Undergrad Junior: Admissions Questions!

[cqs]

Hi,

I am a currently a junior and just decided that I want to try for vet school! Because I am getting a "late start" on the application process, I have a few questions:

1) How do I most efficiently get the necessary experience hours? Where do I go to seek these experiences? I volunteer at a cat shelter and have done a little bit of shadowing, but I only have around 60 hours of that. How do people get upwards of 1000 hours?

2) Do most schools accept AP credits? I didn't take the second semester of general biology (lower div), because my advisor at school waived it with my AP score.

3) How many gap years will I need to take? One? Two? Three...?

Some more info about me: majoring in neuroscience, 3.92 GPA, lots of research experience (in neuro/psychology though), ridden horses my whole life and am on the competitive equestrian team at my college.

Thanks in advance! Feeling a little overwhelmed right now!

---

Members don't see this ad.

 

[Georgethecat]

1. Start by contacting ALL of the vet clinics in your area. Be prepared to not be able to make contact with the appropriate person on your first try or not have your call/email returned. They are all super busy, so don't take it personally. A lot of times it can be best to stop by in person. Since you're on the equestrian team, try shadowing with the equine vet that people on the team use. If you shadow or get a vest assistant job for the summer and put in full time hours, that might be enough to apply next cycle (all depending on the schools you are interested in). Besides just getting the vet experience hours, work on cultivating a relationship with the vets so that you will be able to ask for strong letters of recommendation. FYI vet experience hours must be under the supervision of a vet, so a lot of times volunteering at shelters counts as animal experience and not vet hours. Most schools do also have a section for listing animal experience hours as well as vet hours (your equestrian experience would count here as well as pet ownership, pet sitting etc).

2. Always contact or look directly on each vet school's website for pre-req requirements.........but generally speaking "most" schools accept AP credit for lower level requirements if your undergrad has given you credit for it and it shows up on your transcript.

3. If you will graduate in May 2021 with all of the pre-req's needed, you have a great shot of either not needing a gap year at all or only one gap year. And many people have found a gap year to be a positive thing for many reasons... a break from undergrad, a year to save money, another year's worth of experience, another year to make sure vet med is for you etc.

4. Your gpa is great and with a neuroscience degree hopefully you're already on track for meeting most of the usual pre-req's. Have you taken or scheduled taking the GRE? Your research experience will also be considered a plus.

5. Also helps to know what your instate school is and/or if you are considering other schools?

Best of luck to you!!

 

[cqs]

1. Start by contacting ALL of the vet clinics in your area. Be prepared to not be able to make contact with the appropriate person on your first try or not have your call/email returned. They are all super busy, so don't take it personally. A lot of times it can be best to stop by in person. Since you're on the equestrian team, try shadowing with the equine vet that people on the team use. If you shadow or get a vest assistant job for the summer and put in full time hours, that might be enough to apply next cycle (all depending on the schools you are interested in). Besides just getting the vet experience hours, work on cultivating a relationship with the vets so that you will be able to ask for strong letters of recommendation. FYI vet experience hours must be under the supervision of a vet, so a lot of times volunteering at shelters counts as animal experience and not vet hours. Most schools do also have a section for listing animal experience hours as well as vet hours (your equestrian experience would count here as well as pet ownership, pet sitting etc).

2. Always contact or look directly on each vet school's website for pre-req requirements.........but generally speaking "most" schools accept AP credit for lower level requirements if your undergrad has given you credit for it and it shows up on your transcript.

3. If you will graduate in May 2021 with all of the pre-req's needed, you have a great shot of either not needing a gap year at all or only one gap year. And many people have found a gap year to be a positive thing for many reasons... a break from undergrad, a year to save money, another year's worth of experience, another year to make sure vet med is for you etc.

4. Your gpa is great and with a neuroscience degree hopefully you're already on track for meeting most of the usual pre-req's. Have you taken or scheduled taking the GRE? Your research experience will also be considered a plus.

5. Also helps to know what your instate school is and/or if you are considering other schools?

Best of luck to you!!

Wow, thank you so much! Because I don't have any experience, will a vet clinic hire me as an assistant? Does shadowing count as "vet experience" (when I shadowed, I couldn't touch anything... just observe and ask questions).

Also, I do not have any in-state schools, but I'm in a WICHE state, so I am mostly looking at CSU and OSU (those are my top schools).

 

[Georgethecat]

All depends on the clinic as far as getting hired goes, but as far as shadowing hours versus vet assistant hours go it won't really matter. Both count as vet experience hours. There are pros/cons for each. When you are shadowing, you generally follow the vet around and see/learn about what they are doing and when appropriate can ask questions (probably can't do anything due to liability concerns). If you are working as an assistant, you will have a totally different set of responsibilities. A lot of people get hired for an assistant position after shadowing for a while.

Most people on SDN are going to recommend choosing the least expensive school possible, so I'd definitely factor that into your decision making process. FYI, there are several schools that share initials (MSU, OSU etc), so you'll get better info if you further identify them (Orgeon State is who I'm guessing you're talking about as opposed to Oklahoma St or Ohio St). Check out those individual school threads. Lots of peeps that would be happy to share their application experiences. Also check out the last couple years of Successful Applicants Class of 20xx threads.

@johnsmith123 @ziggyandjazzy are active Oregon St. peeps

@danseth @RedLauren are active CSU peeps

 

[MixedAnimals77]

Wow, thank you so much! Because I don't have any experience, will a vet clinic hire me as an assistant? Does shadowing count as "vet experience" (when I shadowed, I couldn't touch anything... just observe and ask questions).

Also, I do not have any in-state schools, but I'm in a WICHE state, so I am mostly looking at CSU and OSU (those are my top schools).

Being WICHE I would also check into WSU and UC Davis as well-I know Davis quit taking WICHE for AZ people but I believe they still may take other states.

 

[danseth]

Hi, yes, looks like I was summoned If you have CSU questions I can do my best to answer. I'm an OOS student at CSU, originally hailing from Washington state.

I can say, don't worry about having a million hours of actual veterinary experience when you apply. I only had a total of like 400 hours of veterinary experience when I applied and I was accepted to 3 schools, waitlisted to one, and only denied to Davis (because my GPA was under their out of state 3.99999 average).

Try to get a position as a veterinary assistant over the summer. That's what I did and I obtained a great amount of experience hours and I learned a lot while I was there too. Most often, emergency clinics are looking for bodies to help out with hospitalized patients and bodies in general. A lot of them are willing to train you as necessary as well, look on Indeed.com or other similar job websites for veterinary assistant positions near you! Please, please, please do not worry about having over 1000 hours of in clinic experience, it is not a requirement. Your animal handling experience outside of the clinic will also be helpful to you.

I honestly don't think you'll even need a gap year if you have all of the pre-reqs done now. Go ahead and try if you have the money to apply right now. Just make sure to apply to schools that you're interested in going to AND you meet all of the pre-reqs for. It's about applying smart.

 

[FutureDogtor1997]

1. I can't tell you how to get the necessary amount of veterinary hours for yourself given I don't know how abundant veterinary experiences are in your area...but I can tell you that going on websites like Indeed are how I managed to get most of my veterinary experiences! I literally just sent my resume to many vet clinics in my area and hoped that they would contact me for an interview. Eventually, I got my start in a veterinary clinic at age 18 after having volunteered at a cat sanctuary and having experience with animals at an early age. It's all about persistence when getting veterinary experience! Also, veterinary experience comes in many forms! Doing veterinary research, shadowing, working in a clinic, etc. The only constant that is considered when deeming an experience as veterinary experience is it has to be in direct supervision of a licensed veterinarian. Any similar types of experiences that expose you to animals but are NOT under the supervision of a vet is considered animal experience. In some schools, that distinction is crucial! Lastly, when finding experiences, stick with those that you feel will allow you to experience that greatest amount of academic and individual growth in the workplace. Just some stuff to think about when you're looking for experiences! (wow I said experiences ALOT in this answer LOL)

2. As far as I know, most schools do accept AP credits. Or at least the schools I applied to did lol. I guess they would just need to be listed in your transcripts somewhere that you got credit for them.

3. The amount of gap years totally depends on you! I think people take gap years to further fulfill some prerequisites that they still need to complete, getting more veterinary experience, doing some mental recharging (since burnout is definitely a thing), or the most common, to save up some money! For myself, I'm going into vet school right out of undergrad but only because I feel like I am ready to take on the rigor of vet school and do well in it (hopefully lol). Have some honest conversations with yourself before you start applying and ask yourself if you feel like you're ready to take on vet school mentally since it is a tough program to go through (at least from what I've heard from other vet students).

Hope these answers helped!

 

[ziggyandjazzy]

Let me know if you have any questions about OSU! I was accepted with around 600-700 hours. I know people who had more or less than that and got accepted as well

 

[cqs]

Hi, yes, looks like I was summoned If you have CSU questions I can do my best to answer. I'm an OOS student at CSU, originally hailing from Washington state.

I can say, don't worry about having a million hours of actual veterinary experience when you apply. I only had a total of like 400 hours of veterinary experience when I applied and I was accepted to 3 schools, waitlisted to one, and only denied to Davis (because my GPA was under their out of state 3.99999 average).

Try to get a position as a veterinary assistant over the summer. That's what I did and I obtained a great amount of experience hours and I learned a lot while I was there too. Most often, emergency clinics are looking for bodies to help out with hospitalized patients and bodies in general. A lot of them are willing to train you as necessary as well, look on Indeed.com or other similar job websites for veterinary assistant positions near you! Please, please, please do not worry about having over 1000 hours of in clinic experience, it is not a requirement. Your animal handling experience outside of the clinic will also be helpful to you.

I honestly don't think you'll even need a gap year if you have all of the pre-reqs done now. Go ahead and try if you have the money to apply right now. Just make sure to apply to schools that you're interested in going to AND you meet all of the pre-reqs for. It's about applying smart.

Hi! I am responding to this like 3 months late, but better late than never, right? I would love to talk more about what kinds of experience you were able to apply with. It's certainly encouraging to hear you got into CSU with 400 hours as I keep seeing that people apply with 1000+ on all these different sites! As for obtaining a veterinary assistant job-- do they not require that you have any experience? How do you go about finding one of these jobs? I am home now until the fall due to coronavirus and now I'm quite worried about being able to get any experience seeing as clinics probably do not want any extra folks in their offices...

 

[danseth]

Hi! I am responding to this like 3 months late, but better late than never, right? I would love to talk more about what kinds of experience you were able to apply with. It's certainly encouraging to hear you got into CSU with 400 hours as I keep seeing that people apply with 1000+ on all these different sites! As for obtaining a veterinary assistant job-- do they not require that you have any experience? How do you go about finding one of these jobs? I am home now until the fall due to coronavirus and now I'm quite worried about being able to get any experience seeing as clinics probably do not want any extra folks in their offices...

Hi!
I like to think that it is encouraging to have a person like me to show that I didn't have thousands of hours of in clinic experience because it proves that you don't NEED five million hours just to get in.

As for veterinary assistant jobs: it depends on the location. Many places will hire you as an assistant if you have no experience because you have to obtain experience somehow. It's TECHNICIAN jobs that typically require experience or a technician's degree (CVT or LVT depending on the area). I looked on indeed.com for veterinary assistant jobs. Just apply to as many as possible. Someone will want to help you out. I find that emergency clinics seem to be the most willing to have people join the team (I worked at a BluePearl) because they have such a high turnover rate with their assistants and technicians.