Question about research as experience.

[DVMorBust]

So, if I'm remembering this correctly, veterinary experience can include working under a vet, shadowing a vet, etc. and also research? Does this have to be veterinary research in order to count?

I work in a genetics lab using zebrafish as their model. Would that count? Or would that be unrelated and be put in the employment section?

What about unrelated research like studying reaction rates in chemistry?

What about research and presenting at conferences in a non-science field?

If research counts for the experience section, then I'm going to be a lot less panicky than if it's ONLY supervised-by-veterinarian activities.

I'll be contacting the adcom at Wisconsin to figure this out for sure, but I was hoping someone else on here could give me a heads up on what to expect.

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[hoodle]

All the research I've done (and I've done plenty) has been PhD supervised, rather than DVM supervised, and it's been basic science question. I put it all under vet experience. everyone wins! put all your zebrafish and chem stuff under vet experience and don't worry!

I wouldn't put research and conferences that weren't science related as vet experience, though...

 

[DVMorBust]

That sounds like a good cutoff point. Do you know if there is any other place to specify the non-science research/presentations? I feel like, even if it wasn't the most pertinent subject, it was a relevant experience in terms of soft skills and the whole research process. Should that go in the extra explanation section?

 

[SweeTeaPie]

The vast majority of my experiences were research related with >1 year of it being non-animal (i.e. micro and immunology based) but as hoodle points out, I catagorized it all as Veterinary experience. Tough call on where to put your other experiences.. I don't suppose it would be considered "employment", right? Was it for school? How about in either the "extracurricular and community" or "Honors and awards"... was it like an honors conference of some sort?

 

[VAgirl]

How about in either the "extracurricular and community" or "Honors and awards"... was it like an honors conference of some sort?

That sounds like a good idea to me. I wanted to put a conference on my app that I attended (it was on Agroterrorism and I'm super interested in infectious diseases and herd health, so I wanted them to see all the different activities/things I've done/seen in this area), so I put it as an activity/extracurricular. There just isn't a really great place for some things, so if you can't find any other spot, I'd put it in EC/community, definitely.

 

[DVMorBust]

Tough call on where to put your other experiences.. I don't suppose it would be considered "employment", right? Was it for school? How about in either the "extracurricular and community" or "Honors and awards"... was it like an honors conference of some sort?

There were three conferences in particular that I'm thinking of. Here's where my geek-ness really shines through...I was invited to present at the Slayage conference (on all things Buffy, Angel, and Firefly-related) and presented a paper on sociolinguistics and the personal meaning of language in Firefly. This summer, I am also going to be presenting a paper on the use of Chinese as a lingua franca at the same conference again. These were done as an independent scholar.

The other one was a conference that I organized, for IT departments at universities that have student employees. I gave a few talks and presentations, as well as organized and ran the whole thing with one other person. (stressful!) That was done while I was employed as a Manager in the IT department at my university. The talks I gave were mostly experience-based, on how to run efficient HR departments and how to give student employees the best real-world experience while still having their contributions aid the University as much as possible.

 

[hoodle]

I would put the slayage conference as extracurricular and community, and the IT department stuff under employment.

 

[DVMorBust]

Hoodle - should I list the conference as two separate events? Or as one and state that I did it twice?

 

[SweeTeaPie]

Hoodle - should I list the conference as two separate events? Or as one and state that I did it twice?

If it's the same conference, you should list it once, but make a note that it was done twice (list the years).

 

[VAgirl]

Hoodle - should I list the conference as two separate events? Or as one and state that I did it twice?

Actually, I don't think it really matters. Were there differences? Then maybe you want to list them twice. Or if you really want it to be apparent that it happened twice, you could list them separately. I think that's just a personal preference thing, rather than one way being more correct.

 

[Whirr]

I was invited to present at the Slayage conference (on all things Buffy, Angel, and Firefly-related) and presented a paper on sociolinguistics and the personal meaning of language in Firefly.

I would have enjoyed that presentation; although I haven't gotten much of a crack at Buffy or Angel yet, I'm a huge Firefly fan.

As to the thread topic, I've been wondering about this too, since it makes a huge difference in my case as far as "vet experience" hours... since I went pre-vet last year after graduating with a B.A. two years ago, all the research I did as an undergrad (including 6 weeks of an international research project in Germany that was essentially organic chemistry synthesis) was heavily chemistry based, but not directly animal or vet related even though it was PhD supervised. I suppose if some of you used that kind of experience as vet experience and didn't get called out for it, maybe it's considered reasonable, but it still seems sort of odd to me to consider that "veterinary experience"; maybe "professional experience" but it *is* pretty different. Ah well. Another bridge to cross when I get there, I guess.

 

[hoodle]

I think they should either rename that category "Veterinary and Scientific/Research Experience", or create two separate categories. How they have it currently is so confusing! But Whirr, I really would put your orgo synthesis stuff under vet experience. that IS where research belongs.

 

[VAgirl]

I think they should either rename that category "Veterinary and Scientific/Research Experience", or create two separate categories. How they have it currently is so confusing! But Whirr, I really would put your orgo synthesis stuff under vet experience. that IS where research belongs.

I totally agree that it's confusing. But I agree with hoodle, this IS where it belongs. The directions say so. Also, if you're confused about anything you can call the VMCAS hotline number over the summer. It was frustrating for me because they often didn't answer, and though they do call you back, it's always during business hours, so if you're working that can be hard. But still, they do call you back and they do know how to answer all of these questions, so it's a pretty good resource.

 

[SweeTeaPie]

I totally agree that it's confusing. But I agree with hoodle, this IS where it belongs. The directions say so. Also, if you're confused about anything you can call the VMCAS hotline number over the summer. It was frustrating for me because they often didn't answer, and though they do call you back, it's always during business hours, so if you're working that can be hard. But still, they do call you back and they do know how to answer all of these questions, so it's a pretty good resource.

Yuppers! That's exactly where research belongs, so there's nothing to be "called out" on. VAgirl, hoodle and I were all acepted to vet school this year, and so far I don't think anyone of us have had someone call up and say "sorry, but you have research experiences listed under 'Veterinary Experience' so we're going to have to renig on our acceptance offer". If you have trouble getting ahold of VMCAS as VAgirl suggests, try contacting some of the schools you're interested in directly (that's what I did) and I'm POSITIVE they'll tell you the same thing.

 

[stick91]

Yay! This is excellent information, it means that I can put all of my thesis research under veterinary experience!

 

[Whirr]

All sounds good to me; I've spent some time on these boards trying to figure out how other people have counted experience, and had found conflicting information. Of course, going straight to the source will be the best, but I have been trying to decide how bad my experience section would look even before I started filling out the application. And whether or not we have research experience, we still need direct vet experience, so it's something of a moot point; it just affects the raw number of "vet experience" hours one has. That's my understanding, anyway. *whew*

Thanks for the advice from those of you who have applied! I'd agree that I wish the general categories were articulated better, but who knows what the future holds. I hope no one felt that I was insinuating that there was even something to be "called out" upon--it was more general curiosity as to how the schools approached that information/what they felt was appropriate.

Anyway, much obliged. Now to do more shadowing. I agree it's important, but sometimes I feel like we have to jump through an impossible number of hoops to do this. Go team...

 

[DVMorBust]

OK, guys, possibly some bad news here:

From Wisconsin's adcom:

Hi ______,
Thanks for your email message, and your interested in our School of Veterinary Medicine. That's great that you have had such good and extensive experiences in research. On the application, you will only list research experiences as veterinary medical experiences if you completed those research projects with a veterinarian. From your descriptions below, it doesn't sound like any of these were done with a veterinarian. Is that right? It sounds like your genetics research with zebrafish would be considered "animal experience." Your other experiences would be considered other experiences. You would want to write about these in your personal statement and/or your additional information (explanation statement). I hope this helps to clarify. Please let us know if you have any further questions or concerns.

Thanks!
________

 

[CalpardNY]

Thats interesting because it seems to conflict with what the VMCAS states. I wonder if they know that.

I feel like its so different and if an adcom is saying something different than the VMCAS it cant matter that much. I mean some of us put research in vet experience and some under animal experience and many of us had it brought up in interviews. I don't think they will discount your experience if you put it in the "wrong" category.

But if i a school adcom is saying that maybe you want to call VMCAS hotline (as VAgirl suggested) and see what they say. Mention to them what wisconsin said and see what they have to say about it!

 

[VAgirl]

OK, guys, possibly some bad news here:

From Wisconsin's adcom:

Hi ______,
Thanks for your email message, and your interested in our School of Veterinary Medicine. That's great that you have had such good and extensive experiences in research. On the application, you will only list research experiences as veterinary medical experiences if you completed those research projects with a veterinarian. From your descriptions below, it doesn't sound like any of these were done with a veterinarian. Is that right? It sounds like your genetics research with zebrafish would be considered "animal experience." Your other experiences would be considered other experiences. You would want to write about these in your personal statement and/or your additional information (explanation statement). I hope this helps to clarify. Please let us know if you have any further questions or concerns.

Thanks!
________

To piggyback on what Calpard said, I'd email back to Wisconsin and let Lynn know what VMCAS's instructions are. They participate in VMCAS, so they really really should be following what VMCAS says. If they want it done differently, they can request it another way on their supplemental.

Also, this is not meant to be anything negative about WI or Lynn (because the school is great and she is one of my favorite people) but she's relatively new to the vet school (just got there from another department or something within the university) in the last 6 mo or so. So, if she was the one giving you the information, she just might not be 100% familiar with the instructions that VMCAS gives. That is one possible explanation.

I guess another possible explanation is that VMCAS instructions have changed from last year to this year. I'd check that out, too. Maybe someone who did the preview of VMCAS can comment on this possibility.

 

[hoodle]

I second what VAgirl says.

If WI is giving advice that's conflicting with what VMCAS wants, I'd make a decision - are you applying to WI among many? or only WI?

Both VAgirl and I did our apps with research stuff under vet stuff, and we both got in OOS... so even if they're saying research is not vet experience, they might not mean it, if that makes sense.

but that's very strange that they sent that back to you... makes it hard to know what's going on.

 

[SweeTeaPie]

T
I guess another possible explanation is that VMCAS instructions have changed from last year to this year. I'd check that out, too. Maybe someone who did the preview of VMCAS can comment on this possibility.

That's interesting that you mention that. The instructions on the new application were actually much more vague and slightly confusing this year than they were previously. I guess since I was biased from having already gone through the last application, I assumed that what they were suggesting was the same as what we were told last year. It was actually a sort of chart, and in my opinion, it could have been read two different ways. I did mention this to VMCAS in my review of the application, but since they don't exactly reply to each individual person, who knows. Maybe they changed that too!

 

[VAgirl]

That's interesting that you mention that. The instructions on the new application were actually much more vague and slightly confusing this year than they were previously.

Uh oh...because I remember them being kinda confusing last year (on the experience sections).

 

[CalpardNY]

Uh oh...because I remember them being kinda confusing last year (on the experience sections).

Haha yeah i think i stared at that chart 20 different times and came away just as confused each time!

To add to what hoodle said - i put research under animal experience and also got in OOS - that was what my comment was referring to that i dont think there is necessarily a "wrong" section, just a supposed to section.

Despite the time and effort it might take to call wisconsin and check once the application comes out or call VMCAS to get an answer...it'll probably make you a little more comfortable about where you decide to put your experience! Good Luck!