Rounding Vet/Animal Hours

[SoundofMusic]

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Hey Everyone,

I've been reading this forum for a while and I've talked to a few friends that applied (and got in) to veterinary school. One of the things that has been bugging me is the way people round their hours. Ever since I started earning hours, I've kept a spreadsheet that keeps a running total. However, it does not seem like other people do this and they simply "estimate" how much time they spent. Honestly, it just doesn't seem fair, because estimations are always going to be higher than the actual time spent since human beings don't have a good sense of time.

Does anyone else feel the same way?

I've only been a pre-vet for 2 years (I changed my major halfway through college) and I've been working my butt off to get hours. So far I have made 1224 hours in 2 years. Personally I think this is a lot, but of course, it doesn't hold a candle to the other people on here.

Please forgive me if this post sounds irritable in any way. This may be a manifestation of my anxieties about vet school admissions. I'd appreciate any feedback you might have.

 

[PppermintTwist]

Hey Everyone,

I've been reading this forum for a while and I've talked to a few friends that applied (and got in) to veterinary school. One of the things that has been bugging me is the way people round their hours. Ever since I started earning hours, I've kept a spreadsheet that keeps a running total. However, it does not seem like other people do this and they simply "estimate" how much time they spent. Honestly, it just doesn't seem fair, because estimations are always going to be higher than the actual time spent since human beings don't have a good sense of time.

Does anyone else feel the same way?

I've only been a pre-vet for 2 years (I changed my major halfway through college) and I've been working my butt off to get hours. So far I have made 1224 hours in 2 years. Personally I think this is a lot, but of course, it doesn't hold a candle to the other people on here.

Please forgive me if this post sounds irritable in any way. This may be a manifestation of my anxieties about vet school admissions. I'd appreciate any feedback you might have.

I think that everyone tries to be as accurate as possible when estimating hours, and some even round down. For example my experience is from working. I know that I worked X number of hours a week for X number of years. Some days I went home early, some days I stayed later. So it evens out well.

I dont condone lying or exaggerating. I think most people try to be as accurate as possible.🙂

 

[heylodeb]

General consensus seems to be that it is a "good" idea to be over 1,000 hours and after that it gets pretty inconsequential. I counted my hours based off of my W-4s/pay slips and had very similar hours to you after 2 years.

However, coming on here and accusing folks of lying on their applications is not the way to make friends....just sayin'🙄

 

[SnowyRox]

Hey Everyone,

I've been reading this forum for a while and I've talked to a few friends that applied (and got in) to veterinary school. One of the things that has been bugging me is the way people round their hours. Ever since I started earning hours, I've kept a spreadsheet that keeps a running total. However, it does not seem like other people do this and they simply "estimate" how much time they spent. Honestly, it just doesn't seem fair, because estimations are always going to be higher than the actual time spent since human beings don't have a good sense of time.

Does anyone else feel the same way?

I've only been a pre-vet for 2 years (I changed my major halfway through college) and I've been working my butt off to get hours. So far I have made 1224 hours in 2 years. Personally I think this is a lot, but of course, it doesn't hold a candle to the other people on here.

Please forgive me if this post sounds irritable in any way. This may be a manifestation of my anxieties about vet school admissions. I'd appreciate any feedback you might have.

Did you skip the day in middle school when you were taught how to "round" a number in math class?

1224 hours can become 1220, 1230, 1200, 1300, 1000, 2000 depending on where you round (and how accurate you want to be).

This OP makes me 😴. Really? Complaining about a problem that you've made up in your mind?

 

[Whyevernot55]

General consensus seems to be that it is a "good" idea to be over 1,000 hours and after that it gets pretty inconsequential. I counted my hours based off of my W-4s/pay slips and had very similar hours to you after 2 years.

However, coming on here and accusing folks of lying on their applications is not the way to make friends....just sayin'🙄

This. I used my W-2s and pay stubs for the places I worked that counted as hours, but when I worked for my equine vet like 5 years ago, I was getting paid in cash or in discounts on vet care, and I had to estimate my hours. I mean, seriously. Once you're over 1000 hours, a few here and there isn't going to make a huge difference - it's more important that you have high quality experiences, and nit picking other applicants (your future colleagues, by the way), is a little rude. 🙄

We've all worked our butts off to get here. Was I supposed to be tallying the animal experience hours I spent working at the barn in college, before I even know I wanted to go to vet school? Should I just not count those (many, many) hours of my life? Frankly, I think many of us round down so we don't sound like jerks - I have literally thousands of hours of horse experience from a lifetime of working with horses, and there's no possible way to tally those up now, so I just did the best I could in terms of listing those in a way that seems reasonable.

 

[PetPony]

This. I used my W-2s and pay stubs for the places I worked that counted as hours, but when I worked for my equine vet like 5 years ago, I was getting paid in cash or in discounts on vet care, and I had to estimate my hours. I mean, seriously. Once you're over 1000 hours, a few here and there isn't going to make a huge difference - it's more important that you have high quality experiences, and nit picking other applicants (your future colleagues, by the way), is a little rude. 🙄

We've all worked our butts off to get here. Was I supposed to be tallying the animal experience hours I spent working at the barn in college, before I even know I wanted to go to vet school? Should I just not count those (many, many) hours of my life? Frankly, I think many of us round down so we don't sound like jerks - I have literally thousands of hours of horse experience from a lifetime of working with horses, and there's no possible way to tally those up now, so I just did the best I could in terms of listing those in a way that seems reasonable.

Yea, I have no clue how to count my horse experience hours. Some summers I literally spend all day at the barn (mom took me there at 7 in the morning and picked me back up after work at ~6) every single day. Other times I'm there for an hour or two after school. No clue how I'm gonna do that..

 

[pirateyoho]

Did you skip the day in middle school when you were taught how to "round" a number in math class?

1224 hours can become 1220, 1230, 1200, 1300, 1000, 2000 depending on where you round (and how accurate you want to be).

Rounding 1224 to 2000 is quite a stretch, especially if it's vet experience hours listed on an application that we're talking about....

 

[SoundofMusic]

The reason why I brought this up is because someone I worked with at a vet said she "probably had a thousand hours there"...but I worked there the same amount or even more time than her and only had 500. Rounding makes a big difference and it's just annoying when people aren't listing their actual hours.

 

[SnowyRox]

Rounding 1224 to 2000 is quite a stretch, especially if it's vet experience hours listed on an application that we're talking about....

I was explaining how to round, not which choice would be best for your application. It's generally best to round down on an application, as several posters have said.

 

[Spinach Dip]

Let me make this short:

YES, some unscrupulous or "math-challenged" applicants will exaggerate their number of hours.

NO, you shouldn't become one of them.

 

[DVMDream]

The reason why I brought this up is because someone I worked with at a vet said she "probably had a thousand hours there"...but I worked there the same amount or even more time than her and only had 500. Rounding makes a big difference and it's just annoying when people aren't listing their actual hours.

Yes. There will always be someone in every profession that is not 100% completely honest. It is unfortunate. But coming into this thread and making accusations that because not everyone records their vet/animal experience down to every minute means that they are going to inflate their numbers and lie is not a wise idea. I have been working in vet clinics since I was 17 years old (24 now) and I have been working in animal shelters since I was 12. Yes, I had a decent idea that I wanted to be a vet at that time but when you are 12 you do not think about recording every minute of the time you spent at the animal shelter. Should I discount that time spent? No. Instead I knew I was at the shelter every weekend between the ages of 12 and 15 and made an estimate for the hours (I really low-balled the estimate too figuring that there were probably some weekends I was not there). I also was not about to go through every single year of work at the multiple vet clinics over the past 6 years to get an exact number instead I estimated about 7,000 hours (that is estimating part-time work for 50 weeks/year which is again way low).

It is probably not the best idea to come in here and make an assupmtion that because the majority of people estimate the hours they spent that they are automatically lying. I agree, you will find those that inflate their hours but these forums tend to be filled with those that have worked their butts off to get where they are.

Good for you to keep track of your hours. But the adcoms aren't going to see any huge difference between 1224 and 1000 or 1200 or 1300 or however you decide to put it down. As long as you aren't claiming you have 5,000 hours over that time frame they aren't going to blink twice if you round 1224 to 1300 for simplicity (not to mention that if you continue working you will hit that number rather quickly).

 

[Minnerbelle]

My advice is just to ignore what everyone else is doing and focus on your own application. The definite plus you have is that you won't ever have anxiety about how you 'estimated' your hours. I ended up low balling all of my hours in every experience because I was so afraid of being accused of cheating in any way. Put down 0 pet hours, 0 foster hours (which was substantial after over 30 animals who all had medical problems), and calculated 4 hrs x 3 shifts a week of volunteering when i more realistically did well over 20 hrs/wk. For work, I only listed hrs that I was paid for (40hrs/wk), when I never worked less than 60. And the list goes on.

I figured that in the end the exact number wasn't going to matter. Like others have said, once you get over a certain amt of experience the rest is icing on the cake. And the way you present your experience on the app will matter much more than the number of hours itself imho.

 

[OH Bunny Girl]

I started gaining hours when I was an undergrad, so I started a spreadsheet of every single hour. Down to the 15 minute mark (and took out for lunch most days). And I've done so at EVERY CLINIC. For example, I had 22.5 equine hours, and rounded it to 22 on my app.

But that's just me and my crazy Type-A-ness, and my amazing procrastination skills

 

[PetPony]

I started gaining hours when I was an undergrad, so I started a spreadsheet of every single hour. Down to the 15 minute mark (and took out for lunch most days). And I've done so at EVERY CLINIC. For example, I had 22.5 equine hours, and rounded it to 22 on my app.

But that's just me and my crazy Type-A-ness, and my amazing procrastination skills

I've done that with vet clinics, too. But I count every full 30 minutes.

 

[katryn]

I think it's also valid to point out that many many people estimate their hours, but very few people intentionally inflate their hours. Turning 1283 hours into 1300 is really no big deal, and if one person listed 1283 while another listed 1300, the adcoms probably wouldn't even register that there was a difference. Turning 50 hours into 5000 hours on the other hand, is a little shady, and will probably out itself in one way or another when the person can't really give an account of what they did during all those hours, or it seems unrealistic for the time frame during which the hours were earned.

 

[PppermintTwist]

The reason why I brought this up is because someone I worked with at a vet said she "probably had a thousand hours there"...but I worked there the same amount or even more time than her and only had 500. Rounding makes a big difference and it's just annoying when people aren't listing their actual hours.

Sounds like your friend was guessing and not rounding.

 

[LetItSnow]

I'd appreciate any feedback you might have.

I think the most appropriate feedback you need is this: Focus on your app, don't worry about what other people are doing.

... and by the way, you're going to want to take that advice with you into vet school, otherwise you're going to eat yourself up worrying about whether other people cheated on the last closed-book take-home final, or how everyone ELSE did on that last parasitology exam, or ... etc.

 

[SoundofMusic]

I think the most appropriate feedback you need is this: Focus on your app, don't worry about what other people are doing.

... and by the way, you're going to want to take that advice with you into vet school, otherwise you're going to eat yourself up worrying about whether other people cheated on the last closed-book take-home final, or how everyone ELSE did on that last parasitology exam, or ... etc.

Thank you for all of your advice. I appreciate the feedback!

 

[twelvetigers]

The thing is, no one has control over anyone else's application. So try and be as accurate as you can, make your app amazing, and have a little faith in the system.

This applies to a variety of posts in here recently. I mean, no, it's not fair - some of it downright sucks. But there are dishonest schmucks out there in every profession doing all sorts of things, and there's not a lot to do about it. Just do well and hope everything levels out and the liars (or truth-stretchers) get what they deserve in the end.