Vet hours- Should I focus on variety or quantity?

[buttersthecat]

I have ~650 vet hours, 500 small animal, 150 endangered hoofstock, my goal is to get 1000 hours total before September. I'm in grad school and ended up not having to be a TA this summer, I still have to finish my thesis research, but now I have a bit more free time (note: not a ton of free time). Because I thought I would have to be a TA this summer, I did not plan ahead and most of the exotic and emergency clinics near me are filled up with shadows for the summer. Is it worth it to shadow at whatever small animal clinic I can get even though I have 500 of those hours? Or are the extra hours worth it even though they don't bring variety to my hours?

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[JaynaAli]

Ideally you have both variety and quantity. 500 seems like a lot but honestly it’s probably a bit below average hours for vet school…many applicants are going to have thousands of hours of experience. Having a wide breadth of experiences can be good and show you’ve really explored multiple aspects of the career. It would be great to find an er/exotics/large animal/whatever place to add to your breadth of experience if you can but if the choice is between shadowing another (or the same) small animal hospital versus throwing in the towel and figuratively throwing in the towel and saying “good enough”, I would absolutely continue to shadow, especially if your app isn’t otherwise stellar in every way. Maybe you’d be fine with just 500 but why would you stop trying when you have time available to better your application? Different clinics run differently so seeing how someone else does it can teach you a lot. Make more connections. Meet more people and learn more things.

 

[justforfun1221]

From my understanding, yes the amount of vet hours matters, but they also like to see diversity! It would be more worth your time to shadow large animal (maybe equine or food animal?) than more small to show the admissions committee you have considered and seen other practices!

Additionally, as far as admissions chances, this is only one piece! Your GPA, essays, non-vet experiences and more are SO SO important! You most likely wouldn't be thrown out just for 650 hours! I have heard from lots of admissions counselors the number is not as important as the variety.

Hope this helps!

 

[supershorty]

Duplicate posting; thread in WAMC has been deleted and the reply received over there moved to this thread.