---->Successful Applicant Stats c/o 2015

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I don't know about the rest of you, but I am amused by the veterinary and animal experience hours being claimed by many people on this forum and during the application process. When you look at the numbers, a person with a full time job, working 40 hours a week, might work 2000 hours in an entire year. Thats without any vacation. All of us, were supposed to be working our ass off in undergrad (shouldn't really have a ton of free time) and somehow people are claiming to have 4-5K hours of vet experience and an additional 2K hours of animal experience (thats the low side for some people). As someone who is attempting to begin a second career in the veterinary field it is quite annoying that I feel like I have to lie just to keep up with the rest of the liars. I am coming from an aerospace engineering background degree UCSD (impressive in its own right) and have no way of obtaining anywhere near these kind of hours before I apply to vet school. I obviously understand that many people are using hours they acquired in high school or middle school, and I agree that this type of experience is great. But really people, as a 15 year old kid what kind of experience did you really get in the clinic? Maybe I'm just bitter because I don't have these hours to add to my application but it just seems a little ridiculous and I'm not sure how the admissions board takes some of these claims seriously. Anyone care to agree or disagree?

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I didn't have those kind of hours in the vet experience side. I did in the animal side though. Shadowing counts as vet experience so if a clinic will let a 15 year old shadow then that is great and it should most certainly be counted. You can learn a lot from observing and asking questions.
 
You also have to remember that some of us were in your shoes; I come from a computer science background, but when I decided I wanted to go to vet school I started working at a clinic, full time, before I went back to get my prerequisites in order to learn more about the profession. So I worked full time as an assistant (basically doing tech work...state of FL is lenient) for a year and then did part time while I was in school getting my prereqs, which easily added up to 3,000+ hours at that one practice, of solid clinical veterinary experience hours. It isn't actually that hard to rack up hours if you are patient and not in a huge rush, even if you're a non-trad.
 
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As someone who has alot of hours from high school and undergrad I can see how it seems so far fetched but I can only speak for myself and say that I was very very very lucky when I was in high school to be "taken on" by a vet and allowed much more hands on experience than some...it is possible...maybe not common but definitely possible...
 
1000 hours/year is perfectly reasonable at ~25-30 hours a week. That's why my hours are what they are... plus the fact that it was several jobs over about 6 years' time (starting at 18, not 15), PLUS one solid summer of (research) 40+ hours a week (640 hours total).

I have seen some questionable numbers in these threads, especially in the 'animal experience' section, but I would not assume that everyone is lying. Not only is that likely untrue, it's pretty rude.

So, two things:

One - SDN is not an accurate representation of all applicants. We *are* the overachievers. Don't feel like you must meet the levels of everyone in this thread to qualify as an applicant, because you don't.

Two - if you came from another background, and didn't spend those 6 years madly pursuing vet med... they understand that. You just want to show that you know what you're getting into, that you understand the field, that sort of thing. Adcoms will take your whole situation into consideration.

So, get what hours you can and be able to explain why you feel vet med is for you (and vice versa). And we'd be happy to help you with whatever you need along the process... as long as you don't call us liars any more. ;)
 
So, get what hours you can and be able to explain why you feel vet med is for you (and vice versa). And we'd be happy to help you with whatever you need along the process... as long as you don't call us liars any more. ;)
This. :thumbup: To be honest, I don't think I see much benefit to lying on this thread. The people on this thread are already in, so there's no benefit to saying they've got more hours/higher GPA/GRE then they do.
 
Add to post: I am applying now, not already accepted so my hours don't mean much yet...I was just stating that applying with a lot of hours is possible without lying...
 
I've felt discouraged on this thread reading the amount of experience some people have, but I don't get worked up over it. I have about 1500 hours of experience and I have worked my butt off to get it. I understand people have been riding horses and such since they were 5, so thousands of hours makes sense and good for you if you have this experience. Others have been working full time for years as techs and have tons of vet experience.

I don't think a lot of people lie on here and I dont worry about anyone who might be exaggerating experience getting into a school over me. I feel that adcoms are extremely intelligent people and I don't think you could fake the knowledge that comes with experience. If I were an adcom and saw somebody claim 8,000 hours of animal experience then I would reference their personal statement. If that person really has had that much experience and a quality of experience it will reflect somewhere in the application or interviews. If those 8,000 hours were spent feeding their pet dog over the last 25 years then that would show also.

IMO, its not worth getting worked up over. You can only focus on yourself and work hard to make YOUR application as strong as possible. Any time you spend worrying about other peoples' experience is wasted. Just go out and get your own. Have some faith that the people picking these next classes are intelligent and can weed out unqualified students. I applaud people who have had the opportunities and time to get thousands of hours of quality experience, but I also applaud those who worked hard in the last few years to try and get 800 hours.

Experience isn't everything when it comes to applications. Rigor of the program (sounds like you have that), grades, GRE, LORs, Personal statement, supplementals, etc. are all factored in. Goodluck!
 
You folks are being way too supportive.

Commentor, if you are real (and not, say, a troll), I would advise you to get the f*** over yourself. Yes, some people have more experience than you. That does not make them liars. If you want to get in, worry a little less about how those people with all the hours are making it *sooo unfair* with all their forethought and their years of involvement, and a little more about what you, yourself are doing to make yourself a standout applicant. Here's a hint: "fudging my hours" is what we like to call a bad idea. Also a bad idea: coming onto this board looking to start wank by accusing many of the commentors of fraud.

In conclusion: bye now.
 
I myself have worked full-time at one clinic and part time at another clinic for 1 year. I averaged about 64 hours per week and I had only taken a total of maybe 2 days off for vacation... I worked 7a-4p M-F at the day clinic, then 6p-2a F-Sun at the emergency clinic (yes, I worked 2 shifts on Fridays and sometimes even Saturdays with literally 4 hours of sleep each night). That year alone I worked over 3000+ hours. Add that to over 2000+ hours this year (now working full-time at the emergency clinic but shortened part-time hours at the day clinic), plus the part-time work I did at the emergency clinic when I first started as an intern 4 years ago and the hours volunteering here and there and I have well over 6000+ hours for veterinary experience.

I could be working more hours but on top of having 2 jobs, I was (and still am) taking 1-2 upper division classes each quarter at the university extension from where I graduated undergrad.

So, yes, it is absolutely possible to get over 4-5k hours of experience, you just have to work your butt off and I obviously did have to sacrifice hanging out with my friends and any other free time to do so.
 
It is definetly possible to obtain lots of hours in a short period of time. About 16 months ago I had never been in a vet clinic but once I decided to pursue vetmed I worked at a few places and average about 70 hours a week since then. On average I get about 4 hours of sleep and I have been doing this since. It is possible.
 
I don't know about the rest of you, but I am amused by the veterinary and animal experience hours being claimed by many people on this forum and during the application process. When you look at the numbers, a person with a full time job, working 40 hours a week, might work 2000 hours in an entire year. Thats without any vacation. All of us, were supposed to be working our ass off in undergrad (shouldn't really have a ton of free time) and somehow people are claiming to have 4-5K hours of vet experience and an additional 2K hours of animal experience (thats the low side for some people). As someone who is attempting to begin a second career in the veterinary field it is quite annoying that I feel like I have to lie just to keep up with the rest of the liars. I am coming from an aerospace engineering background degree UCSD (impressive in its own right) and have no way of obtaining anywhere near these kind of hours before I apply to vet school. I obviously understand that many people are using hours they acquired in high school or middle school, and I agree that this type of experience is great. But really people, as a 15 year old kid what kind of experience did you really get in the clinic? Maybe I'm just bitter because I don't have these hours to add to my application but it just seems a little ridiculous and I'm not sure how the admissions board takes some of these claims seriously. Anyone care to agree or disagree?
I was hired at 15 as a kennel assistant and was then promoted to a vet assistant a year later. So, yeah, in high school, I was getting quality experience.
 
I don't know about the rest of you, but I am amused by the veterinary and animal experience hours being claimed by many people on this forum and during the application process. When you look at the numbers, a person with a full time job, working 40 hours a week, might work 2000 hours in an entire year. Thats without any vacation. All of us, were supposed to be working our ass off in undergrad (shouldn't really have a ton of free time) and somehow people are claiming to have 4-5K hours of vet experience and an additional 2K hours of animal experience (thats the low side for some people). As someone who is attempting to begin a second career in the veterinary field it is quite annoying that I feel like I have to lie just to keep up with the rest of the liars. I am coming from an aerospace engineering background degree UCSD (impressive in its own right) and have no way of obtaining anywhere near these kind of hours before I apply to vet school. I obviously understand that many people are using hours they acquired in high school or middle school, and I agree that this type of experience is great. But really people, as a 15 year old kid what kind of experience did you really get in the clinic? Maybe I'm just bitter because I don't have these hours to add to my application but it just seems a little ridiculous and I'm not sure how the admissions board takes some of these claims seriously. Anyone care to agree or disagree?

I know that it may be hard to comprehend, but some people really do have the hours that they claim to have. I know I started shadowing at 13 - albeit in another country. I "worked" there full time for a summer and came back multiple times before I graduated high school. They let me do things that vet techs did (different set of laws in this country), including assisting during surgery.

You're also making the assumption that people only did things in a 40 hour work week, which may be the bigger fallacy.

I'd recommend putting down what you personally have and trying to ignore the fact that some of your peers have a greater number of hours than you. Your focus right now should be on making YOUR application the best it can be.

Also, trolling/inflammatory posts can get you banned from this site, so please be careful with your frustrations.
 
Listen... I did not mean to offend anyone or call anyone who is reading my comment a liar. I am just trying to point out that it is (in some cases) quite ridiculous. Yes many hours can be gained by working hard. I understand this. However, the point that I am trying to make is that I feel like some hours are a little far fetched. For example, I've seen a decent amount of people say that they have something like 6,000 hours of equine experience because they rode/owned horses as a kid. I have had dogs all my life, I wouldn't have contemplated using any of those hours on my application. Look, my point was not to anger/offend anyone, it was simply to ask what people's opinions were on the topic. And to POOTER: I am hardly under myself. I know damn well that most people on this forum are working hard every day to get to vet school, but it is a fair question and not an accusation so chill out.
 
For example, I've seen a decent amount of people say that they have something like 6,000 hours of equine experience because they rode/owned horses as a kid.

I had around that many hours but I have been riding horses since I was 14. You better believe that I am counting every single hour. From my horse lessons which costed around 60 dollars an hour to all of the time I spent working my butt off in the barn. I paid for everything myself. Every single hour of that counts as experience. I have invested a lot of money and time into horses and I have learned a lot about their behavior, care, and about horse owners in general (I have never owned a horse) but all of this only counts as ANIMAL experience. Not vet experience. They are two different categories. Maybe that is what you are confused on?

If you had a dog your whole life then count all the hours that you spent caring for that dog. That is animal experience. Someone who has only owned cattle their whole life would have a huge advantage over someone who has never touched a bovine. Therefore, that experience with owning cattle is important and every hour should be counted.
 
Actually there are schools that say specifically that you should not include pet ownership. I imagine that horse lessons and such would maybe be more akin to competing in some dog sport or conformation or something that would be "above and beyond" normal "pet ownership" so maybe stuff like that counts as animal experience.
 
Actually there are schools that say specifically that you should not include pet ownership. I imagine that horse lessons and such would maybe be more akin to competing in some dog sport or conformation or something that would be "above and beyond" normal "pet ownership" so maybe stuff like that counts as animal experience.

hm ya maybe you are right. But you cannot just put down 6,000 hours and nothing else. You explain how you got those hours and as we all have agreed on here some hours you spend learning are more valuable then others. The vet admissions know whats up. They know that a pasture pet is different then horse lessons.

My schools admission told me to put down EVERYTHING even if I didn't think it was important. I even put stuff from high school like girl scouts. If they admissions committee didn't think it was important then whatever at least I tried. But you never know who might find something like that interesting. It's better to just put it down and explain your experience if your not sure. Unless your school specifically puts restrictions on things like that... mine did not :D

And to the OP, you will learn fast that you better be careful what you type. You cant take something back after you have posted it on the internet.
 
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I think another thing to consider is the fact that many of the people here are non-traditional students. I am not too far off on age (25) for people going to vet school, but I have been out of school for 6 years (graduated with my bachelors degree at 18 since I did post secondary option) so that leaves a lot of time to get experience. I wasn't sure what I wanted to do other than that I loved wildlife rehab, so I pursued that for the last 8 years (started in college with an internship) and have racked up over 7000 hours of experience. I worked full time in a nonanimal related job and spent nearly every free minute during the summers taking care of injured and orphaned wildlife. I have taken in over 500 animals being the sole caretaker of them as well as volunteering at a wildlife center. Finally decided I wanted to be a vet and got a job as a vet assistant at an emergency clinic in Feb. (did some shadowing before that starting last December) and now have 850 hours of vet experience. On the low side but if I had known I wanted to be a vet earlier I could have easily gotten 2-3 thousand hours. If I was willing to give up rehabbing this year (I couldn't bring myself to do that, though, knowing that I will have to give it up during vet school, I wanted to enjoy that this summer for possibly the last summer for the next four years) I could have easily gotten 1500 hours.

Yes, there have been a couple people that come on here and claim to have 10,000+ hours at the age of 21 or something and that is very far fetched, but I feel the vast majority of people on here have done their best to honestly calculate their hours and have put in the hard work it takes to get the hours.

It won't be hard for the adcoms to figure out who really has the hours and who doesn't. If someone fudges their hours to make themselves look better, it will only hurt them because they'll expect them to be more knowledgeable than they really are. A few questions and you can figure it out.
 
Listen... I did not mean to offend anyone or call anyone who is reading my comment a liar. I am just trying to point out that it is (in some cases) quite ridiculous. Yes many hours can be gained by working hard. I understand this. However, the point that I am trying to make is that I feel like some hours are a little far fetched. For example, I've seen a decent amount of people say that they have something like 6,000 hours of equine experience because they rode/owned horses as a kid. I have had dogs all my life, I wouldn't have contemplated using any of those hours on my application. Look, my point was not to anger/offend anyone, it was simply to ask what people's opinions were on the topic. And to POOTER: I am hardly under myself. I know damn well that most people on this forum are working hard every day to get to vet school, but it is a fair question and not an accusation so chill out.

1) I still don't see your question. I see your rant, but no question.

2) I don't think your original post was as subdued as you are trying to come off now that you brought the ruckus....

3) Worry about your own app. The admissions committee is there to police hours and decide legitimacy.

... and then ...



#ApologyFAIL

I saw that discrepancy too....
 
Hi,
I am kind of in the same boat as you.....Except my last 45 is only 3.1 but my science is 3.5. I have an overall of only 3.0 but that is due to my past grades.....How do you think you got in? Are you considered a diverse ethnicity? Alot of times they do take that into account. Congratulations!!! I hope I will be posting here!
 
Hi,
I am kind of in the same boat as you.....Except my last 45 is only 3.1 but my science is 3.5. I have an overall of only 3.0 but that is due to my past grades.....How do you think you got in? Are you considered a diverse ethnicity? Alot of times they do take that into account. Congratulations!!! I hope I will be posting here!
Hello Krupajl! Welcome to SDN! This thread is outdated, I would look at the successful applicant stats for students that were accepted this last cycle. I have posted the thread below. Good luck!

http://forums.studentdoctor.net/showthread.php?t=970957
 
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