else and THEN get admitted? I'm really freaking out about this 🙁
 
And an FYI if you're still waiting: the envelope was postmarked 3/17 and the letter was dated 3/19...
 
Came to my mailing address (not permanent). I live only about 45 minutes away from MSU so that's probably why I got the letter so quickly.
 
I think last year a good amount of people got in off the waitlist.
 
🙁 I'm sorry princesspeaches!! 🙁

Hmmm. I'm even closer to campus than you are and didn't get anything today, I'm thinking that's not a good sign 🙁... you'd think that they'd mail out all of the letters together?
 
Ahh I hope they all mailed them together. I don't see why they wouldn't... they took their time as it is :laugh:

I'm just anxious to find out either way, since this is the last school I have to hear from (with the exception of Penn, which is delaying my rejection quite painfully).

Good luck everyone!
 
OMG Finally!! Unfortunately I live in Idaho(and am going on a vacation tomorrow) and will be waiting longer. I wish I knew one way or another.
Princesspeaches love your handle, are you a Mario fan? (I am a Nintendo freak🙂 Sorry about your status, I am an alternate for Western and know the crappy feeling.
 
JumpHigherLivie I wouldn't worry about not having the letter today. They were only mailed out yesterday--I have a super efficient post office so I usually get things a day early. And wouldn't it be better to wait a day and get an acceptance than get it today and be waitlisted? 🙂

And SHEEPRL, I am a mario fan and I have a pet rat named Peaches--anyone from my undergrad pre-vet club will know who I am instantly lol, since my rat liked to attend all of our meetings.
 
Hopefully, princesspeaches, they were so freaking slow about sending things out that other people will have already committed and they'll snatch you off the waitlist!:xf:What grad programs did you apply to and are thinking about, if you don't mind me asking?
 
I just got off the phone with admissions:

They won't tell me my position on the waitlist, they won't tell me how many people are on the waitlist, and since they've changed their admission procedure this year, they have no idea how many people might be let in off of the list.

The only thing she told me was that the rank was based entirely on your SIS score (GPA/GRE) and that people off the waitlist would be told between May 1st and August 15th.

So, I'm in no better position now. I've been accepted to several Toxicology MS programs, and obviously they need to know my answer by April 15th. At the University of Washington (in Seattle) I've been accepted with a full tuition scholarship and a pretty nice stipend, but I'm afraid that if I accept it, what if I find out in like July that I'm in at MSU...at that point I'll have sent in my deposit, probably signed a lease out there/moved out there already. And I could turn down my offer at UW and then not get into MSU and be left with finding a job in the crappy market and without a plan. Obviously vet school is 100% where I want to be, but I have no idea what's the best choice here.
 
Optimistic 13 -- I bet if you called MSU CVM and told 'em that you moved they might be willing to send another letter out to the new address OR fax you a letter. I had this happen to a friend of mine when she applied to NCSU ... she called them On like April 12th because she hadn't heard anything yet, and somehow her letter never caught up wtih her, so they faxed her the letter (an acceptance!)
 
At the University of Washington (in Seattle) I've been accepted with a full tuition scholarship and a pretty nice stipend, but I'm afraid that if I accept it, what if I find out in like July that I'm in at MSU...at that point I'll have sent in my deposit, probably signed a lease out there/moved out there already. And I could turn down my offer at UW and then not get into MSU and be left with finding a job in the crappy market and without a plan. Obviously vet school is 100% where I want to be, but I have no idea what's the best choice here.

If it were me, I'd take that amazing opportunity. You could feasibly work through 2 years without taking out a single student loan. I'm not sure if this is a thesis-based program or not, but if it is and you work super diligently-- like, get started over the summer-- you could be out of there in 2 years with tons of knowledge and experience under your belt (not to mention the possibility of getting published) that would undoubtedly make you a better vet school candidate than you already are.

I must admit that I'm a little biased in my opinion; I was able to pursue a similar opportunity (paid tuition, decent stipend). I took 2 years out of my life to do this and am finishing up in May. I never regretted my decision. Plus the choice between applying again or taking time off to do a masters was a great theme for my personal statement🙂

And if you accept, move to Seattle, then get that dreamed about phone call from MSU, sure, it'll be super inconvenient to have to move and figure out subletting, etc, but at least you'll be so fresh into that tox program that you could leave without REALLY screwing anyone over. JMHO.
 
Complicating matters include that my boyfriend has an amazing job offer in Seattle, so the plan has been if I didn't get into vet school, I'd move out to Seattle and get my master's degree... so I'd be screwing him over apartment-wise. AND he's moving out there mid-June so he'll need an apartment by then, and would live close to campus only if I'm moving out there too. *sigh*

It's a two year thesis program. If I somehow find out August 15th that I'm accepted to MSU, has anyone ever heard of waitlisted people being given deferrals? How about 2-year deferrals? It's an amazing program and if I had just been rejected from MSU I would have been happy to go there, but now everything seems so complicated!

Thanks for the advice, everyone. I think I will end up accepting UW's offer since I could be at the very bottom of the waitlist.

Hope you guys all get happy letters today!
 
If I were you, I'd definitely accept the offer in Seattle and withdraw from the waitlist at Michigan. The masters program sounds great, and most schools won't let you defer if you get accepted off of the waitlist. Withdrawing from the waitlist might give you a little peace of mind because you won't have the issue of maybe hearing from them August 15! I think some masters programs allow you to apply to vet school during and leave the program halfway through if you're accepted to vet school, but check with the program. However, you might be filled with lots of "what-ifs" if you withdraw from the waitlist.

And don't worry, I'm not secretly on the waitlist and giving you this advice in my favor! 😉 Nothing in the mail today.

As a sidenote: I'm surprised the waitlist AND the early acceptances were all solely based on SIS scores. Did they consider other factors at all for the regular acceptances? I doubt it would count for much...
 
Well, I guess I'm kind of biased since I took time off to work on my PhD before reapplying ... but for whatever it's worth, I don't regret it AT ALL. It will make me a much better vet student (in my opinion and experiences), i've managed to keep a hand in the clinical side of things by going on farm calls with an equine vet on saturdays, and with the job market the way that it is having an MS with your DVM (eventually) will only make you more employable.

It's a tough situation. 🙁 I hope that you can come to an answer that you are happy with.
 
After talking to my vet employer/mentor and lots of thinking (plenty of time while running gels! so tired of running gels haha), I think I'll be accepting the offer to UW. I'm still not sure if I'll remove myself from the waitlist--a lot of what-ifs either way. I think if I find out that I'm in at MSU early on I'll probably withdraw from UW, if I find out later in the summer I'll stay at UW.

Thanks for all the advice and encouragement! Good luck everyone!
 
Anybody know if they'll be updating the status page at all?
 
princesspeaches -- for whatever it's worth, I think that you'll be really happy with your decision in th elong run. I was a little unsure of grad school in the beginning, but it was without a doubt, the best decision that I could have made. Do be careful if you back out on UW though ... I don't know how the program that you are in works, but here it would be a real nightmare if someone did that to us (I'm on the adcom for my grad program), due to lining up funding/fellowships etc. And you never know who you'll run into professionally down the road.

DocDVMD -- I don't think that they are using the status pages this year? I had a friend who emailed them at the beginning of the cycle and they weren't sure about using them at that point, but if I have one, I never knew about it.
 
Hm, it might have just been used for tracking purposes. It's the homepage for the supplemental application. After it was submitted they used it to say whether they received your transcripts and if you had any science course deficiencies, and to track your app payments and such. I wouldn't be surprised if they aren't planning to do anything with it in regards to admissions, though.
 
Ooh, letter came to my current address, weird. Alternate, OOS as well.
 
haha, I forgot all about that page!

I got my letter today too! (funny how it got to princesspeaches in 1 day but took 2 days to travel 10 min from campus lol!) -- accepted (IS). 😱 I'm still in complete shock.
 
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I just received an acceptance letter from Michigan, I honestly can't believe it! I'm OOS, in California, so everyone still waiting should hear very soon. Just to let you know, it's a large green and white first class mail envelope 🙂
 
ugh, alternate status for me. I wish they'd let us know our ranks, but if it's just based on SIS score, it's probably safe to assume my place is FAR down on the list (considering all of the brilliant people who are also on it 🙂)

good luck to all of those out there like me who'll be waiting (and waiting...and waiting).
 
Got my alternate letter today, suprised how fast in came since my mail is being forwarded.
 
hey! i got my alternate letter also. i'm really happy. i feel as though i accomplished something, you know?
 
I wish I was happy about it... I've gotten so many alternate letters that it just makes me feel bad now.🙁
 
My GPA is 3.4 and my GRE is 1420 (660 V, 760Q)... I wish I had a higher GPA-- I know that my GRE scores are great but it's only 21% of your SIS score. Wonder where that puts me on the list.

But, I sent in my deposit for UW last night, so at least I'm not going to be a hobo next year!
 
I spoke to someone from admissions and she said you can calculate your SIS based on the formula on the website... but it just lists percentages of how each component factors in. She mentioned the range was 890-790 I believe. I have no idea how to calculate it though. 😕
 
I got a letter from MSU today.... I'm on the alternate list as well. 🙂
I wish the letter would say if we were deficient in anything, bc I seem to remember them saying I was missing a class (so I'm quite surprised to have made it to the waitlist). Anyone know of any schools offering Eukaryotic Cell Biology this summer online???
 
Just got my letter....I'm in! I can't believe it!

Congrats everyone!
 
So, I feel like I don't know much about Michigan besides the fact that they have pretty new and awesome-looking facilities, and have a sort of collaboration with University of Michigan for lab animal medicine stuff. Anybody else have any more insight to share? I wish I could go to the Welcome Day to get a better feel for the school in the (miraculous) event that I were to get in off the alternate list.
 
WHat do you want to know about MSU re: the school?

I think that it's a pretty nice facility with some great faculty! The school-hospital is all one building that was connected in one way or another, and then the diagnostic center (DCPAH) is located about 5 minutes away which houses the pathologists.

The McPhail Equine Performance center has some amazingly high-tech state of the art equipment for lameness diagnostics and locomotion research ... I'm not sure that another facility exists quite like it in the US.

THey recently added in the small animal cancer center, which they conduct clinical trials through as well as regular cancer patient care. That building is amazing.

They work with Green Meadows (pretty large dairy operation) to provide production medicine people with some great opportunities in that respect.

They recently (2 years ago) had a curriculum change over/switch which seems to have gone over pretty well as far as I've heard from faculty and students.

There's a lot of research that comes out of MSU (I think, although I can't remember where I heard this, that we're in the top 5 vet schools for published research and cited research articles). There is work that is done wtih UofM lab animal wise ... but MSU itself has a really nice lab animal program too with some AMAZING ULAR vets. If you're interested in research they offer the Merck-Merial Summer Scholars program for first and second years, and if you want to go the DVM-MS route there is a NIH funded program in place for that as well that allows you to take a funded break between class and clinical phase.

Does that help at all? Feel free to ask specific questions!
 
Yeah, that definitely helps, thanks! Sounds like an awesome school 🙂 Congrats.
 
Thanks! 🙂 and I'm glad that helped some. Certainly, I think that there are downfalls to it ... from what I've been told there's not a lot of organized hands on experience until clinicals (although motivated people find ways through clubs etc. to get into the hospital) and someone once mentioned that MSU students seem more stressed out about failing than most (there's about a 10% "recycle" rate I think per class) and the building it's the prettiest in the world. 🙄, but it's home.

Let me know if you come up with any questions, I'll try to find answers for you!
 
I got my letter on Thursday- alternate OOS. 🙂

I am desperately looking for an online Cell Bio course. kiki, did you have any luck finding one?
 
Does anyone happen to know whether or not you can apply for Michigan residency once you've been living there for some period of time?

I am assuming that you cannot declare residency for academic purposes, since I searched MSU's website and could find nothing on the subject. If anyone could shed some light on the situation for me, it'd be much appreciated 🙂
 
You can't.👎 I know a girl from NY who owns a house here with her husband (who works here) and they still can't declare residency academically speaking. Unless it has changed in the last year, but I doubt it
 
Any other alternates know if we have to verify with the admissions office whether we would like to remain on the alternate list or not?
 
DocDVMD, I don't think so. Yesterday I emailed Kristin Aldrich in admissions about my alternate status and to make sure that she had my transcripts from last semester and she didn't mention anything about confirming whether or not I wish to continue to be considered. It may be a good idea to email her at [email protected] to be double sure, though.
 
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