UPenn c/o 2024

[Cheesedreams]

I'm OOS and have not heard anything still. Kinda sad, but I'm trying to remind myself that this first wave is probably just the cream of the crop. I def didn't have a 4.0 lol

I actually don’t think there’s any particular order so don’t beat yourself up too much!! It isn’t over until it’s over!!

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[Console46]

IS invited to interview on January 17th!

 

[Cheesedreams]

I’m IS and literally shaking in my boots lol!!

 

[ajs513]

I'm OOS and have not heard anything still. Kinda sad, but I'm trying to remind myself that this first wave is probably just the cream of the crop. I def didn't have a 4.0 lol

I’ve heard that the waves don’t actually end up mattering. I have friends who were in the first wave last year who had around a 3.0. 2/3rds of people from my portion of the day (third wave) were accepted after the interview. Many of those people had high GPA’s, and many (myself included) did not.

 

[vetinprogress_998]

OOS interview invite on January 17!


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[cameronluna]

Here we go again... lol


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[altadama]

I know its hard, but try to not stress about the waves and analyze it too much. People get accepted from the first day, and people get accepted from the last day...if they interview you, you have a chance. They also only go out to New Bolton on one interview day and its usually one of the last ones, so if you're interested in large animal you may hear a little later and it has absolutely nothing to do with the strength of your application. I interviewed with either the first or second wave and honestly my GPA was nowhere near 4.0 (and was probably the weakest part of my application)! LOL The waiting stinks, but try to not drive yourselves too crazy. Hope you all hear good news soon!

 

[ajs513]

just out of curiosity since the second interview date invites went out, and not that there's a big chance of this happening, but what happens if you have two vet school interviews on the same day? will one of the schools let you reschedule? (i.e., I applied to Purdue, and their interviews are Jan 24th and 31st, which falls on two of the six days of Penn). again, not likely this will happen but just curious

congrats to everyone who has an interview so far!

Penn typically makes you interview on the day you were assigned. People have had other obligations and have been told to choose either the interview or the other obligation.

 

[adyxd]

Congrats!! Did you happen to get that today? And if you don’t mind me asking, what are your stats?

Yes, this morning I got the email. I am very far from 4.0, my GPA is the weakest part of my application I think. This is also my second time applying

 

[PenguinPal506]

OOS interview invite on January 17!


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Congrats!!!! how did you get the notification?


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[couldhavebeenme]

Does anyone know when the NBC interview day is likely to be this cycle? I know they don’t interview 100% of the large animal interest applicants that day but I don’t want to start getting excited or stressed about hearing/not hearing anything until closer to that time since I indicated exclusively LA interest on my application.

 

[Skimble]

Does anyone know when the NBC interview day is likely to be this cycle? I know they don’t interview 100% of the large animal interest applicants that day but I don’t want to start getting excited or stressed about hearing/not hearing anything until closer to that time since I indicated exclusively LA interest on my application.

It will likely be a Friday in mid to late February, so you probably won’t hear until mid January at the earliest.

 

[couldhavebeenme]

It will likely be a Friday in mid to late February, so you probably won’t hear until mid January at the earliest.

Figured as much, so I shall continue to relax and be happy for all of you hearing right now and not worry about myself for a while longer

 

[somedaydogtorlady]

It will likely be a Friday in mid to late February, so you probably won’t hear until mid January at the earliest.

The NBC day will be in late January or early February. Interviews don't even go past the middle of February.

 

[futuredvm2024]

IS invited interview on January 17th!

Was the invite via e-mail?

 

[grebes4lyfe]

The NBC day will be in late January or early February. Interviews don't even go past the middle of February.

Skimble is a recent Penn grad, and I’m pretty sure the interviews go until the class is full

 

[somedaydogtorlady]

Skimble is a recent Penn grad, and I’m pretty sure the interviews go until the class is full

There are a pre-set number of interview days, and this year they stop mid-February.

 

[grebes4lyfe]

There are a pre-set number of interview days, and this year they stop mid-February.

That’s great. It seems like you’re in the know. You don’t need to get snarky with a recent grad who is just trying to give applicants some information based on her relevant experience.

 

[somedaydogtorlady]

That’s great. It seems like you’re in the know. You don’t need to get snarky with a recent grad who is just trying to give applicants some information based on her relevant experience.

I don't see how my response was snarky at all; it was simply matter-of-fact. I'm here to help provide the best information to try and help people be less stressed about this process.

 

[grebes4lyfe]

I don't see how my response was snarky at all; it was simply matter-of-fact. I'm here to help provide the best information to try and help people be less stressed about this process.

Maybe it’s just that tone gets lost in text like this, so sorry if I read it wrong. Now that it’s pretty obvious that you’re involved in the process, I see where you’re coming from. It wasn’t clear at first that you are involved and not an applicant, so it read as a little bit pointed towards someone who was just trying to be helpful.

 

[somedaydogtorlady]

Maybe it’s just that tone gets lost in text like this, so sorry if I read it wrong. Now that it’s pretty obvious that you’re involved in the process, I see where you’re coming from. It wasn’t clear at first that you are involved and not an applicant, so it read as a little bit pointed towards someone who was just trying to be helpful.

That's fair; and I'm sorry for the confusion. Just trying to be helpful!

 

[miacamp]

I am IS and I still have not heard back. Is this a bad sign?

 

[kreb1254]

Hey everyone, I'm new to the whole forum thing but thought it could be helpful to myself and others to share my experiences. Im OOS and got my interview offer on 12/10 for January 10th. Congrats to everyone else who got their interview offers always and everyone else still waiting it's not over !! still a lot of interview dates left !!!!!

 

[ajs513]

I am IS and I still have not heard back. Is this a bad sign?

No. There are currently 6 interview dates that are planned for. Invites for only 2 of the dates have gone out. So the vast majority of applicants who will end up getting interview invites haven’t heard back yet. Don’t worry.

 

[staff_wielder]

No. There are currently 6 interview dates that are planned for. Invites for only 2 of the dates have gone out. So the vast majority of applicants who will end up getting interview invites haven’t heard back yet. Don’t worry.

Well said, I was about say start running around like a chicken with it's head cut off. That's just mid-finals talking, though. 3 down, 2 to go. You guys have 2 left too, god that cold beer at the end is gonna be the bomb-digs.

@miacamp hang in there and enjoy the free time! Pet dogs and do recreational dru... whatever it is that you do!!

 

[Console46]

Anyone know if Penn does behavioral questions during the interview/what types of questions should I expect and prepare for? Thanks!

 

[somedaydogtorlady]

Anyone know if Penn does behavioral questions during the interview/what types of questions should I expect and prepare for? Thanks!

Yeah, sometimes they'll ask a question about how you would handle a situation, but it's mostly pretty conversational. The advice I always give is to be aware of whatever the weaknesses of your application are, and to be prepared to address those. And be your best cheerleader!

 

[ajs513]

Anyone know if Penn does behavioral questions during the interview/what types of questions should I expect and prepare for? Thanks!

What @somedaydogtorlady said. It’s very very likely that they’ll bring up weak points of your application and essentially be like “so why are you better than this?” For me it was “vet school is very difficult and stressful. In the past you said that you’ve had extenuating circumstances that you weren’t equipped to handle at the time and that your grades suffered. How will you handle the stress of vet school?”
My answer was this: I was young and inexperienced with life hardships. I didn’t know when to seek help and was afraid to do so. Over time I learned mechanisms to deal with high levels of stress, sought professional help, and gained the tools necessary to make it through. This is evident by my high last-45 GPA compared to my cumulative, and especially my freshman and sophomore, GPA’s.

They seemed to really like this answer and that I was honest with my mental health history. Penn is very progressive in that way and even has a specific mental health counselor for the vet school whose office is in the vet school. Many people are afraid to bring up that their weak points were due to poor mental health. Don’t be afraid to mention that. It won’t be viewed negatively if you’ve been able to overcome it.

 

[nontradstdnt]

Anyone think they'll send out another wave of invites this week or are we pretty much waiting until the holidays are over?

 

[Cheesedreams]

Anyone think they'll send out another wave of invites this week or are we pretty much waiting until the holidays are over?

I think last year they waited until the holidays were over...

 

[ajs513]

Anyone think they'll send out another wave of invites this week or are we pretty much waiting until the holidays are over?

I’d bet on the week of or after January 2nd. That’s when the semester starts. The semester ends on Wednesday so if you don’t hear before then, it’ll probably be when spring semester starts.

 

[Amburrito]

Anyone know if Penn does behavioral questions during the interview/what types of questions should I expect and prepare for? Thanks!

My interviewers were both extremely friendly. It seemed like they had a few questions they had lined up in advance, but nothing unexpected. "Why vet school?" "Why Penn?" "Tell me a time when...?" strengths/weaknesses, what I would like to do in the future, and then asking me about certain aspects of my application. They seemed happy to let the conversation lead itself from those questions. I had what felt like a LOT of time left over after they had asked what they wanted, so be thinking of questions you might want to ask.

 

[somedaydogtorlady]

be thinking of questions you might want to ask.

Good advice here. You'll have the chance to ask questions, in all likelihood, and it's good to be prepared for that. What you ask depends a lot on what is important to you and your personal style/confidence/etc., but you want to have those ready to go and not be scrambling to think of something in the moment.

 

[PandaEnthusiast]

Hello! I know how stressful this process is, especially with UPenn sending out invites in waves. But, just for a little encouragement, I was on the last interview day for UPenn last year and got a phone call with my acceptance 2 days later. Don’t lose hope

 

[Catdaddy24]

Does anyone know what the typical interview day at UPenn is like? How long is the interview and what time does the day go until?

 

[somedaydogtorlady]

They're half days, so you'll either be in the morning or afternoon session, for between three and four hours. Half of the group goes on a tour with students while the other half does their interviews, which I believe are 30 minutes slots. Some people are being interviewed while the others sit and chat with current students and the other prospective students. This time and the tour are when you can ask the current students any questions you have about life at Penn, living in Philly, things like that. The tour goes through the classroom areas, the small animal hospital, the anatomy lab, and the student lounge.

 

[prevet1997]

I think your interview depends a lot on who your interviewers are! Mine was similar to Amber’s and my interviewers were very friendly and sweet and spend the majority of the time answering my questions about tracking and classes. But I’ve heard from plenty of friends that at least one of their interviewers went a little tough and picked at holes in their application and questioned them about their choice in undergrad schools. Might be a good idea to ask your admissions reps a little about who you are interviewing with!
Also for in state people starting to feel the heat, don’t panic. I was on the last day and a lot of us were in-state with strong applications who got accepted immediately after our interview. I literally lost entire nights sleep when people started getting interviews and in the end it all worked out fine

 

[angie_76]

Does anyone know when the NBC interview day is likely to be this cycle? I know they don’t interview 100% of the large animal interest applicants that day but I don’t want to start getting excited or stressed about hearing/not hearing anything until closer to that time since I indicated exclusively LA interest on my application.

Where do we find interview dates I am running into the same problem ！

 

[staff_wielder]

One of the admissions reps that lurk on here should be able to tell you more...

 

[grebes4lyfe]

At least last year there were interviews every Friday starting mid January and going through February I think. But there are def some admissions reps on the thread who should be able to tell you more since they actually know what’s going on.
If it’s anything like last year though if you get an interview it’ll be on a Friday and it will be assigned to you. You won’t get to choose a date and they’re really strict about it, like can’t change it for anything strict. Your choice will be to go to the day you’re assigned or give up the interview spot.

 

[vetmedkid]

What @somedaydogtorlady said. It’s very very likely that they’ll bring up weak points of your application and essentially be like “so why are you better than this?” For me it was “vet school is very difficult and stressful. In the past you said that you’ve had extenuating circumstances that you weren’t equipped to handle at the time and that your grades suffered. How will you handle the stress of vet school?”
My answer was this: I was young and inexperienced with life hardships. I didn’t know when to seek help and was afraid to do so. Over time I learned mechanisms to deal with high levels of stress, sought professional help, and gained the tools necessary to make it through. This is evident by my high last-45 GPA compared to my cumulative, and especially my freshman and sophomore, GPA’s.

They seemed to really like this answer and that I was honest with my mental health history. Penn is very progressive in that way and even has a specific mental health counselor for the vet school whose office is in the vet school. Many people are afraid to bring up that their weak points were due to poor mental health. Don’t be afraid to mention that. It won’t be viewed negatively if you’ve been able to overcome it.

How did you feel about this first semester at Penn? Would you say the workload was extremely difficult but you were still able to handle it? Just curious what to expect out of first semester hypothetically.

 

[ajs513]

How did you feel about this first semester at Penn? Would you say the workload was extremely difficult but you were still able to handle it? Just curious what to expect out of first semester hypothetically.

That’s exactly how I’d describe it. It was a ton of information, a big shock compared to undergrad, but very doable. In undergrad I had to study for around 2 days for an exam to feel prepared. Now I had to study for 3 days to feel prepared to get around average, and 4 days to get above average. So for me at least, it wasn’t world changing but it’s definitely more work than undergrad. When they strung together 5 exams in a week and a half for finals, and each exam had 12-24 lectures of material on it, that meant studying for almost a month straight. Some people need to change their study habits entirely in order to make it through. Others do what they’ve always done.

If you’re the kind of person who needs to put in a week of hard studying for an exam, you’ll probably be the same at Penn. If you only need to study for a couple days, you may find you can get by with that. More likely than not though, you’d need to do what I did and add an extra day or two to feel comfortable. It’s a lot of material that they expect you to know and it’s not like anything you’ve done before.

I wouldn’t listen to the people who say “oh man, when you get to vet school you’ll be in the library every night studying until 10 pm after class and you won’t have enough time to even breathe.” Maybe that happens for some people, but for me and a lot of others that was only the case during finals. During the rest of the semester, we still had time to do hobbies, hang out, make a good dinner, explore the city, etc. Maybe things will change as school progresses but time will tell.

 

[grebes4lyfe]

Hard disagree with the above. I’ve been stressed before but this semester was another level. Mostly due to the sheer volume of information more than the actual difficulty of the material, but still this is the hardest I’ve ever worked. I’d air on the side of preparing for the hardest you could imagine and then maybe being pleasantly surprised if it’s slightly less than the worst experience you could imagine rather than going in unprepared and getting slapped in the face.

Just my 2 cents.

 

[Amburrito]

Apparently the answer is "it varies" cause I'd put myself in the middle of these two lol. Imo, the majority of the semester was hard but doable; I had to increase my studying significantly from undergrad though. Finals were a special kind of hell (and midterms, to a lesser degree).

Some subjects I found interesting or related to stuff I'd seen in undergrad, which made them easier. Others I found boring or I hadn't had experience with them, so they were more of a struggle. I'd say Grebes is spot on in the sense that the difficulty of the material isn't harder than undergrad, it's the volume and the level of detail that you are expected to know. The real trick is understanding what the professors think is important in order to focus your studying... some professors make that more difficult than others.

For what it's worth, I think my brother said it best when he said it was like the Marines: they break you down to build you up. A lot of the challenges academically I had this semester weren't the difficulty of the material so much as making time for myself, staying motivated without burning out, etc. A big challenge I had was dealing with classmates who study differently than I do or find certain subjects easier than I do; I had to learn to focus on what I needed to do for myself without being influenced by what other people were doing and saying. Everyone finds their own way!

 

[staff_wielder]

Ummm... hate to be the black sheep, but I took a few (read: several) years off and vet school was a brick train that ****ing squashed the **** out of my ass. I came out of midterms like wtf?!?! Remember to take everything on SDN with a grain of salt. In real life maybe 5% of the vet school population is on this online forum, sitting at their keyboards, deep in the middle of the night -- so it's a certain kind of people as well. Also, depends on if you're more fresh out of undergrad or not -- you'll be more used to the studying life style which will make the transition easier. It's definitely doable, the main thing is to stay on top of your ****. You can't slack or you're going to get burned. Maybe ajs can study for a month straight no problem, but that **** is near impossible for me -- every single night, walk the dog, eat, study, sleep, class, repeat. It's rough. Don't take it lightly. Prepare for the worst, hope for an experience like grebes or ajs (but they're also both highly intelligent, so maybe I killed too many brain cells in my 20's.) Over kill the beginning and ease up if you're killing it. Better that than how I did it -- fell on my face in the mud and hobbled, half-blind to the finish line of semester 1. First year is the weeder year for sure. Second year is gucci, and I feel like I'm finally chillin' a bit. YMMV.

 

[grebes4lyfe]

(but they're also both highly intelligent, so maybe I killed too many brain cells in my 20's.)

Oh shush mr. Published author with the NIH

 

[ajs513]

Prepare for the worst, hope for an experience like grebes or ajs (but they're also both highly intelligent, so maybe I killed too many brain cells in my 20's.)

Excuse me, but it’s well known that any intelligence I have is funneled into dad jokes and puns. It’s really a pathology at this point.

 

[grebes4lyfe]

Excuse me, but it’s well known that any intelligence I have is funneled into dad jokes and puns. It’s really a pathology at this point.

Retweet

 

[vetmedkid]

That’s exactly how I’d describe it. It was a ton of information, a big shock compared to undergrad, but very doable. In undergrad I had to study for around 2 days for an exam to feel prepared. Now I had to study for 3 days to feel prepared to get around average, and 4 days to get above average. So for me at least, it wasn’t world changing but it’s definitely more work than undergrad. When they strung together 5 exams in a week and a half for finals, and each exam had 12-24 lectures of material on it, that meant studying for almost a month straight. Some people need to change their study habits entirely in order to make it through. Others do what they’ve always done.

If you’re the kind of person who needs to put in a week of hard studying for an exam, you’ll probably be the same at Penn. If you only need to study for a couple days, you may find you can get by with that. More likely than not though, you’d need to do what I did and add an extra day or two to feel comfortable. It’s a lot of material that they expect you to know and it’s not like anything you’ve done before.

I wouldn’t listen to the people who say “oh man, when you get to vet school you’ll be in the library every night studying until 10 pm after class and you won’t have enough time to even breathe.” Maybe that happens for some people, but for me and a lot of others that was only the case during finals. During the rest of the semester, we still had time to do hobbies, hang out, make a good dinner, explore the city, etc. Maybe things will change as school progresses but time will tell.

Thanks, this made me feel a lot better!

 

[vetmedkid]

Thanks to everyone else as well! Helps the waiting period go by faster reading these :')