Selecting Top Experiences

[Cami194]

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Hi all!

I'm a non-traditional/career changer applicant for the 2022-2023 cycle and wanted to see if anyone had advice for selecting my "Top 5 Experiences" since I have a lot of non-animal/vet related work experience that I feel shows off some valuable skills (project management, managing employees, entrepreneurial qualities, etc.).

My advisor recommended that any experiences mentioned in my personal statement should definitely be in my Top 5 and that veterinary experience should make up the majority of my Top 5 (ie. at least 3) but I wondered how any other non-traditional applicants have utilized or are planning to utilize prior, non-animal related work history in their application.

Thanks in advance for any advice or thoughts!

 

[WonderingStudent]

Hi all!

I'm a non-traditional/career changer applicant for the 2022-2023 cycle and wanted to see if anyone had advice for selecting my "Top 5 Experiences" since I have a lot of non-animal/vet related work experience that I feel shows off some valuable skills (project management, managing employees, entrepreneurial qualities, etc.).

My advisor recommended that any experiences mentioned in my personal statement should definitely be in my Top 5 and that veterinary experience should make up the majority of my Top 5 (ie. at least 3) but I wondered how any other non-traditional applicants have utilized or are planning to utilize prior, non-animal related work history in their application.

Thanks in advance for any advice or thoughts!

I may be missing something since I applied to vet school 2.5 years ago at this point but is there something that says you can only put in your top 5 experiences? Showing off the range of experiences you have had in the past including non-veterinary medicine type experiences is beneficial - you never know what will make your application stand out! I worked as a TA for some computer science classes in college and one interviewer was really impressed that I knew how to code.

 

[supershorty]

Yeah, is this a new thing? Otherwise, you should be listing all of your experiences.

 

[Cami194]

I may be missing something since I applied to vet school 2.5 years ago at this point but is there something that says you can only put in your top 5 experiences? Showing off the range of experiences you have had in the past including non-veterinary medicine type experiences is beneficial - you never know what will make your application stand out! I worked as a TA for some computer science classes in college and one interviewer was really impressed that I knew how to code.

Yeah, it seems to be a new component to the application this cycle. We have to "star" our top 5 experiences. It's a pain as someone with ~10yrs of professional experience...

"After experience entry, select up to 5 as your most important to highlight on your application PDF. Choose the experiences that best reflect your background or mean the most to you. You can change your selection any time before you submit your application."

 

[Cami194]

Yeah, is this a new thing? Otherwise, you should be listing all of your experiences.

It's new! I have listed every bit of my 10 years of professional, volunteer, extracurricular, etc. experience but can only choose a "Top 5" to highlight on my application.

 

[Yaya_Cat]

I chose the most relevant animal related experiences (those that I also got LOR's from). But I also included my longest and most current employer (non animal related) but the job includes having a lot of interpersonal skills.

 

[battie]

I wouldn't say that vet experience needs to be the majority if the other professional experiences were a huge influence. I'm thinking someone who wants to go into low cost community medicine because they volunteered at a homeless shelter as an example. Maybe 2 or 3 should be vet med, but not necessarily more than that.

For what it's worth, in my interview, I spoke aost exclusively about my time in residence life during and after undergrad in regards to skills that were necessary to be a doctor. In this situation, I would say that would have been my number 1 experience.

It sound like this is another way applications are becoming more similar to human medicine; if I remember my cousin's experience, she had to note her top 5 experiences for med school.

 

[that redhead]

I don’t know that I would fret about this too much. If you’re still able to list all of your experiences and talk about everything (in a broad sense) in your PS, summarizing the positive things you’ve gained from your non-vet life, it isn’t like adcoms are going to miss something. The things you talk about in your PS are going to be the most important/influential anyway, so yes it makes sense to “highlight” those but they don’t have to be only veterinary