I just graduated and now have decided to pursue a career in veterinary medicine. However, other than my own pets I do not have any animal/veterinary experience. I just have a general question. I see some people who have 1000s of hours of animal experience because they have/had say horses when they were kids, and people with 1000s of hours of veterinary experience because they are vet techs. I am neither of those people. I know there is no magical number, but is there a number of hours of each that schools like to see in applicants, and that will make someone competitive. Of course, granted that academics and tests scores are above average.
Veterinary School and Animal/Veterinary Experiences
- Thread starter bos98
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I managed to accumulate a little over a thousand hours in 2 years of shadowing/working during my school breaks...it's not as bad as it sounds. That said the amount of experience is dependent on what other factors you bring to your application. Do you have the pre-reqs for vet school completely? If you don't have any experience, the most important reason to get started is to make sure that you truly have an interest in the career path.
I’ve seen some schools require a minimum of 260 hours, which I initially received shadowing my local veterinarian. I would assume a competitive amount would be anything at least double their minimum but some schools don’t even require a minimum. Depends on each school.
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As one of those people who had thousands of hours of vet experience plus around 1,200 hours of animal experience (and some research experience), how many hours you need to get into vet school heavily depends on the rest of your application. I like to think of the application as a pool or a bucket or whatever liquid-holding apparatus you prefer. You can fill it up with a lot of things. With stellar academics, great letters of rec, and quality extracurriculars you can fill it up almost completely. Then you would need a small number of hours to fill it the rest of the way, sometimes just a few hundred hours. As long as you can demonstrate that you got a good feel for the veterinary profession.
If your academics are mediocre but you have good letters, and some good extracurriculars, you might still be able to get in with the same number of hours, but you’re starting off with your pool/bucket less full than the previous person. So it would be a good idea to get even more quality hours, meaning diversify your hours or get a lot that give you good experience and show that you have a better understanding of the field than interviewers would expect.
The point being, while academics are most frequently the things that will fill up your pool/bucket the most, the less “stellar” you are in that area, the more you’ll have to fill it up with other things to give yourself a good chance. At the end of the day, there’s no one way to actually get in, but there is a way to ensure that you’re at least not behind. Have academics that are at or around the average of the school you want to apply to (or even below depending on the rest of your application), get people you really trust to write you good letters of recommendation, get veterinary and animal experience hours that will demonstrate that you really know the profession and the challenges veterinarians face, and try to do some worthwhile things unrelated to animals as well.
If your academics are mediocre but you have good letters, and some good extracurriculars, you might still be able to get in with the same number of hours, but you’re starting off with your pool/bucket less full than the previous person. So it would be a good idea to get even more quality hours, meaning diversify your hours or get a lot that give you good experience and show that you have a better understanding of the field than interviewers would expect.
The point being, while academics are most frequently the things that will fill up your pool/bucket the most, the less “stellar” you are in that area, the more you’ll have to fill it up with other things to give yourself a good chance. At the end of the day, there’s no one way to actually get in, but there is a way to ensure that you’re at least not behind. Have academics that are at or around the average of the school you want to apply to (or even below depending on the rest of your application), get people you really trust to write you good letters of recommendation, get veterinary and animal experience hours that will demonstrate that you really know the profession and the challenges veterinarians face, and try to do some worthwhile things unrelated to animals as well.
If you take a year or two off to focus on getting veterinary experience you shouldn't have a problem with the minimum hours needed. Since you haven't had any experience its very important you get some small animal animal experience to make sure you love this career so you can see the nitty gritty of it all. You should be able to find a vet clinic to shadow, a spay/neuter clinic, you can apply to vet reception or kennel cleaning jobs. If time allows you should also expand your experience to some large animal, vet schools like to see someone with experience in multiple animals.
