premed turned prevet

[jiminbirdie]

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i wanted to ask if there are any disadvantages for someone who was premed but turned prevet

i was premed but decided to go prevet after my family dog died last year. it was particularly hearbreaking since she was so young.

i know that dental schools dont like premeds turned predentals...

i took my mcats already, but have not yet applied to med schools.

do you think it will affect my chances?

also in terms of Letter of rec, how many do you need from professors?

thanks so much

 

[QTkitty]

If you took the required courses I don't think your major is going to be the problem. I think what's going to make or break you is how much animal/veterinary experience you have. Vet med is a very competitive field and I think a lot of the schools expect to get several applicants in the top of their class. So, GPA is important but what seems to set the individuals apart is how much and how varied their experiences are. Also, you're going to want to take the GRE at some point because, although some vet schools will accept MCAT, most will only accept GRE. Anyway, good luck and I'd say if that's where your heart is then go for it!

 

[InfiniVet]

Good luck! 🙂

If you haven't already applied to med school then no worries.
Its not so much how many letters of rec you need from profs, but how many you need from veterinarians. You need 3 LOR's, 2 must be from Veterinarians.

 

[mistifical]

Three letters of recommendation are required. All the schools are *slightly* different in who they ask them to be from, but generally, at least 1 should be from a veterinarian. Some schools will require that 2 are from a veterinarian and/or a PhD that you have worked closely with. The other one is kind of up to you...

I got mine from 2 vets who flat out told me to let them know when I was applying so that they could write me letters of recommendation. The other was from my organic professor... I did extremely well in her class and she was also one of the pre-med/pre-dent advisors at my school, so she knows what it takes to succeed in that type of a program. I had several other professors who I would have loved to have written me a letter of recommendation, and the VMCAS application has extra forms you can download in case you want to submit more than three, but I found that most schools (well, all that I looked into... does anybody know of any that will consider more) will only accept the three from your VMCAS application.

And a few tips...
Get out there and get lots of experience! Small animal, large animal, research... Since you've been planning on going to med school for quite a while I take it, it may even be a good idea to take a year off (depending on how far you are in your education... you've already taken your MCAT so I'm guessing you are a junior or a senior) to get some experience.

Also, if you don't mind me asking, what is the story behind your dog and how that made you switch fields?

 

[Pennymare]

Everyone's given great advice so far, so I won't repeat it.

The only two things I would emphasize is learn about current events in vet med, more about the large animal end, and more about the financial end.

Even if you are small animal, I think it is important that you know about the major issues in the whole field (let's face it, many current problems are food safety, zoonotic disease, and LA vet shortage related). It will help you to know and appreciate the scope of veterinary medicine.

As for the financial end, you may not care that animal doctors make less than human doctors----which is definitely cool 👍 . However, you need to have enough of a plan to let the interviewers know that you accept the differences 🙂

Often times they ask straight out why people are choosing vet school over med school, so make sure you have thought it out and have a firm foundation.

Good luck!!! 🙂