Question About Vet Experience

[Rebeki]

I'll be applying to vet school this fall after several years working in an office. I have animal experience from previous jobs (over 3000 hours). My animal experience is with small animals, horses and about 100 hours volunteering as a zookeeper assistant. However, I have no experience in a vet clinic. I plan to apply to Cornell, Tufts and Penn (I'm instate for Cornell).

Does anyone have suggestions about what types and how much vet experience I should try to get in the next 4-5 months that would maximize my chances of getting accepted?

I appreciate your help!

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[Rebeki]

One more thing...I've heard that vet schools may look down on applicants whose experience is primarily shelter or rescue based. Is this true?

 

[JumptheMoon]

One more thing...I've heard that vet schools may look down on applicants whose experience is primarily shelter or rescue based. Is this true?

I've never heard of schools looking down on shelter or rescue experience...but what may concern them is a lack of any clinical experience - actually working with a vet and having a reasonable idea of what the profession entails. I would try and get some VET experience to complement your extensive animal experience, and try to make it as varied as you can

 

[wivet2011]

I agree with JumptheMoon, try and get a wide variety of experience. The shelter work can't hurt you, but it'll def. help your app. to have some sort of vet experience on there, even if it is just shadowing a vet for the summer.

 

[ratbandit]

Is there a vet at the shelter where you work? I could count a lot of hours at the shelter where I worked as veterinary experience (following the vets instructions, helping them, etc.) and the vet there wrote my LOR. I only had about 150 hours of clinical experience. My experience hours were predominantly shelter work and a lot of adcoms at my interviews liked that I worked there. One of my interviewers said that they liked those who start out in shelter work because they have different perspectives and can deal with the harder emotional parts of the job. Anyways, I don't think they'll look down on shelter work esspecially if you were doing a lot more than cleaning cages but then again, I didn't get into Penn (in-state). However, I got a lot more hands on experience there than the clinic I worked for! I would say just bang out 150 or more hours before you apply so they know that YOU know what you're getting into.

 

[Angelo84]

I agree with the others. If you know what you are interested in say small animal try to get experience in that field. Otherwise I would say try to get in a couple of different experiences this summer. I shadowed/volunteered with a large animal vet and a behaviorist for 100 hours each and that was fine. So you could easily do three different experiences if you keep each short. The drawback of this is that you will likely not be able to get paid if your only there for a short time.

Good luck