No Large Animal Experience

[hw13]

I was wondering if anyone has applied to vet schools with either minimal or no large animal/equine experience and still got accepted? My hometown is very limited on large animal veterinarians and covid heavily affected my ability to gain experience - the closest DVM was over an hour away and I just haven't found the time or money to travel that far for shadowing!

 

[britzen]

I applied with only shelter experience.

Depends on the school how they will weight experiences versus other parts of your app.

 

[zenarcade]

I only have 2 hrs of LA experience (they weren't even veterinary hrs) and I still received multiple acceptances. I did mention in my explanation statement that COVID had made it difficult for me to get more varied experience. I would like to think that admissions committees understand that many people don't live in areas with much access to LA vets/organizations. If you said you wanted to be an equine vet and had no experience in it, that might raise some red flags. But otherwise I think you can still be okay, depending on the strength of the rest of your application.

 

[EB73674]

Yes, good friend of mine had zero LA experience, but he had a ton of small animal & research & leadership experiences, he got multiple acceptances. I think the explanation statement will be key here.

 

[SardonicWit]

I was the opposite - I had a ton of equine experience and some LA experience, but almost no small animal clinical experience. I thought it would be a big issue, but it wasn't.

 

[futurevet1998]

I had zero large animal experience - was accepted to 4 schools and waitlisted at 3. I did have extensive shelter experience and small animal clinical experience though.