Vet Experience or Animal Experience or Employment?

[ADM1220]

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What categories (vet experience, animal experience, employment) would these scenarios fall under?

1. I worked alongside my vet doing an equine clinical drug trial. We did a boatload of lameness exams and took rads. I was paid a stipend by the company running the trial.

2. I worked directly for the company running the drug trial (the company paid me). The trial was overseen/designed by vets. My job was to review the work of two vets to ensure accuracy.

3. My husband and I own a farrier business. He does the farrier work, I keep the books/management stuff. I also assist him on calls as needed, especially if a client has a particularly difficult to handle horse.

Thanks in advance!

 

[WildZoo]

1 is definitely vet, I'm pretty sure 3 is animal...but I don't know about 2.

 

[Ashgirl]

Hello there!

Here are some thoughts (it's been a year since I filled out VMCAS so I could be slightly wrong on the employment aspect):

1) Definitely Vet. I think (almost positive) that there is a sub-section where it says if you were employed during this experience, so you would not include this separately in the other employment section. (If I remember correctly, the employment section is a separate section that does not include this or other vet/animal experience).
2) I'm not sure.. what were your duties here? It sounds just like employment but it's hard to tell.
3) Definitely animal experience.

 

[pp9]

My opinion:
1. Sounds like research/vet experience. It might be more 'believable' as vet experience, since you weren't necessarily designing/running experiments.
2. Research....possibly? This might be regular employment though.
3. Animal.

I've found that categorizing your experiences can either be very obvious, or more up to interpretation. VMCAS seems to be refining their descriptions of the categories as well, possibly due to the confusion and loose interpretations of vet/research experience. Always best to call schools and ask, but you'll get a different answer from each one 😛

 

[ADM1220]

I don't think the drug trials are research, as we did not design the trials or do anything beyond collect data and submit it. For scenario #2 I was employed by the company but everything was done by vets and oversaw by vets. I reviewed data for accuracy, so I think I'm going to go with employment. Definitely surprised by #3 being animal experience, and not employment. I do way more book keeping stuff than horse wrestlin' these days. 😉 I suppose I could count our business as employment and my hours interning with another farrier as animal experience? Divvying up hours is kinda making me crazy already and the application hasn't even opened yet!

 

[Minnerbelle]

Rather than have a bunch of people guess, I would just email VMCAS once the application opens and ask them to clarify. They're suuuuper helpful and prompt.

 

[Gwenevre]

Or call the wonderful @VMCASSTAFF for clarification =)

 

[WillowLeaf]

Some schools have slightly different opinions than the VMCAS guidelines, so I think it would be worth checking with whichever schools you're applying to as well. They usually have a description on their website, or you could call/email if it's not clear.

 

[ADM1220]

Thanks! I didn't know I could call or tag VMCAS about this.

 

[pp9]

Some schools have slightly different opinions than the VMCAS guidelines, so I think it would be worth checking with whichever schools you're applying to as well. They usually have a description on their website, or you could call/email if it's not clear.

I can't even deal with how right this is. I brought up my research experience during my file reviews, and all but one school I applied to said VMCAS is in the wrong for citing classroom research experience as unusable/'frowned upon' on the app. So definitely talk to your schools. VMCAS has no responsibility to proofread your app, so it's not like they can toss your app for not following their exact guidelines. The VMCAS hotline almost made it seem like it is dishonest to list classroom experience, whether it be vet, animal, or research, on the app. However, other people did not get this response from the hotline (I did call twice just to be sure), so there are discrepancies. When in doubt, communicate with your schools directly.

 

[Minnerbelle]

I guess it depends on how many schools you're applying to too. I applied to like 7, and all the schools had different opinions so I just went with what VMCAS had to say. I did things via email so that i had written record of things. If each individual school has issues with how things are classified, i think they will generally just recategorize themselves. In the end, I don't think that's going to make much of a difference. Your experiences are what they are IMO, it doesn't add much value or take them away just because of how you classified them. Not all "vet experiences" are equal, and not all of them are superior to things classified as "animal experience." Same thing with research. If how you classify one or two things makes that much of a difference, then I would imagine the application overall is probably not all that strong... and i doubt that is why you don't get an acceptance. If it's so weird to categorize, how interesting and different the job description is will probably be more important than how it is ultimately categorized. Overall, as long as it's not egregiously off, I don't think the categorization of experiences is as rigid or important as we all make it out to be.

If there's one school you care about the most, then it makes sense to go with what they have to say... But something has to give when you're using a common app for multiple schools.

 

[pp9]

I guess it depends on how many schools you're applying to too. I applied to like 7, and all the schools had different opinions so I just went with what VMCAS had to say. I did things via email so that i had written record of things. If each individual school has issues with how things are classified, i think they will generally just recategorize themselves. In the end, I don't think that's going to make much of a difference. Your experiences are what they are IMO, it doesn't add much value or take them away just because of how you classified them. Not all "vet experiences" are equal, and not all of them are superior to things classified as "animal experience." Same thing with research. If how you classify one or two things makes that much of a difference, then I would imagine the application overall is probably not all that strong... and i doubt that is why you don't get an acceptance. If it's so weird to categorize, how interesting and different the job description is will probably be more important than how it is ultimately categorized. Overall, as long as it's not egregiously off, I don't think the categorization of experiences is as rigid or important as we all make it out to be.

If there's one school you care about the most, then it makes sense to go with what they have to say... But something has to give when you're using a common app for multiple schools.

This is also true, and I wish I knew this last summer. VMCAS left me with the impression that I'd be 'stretching the truth' if I listed my semester long lab research project as research experience. They said this is why we are given an explanation statement...to talk about things that don't fit into the other areas of the application. My file reviews said, in a nutshell, I have the experiences they want to see but I sold myself short by not giving each experience individual attention (as opposed to cramming them into an explanation statement). I was just so worried that a school was going to see a classroom research project (mind you, I designed the experiments, ran them, collected data, and wrote a research paper on it) listed under research and be like "Ha! Nice try." and toss my app. So again, communicate with your schools. I'm not saying not to call VMCAS, but it looks like there is either a lack of communication between schools and the service or that the service just cannot design the app to give each school a say in it. Probably a bit of both. Hopefully my example will show you more about how interpreting experiences can be somewhat subjective in certain cases.

 

[Minnerbelle]

Yeah... I think that's kind of odd that you were told to put that in the explanation statement. There's really nothing to explain... I thought that was more like somewhere you explain arrests, institutional actions, that your gpa was poor because of x,y,z, and gaps in employment/education, etc... Not so much "let me put an experience here because I'm not sure it's legitimate enough to put it in the experience section." I'm not sure what's up with that, but when I was applying VMCAS was my go to for these kinds of things and they were super helpful. The way they changed how things are classified over the past few years would make me hesitant to just get random advice from people speculating or just one school if you're applying to multiple because each school can have strong opinions on things. But you can always ask multiple sources and just decide for yourself what's best.

What you decide to put in your application or omit I think is totally relative to your experiences. You should always do what makes you look better so long as you're not lying. It's kind of like pet ownership. Some schools say include it, others say don't. Someone with thousands and thousands of more involved animal and vet experiences is prob better off omitting it because they don't need it and it might not be worth off putting the schools that aren't too happy with it. But someone who has limited hours can certainly get boost from writing down that they grew up caring for a ton or interesting species of animals. A semester of classwork research is something I personally wouldn't have put down but that's because I took time after college to do "big kid" research working 60+ hours a week with pretty much unlimited resources working on multiple big projects that led to 4 papers in journals with good impact factors. But if you're at the starting line competing against every other person who is just graduating college, you want to showcase everything you got that differentiates you from the others. If an animal science major can put animal husbandry experience from classwork as experience, I don't see why the same can't be true for a research class. If you make it transparent that it was a class, it's not like you're deceiving anyone. Each school can read it and be impressed or not.

 

[pp9]

Yeah... I think that's kind of odd that you were told to put that in the explanation statement. There's really nothing to explain... I thought that was more like somewhere you explain arrests, institutional actions, that your gpa was poor because of x,y,z, and gaps in employment/education, etc... Not so much "let me put an experience here because I'm not sure it's legitimate enough to put it in the experience section." I'm not sure what's up with that, but when I was applying VMCAS was my go to for these kinds of things and they were super helpful. The way they changed how things are classified over the past few years would make me hesitant to just get random advice from people speculating or just one school if you're applying to multiple because each school can have strong opinions on things. But you can always ask multiple sources and just decide for yourself what's best.

What you decide to put in your application or omit I think is totally relative to your experiences. You should always do what makes you look better so long as you're not lying. It's kind of like pet ownership. Some schools say include it, others say don't. Someone with thousands and thousands of more involved animal and vet experiences is prob better off omitting it because they don't need it and it might not be worth off putting the schools that aren't too happy with it. But someone who has limited hours can certainly get boost from writing down that they grew up caring for a ton or interesting species of animals. A semester of classwork research is something I personally wouldn't have put down but that's because I took time after college to do "big kid" research working 60+ hours a week with pretty much unlimited resources working on multiple big projects that led to 4 papers in journals with good impact factors. But if you're at the starting line competing against every other person who is just graduating college, you want to showcase everything you got that differentiates you from the others. If an animal science major can put animal husbandry experience from classwork as experience, I don't see why the same can't be true for a research class. If you make it transparent that it was a class, it's not like you're deceiving anyone. Each school can read it and be impressed or not.

The explanation statement, or how it was described to me, is space for you to talk about ANYTHING you want (within reason...). Like I said, I think there is some problems between VMCAS and some schools that cannot be or have yet to be worked out. I'm curious to see how the application evolves over time. Figuring out how to list my internship was particularly annoying. It was a for-credit internship and shows up as a class on my transcript. I did research and had exotic animal experience hours. VMCAS said not to list it, because it was a class. Into the explanation statement it went. Rereading it now makes me cringe

I like that you brought up pet ownership. It is definitely animal experience, but no one knows whether or not it should be listed! If you are a full time vet assistant, the schools probably don't care about your dog. I am on the lower end of the spectrum when it comes to vet experience hours (until I start my full time internship!!!), and I still felt it was silly to list my dog. Some schools have their own supplemental apps which ask you to talk about any experience you have with certain types of animals, which is great. You could definitely list that there. My thought regarding pet ownership is that EVERYONE HAS PETS! It wouldn't make you unique in any way (speaking of small animals, large is a different story altogether). I think not having any small animal pets in this field would make you unique 😛

 

[Minnerbelle]

Like I said, I think there is some problems between VMCAS and some schools that cannot be or have yet to be worked out.

I doubt that will ever happen, and I think it's unreasonable to expect. The problem lies in the fact that each school evaluates their candidates differently and have different opinions things that go in the application, but they all use a common application. People who have file reviews from multiple schools can get multiple conflicting and different things to improve, regardless of the fact that all the schools received the same app. Generally, things that really matter to that particular school go into their supplemental apps, but not all schools have involved supplementals. Penn's is something like, "Are you or your family affiliated with Penn Vet? Gimme your money. The end."

My thought regarding pet ownership is that EVERYONE HAS PETS! It wouldn't make you unique in any way (speaking of small animals, large is a different story altogether). I think not having any small animal pets in this field would make you unique 😛

That's exactly what I'm saying. It might sound ridiculous to you, and it is always gets very contentious every time it gets brought up on this forum, but I'm pretty darn sure that people have contacted certain schools that said to definitely list it on their application (not just the supplemental). I have a feeling that enthusiasm isn't shared by all schools. In then end, each applicant should put down what will make that particular person look best to the schools they're applying to overall. It's easy if you're only applying to one school, but if you're applying to a bunch it can get messy.

The explanation statement, or how it was described to me, is space for you to talk about ANYTHING you want (within reason...).

I know that, but I personally think "within reason" is to limit it to things that can't be addressed in other parts of the application or really needs to be expanded (e.g. institutional action, etc...). You can write whatever you want, but it doesn't mean there aren't consequences ya know? I think it's really weird that's what you were told to do. With any advice you get from anyone, if it sounds a little iffy, I would try to confirm with other sources. And in your case, maybe listening to VMCAS alone hurt you somewhat. But I don't think that's reason for everyone else to not inquire with them.

 

[tori_luvs_dogz]

I work at my in-state's vet school as a kennel assistant. Do you think this counts as animal experience or veterinary experience? I talk to vet students and vet techs, but I never really get to talk to the doctors. My boss is a vet tech. Soo... animal or veterinary? Thanks in advance!

 

[Cyndia]

I work at my in-state's vet school as a kennel assistant. Do you think this counts as animal experience or veterinary experience? I talk to vet students and vet techs, but I never really get to talk to the doctors. My boss is a vet tech. Soo... animal or veterinary? Thanks in advance!

This would be animal then, usually the veterinary work is when you're directly under supervision of a veterinarian. I actually did something similar at my undergrads vet school and counted it as animal experience. Kennel assistant work is usually just husbandry stuff anyways, so would definitely fit into animal.

 

[that redhead]

Definitely surprised by #3 being animal experience, and not employment. I do way more book keeping stuff than horse wrestlin' these days. 😉 I suppose I could count our business as employment and my hours interning with another farrier as animal experience? Divvying up hours is kinda making me crazy already and the application hasn't even opened yet!

I'd say 2 is employment experience only, but you could count any hours you had holding horses as animal experience, so long as you separated it from the book keeping.