Mizzou Supplemental

[thedogisgreen]

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Oh, it's such fun to fill out the VMCAS and then enter everything all over again for individual college supplements. I haven't applied to Mizzou before, so some questions about the supplemental:
For work experience, you are only allowed to list 6, and they say if the experience is within the veterinary profession, it should be listed under both animal and work experience. I have a ton of varied experience, both animal and not, so is it better to include my veterinary work experience just under animal so that I can put in other work experience under work, or should I put it in both places and leave out some of my unrelated work experience? Agh long sentence, hope that makes sense.
For all of the essays - should they be completely different from the personal statement submitted to VMCAS? Looks like each of the mini essays can be about 350 words (they have a weird way of limiting it!). Is it okay to kind of just include bits, including some of the same sentences, of my VMCAS PS and expand on it in the supplemental, or start anew?
Thanks! 🙂

 

[OnceBitten]

I'm not really sure about the work section question. You could always send an email to Kathy Seay (the nicest and most helpful person you will ever meet!) to see what she says. Is there not a little explanation section on the supplemental? It's been too long for me to remember... but, if there is, you could always put the vet related work in both sections and then explain that you have held other unrelated jobs and would be happy to answer any questions that they have about it. I'm not the expert on this, though.

As for the essays, I really would not copy portions of your personal statement into it because the admissions committee will also be reading that. I know it seems like the supplemental application is just the VMCAS all over again (I feel your pain), but they need to see that you're passionate enough about this that you don't mind re-explaining the same ideas in different words. You don't want to come off as lazy when it comes to pursuing your dreams, especially not when the people you're applying against may have gone that extra mile to show how dedicated they are to the application process and how deeply they want to stand apart from the crowd and be accepted.

Take all of the above with a grain of salt, though, as I am in no way a part of or connected to the admissions committee. 😉

 

[moosenanny]

I'd say that you should make your supplemental essays as different as possible from your PS. Admissions committees have such a limited space in which to get to know you, and talking about something new for each essay gives them a better and fuller picture of who you are (versus repeating the same stuff over and over). For Mizzou specifically, and for supplementals in general, I always tried to talk about a different experience to give them as much varied info about myself as possible.

 

[thedogisgreen]

Thanks guys. Brainstorming time it is. I'll email and ask about the work experience thing and see what they prefer. I guess they'd see a description of all my jobs on VMCAS, so maybe best to emphasis the vet stuff on this one.
One more question that came up -
In the animal experience section, they ask you to distinguish between time in x area (small animal, equine, etc.) spent observing a vet vs time working in this area while not observing a vet. I have all my hours calculated in VMCAS form of vet vs animal experience, but I have no idea how to split it in terms of observing. What about when I'm working as a tech and sometimes working directly with the vet and watching him, but most of the time just doing things on my own that he has directly or indirectly asked me to do?

 

[moosenanny]

I'd say any hours you characterized as vet experience on VMCAS should be again categorized as vet hours on the supplemental (and same for animal experience). Otherwise, your numbers will be inconsistent, and thus suspicious.

As for work experience, I remember Mizzou requiring you to list your 6 most RECENT work experiences, regardless of their nature (animal-related or non-animal-related). So I literally went down my resume from most recent to sixth-most-recent. I don't think you're allowed to pick and choose work experiences . . . But that's just what I remember from last year. Certainly call Kathy and ask her 🙂