VMCAS App and Fostering

[Maschka1]

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Hello Everyone,
I am so excited I found this forum, I have been reading through everyone's posts and really have found it all very helpful. I have a question for you. How have people calculated the hours spent fostering an animal for a rescue? I guess technically it was 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. but that seems wrong to put that much time...Anyone have a suggestion for me?

thanks a bunch!

 

[VeganSoprano]

I've counted it as about 1 hr/day for most animals. Particularly labor-intensive situations, like orphaned neonates, might warrant 3 or so hours a day. The total should be representative of the hours you actually spent and also look realistic on paper. You are fostering 24/7 but not actually working all the time - just like when you have a job you are employed 24/7 but not working 24/7. If you put a number of hours that looks unreasonable then you could cast doubt on your whole application and that's definitely not what you want. It's better to list 200 hours when you really put in 500 than to put 2,000 hours and have it look unreasonable. Adcoms do look at these things!

 

[parietal]

Completely agree with VeganSoprano. The organization I foster for calculates our time as 1 hour a day, so that's what I used. That way if they call to check, the hours are consistent.

I actually spoke to one adcom member who said that applications with inflated hours irritated him so much that he was inclined to stop reading at that point and move on to the next person.

 

[MSUspartan]

Yeah I just counted up the number of hours a day I actually, reasonably spent cleaning litter boxes, bottle feeding (I fostered baby orphaned kitties), etc. It ended up being about 3 hours/day I think, and then under the explanation I just said that I fostered each litter of kittens for several weeks.

 

[Maschka1]

Thanks Guys! I feel kinda like a deer in headlights trying to fill out this application, usually I love this sort of thing, but I think I am feeling the pressure of actually doing it (and not just saying, some day I want to go to vet school) 😛 To be honest, my foster dogs fit right in with my own dogs, so I was having a real hard time thinking of an appropriate time estimate as it really doesnt take much more than what I already do. an hour a day seems reasonable though.. so yay! I appreciate your help!

 

[bunnity]

Another perspective: I foster and I didn't include it on the application. I guess it is technically volunteer work, and it is a wonderful thing to do, but I would count it more as "doing your part to help out" than something that goes on an application. I wouldn't think badly of someone for including it, but I can see how it might make an adcom skeptical that you were just trying to pad your hours.


Another possibility would be to mention it in passing on the application - it could easily fit into a personal statement "Through fostering dogs for a rescue I have realized..." or even be mentioned in the description of duties if you volunteered at the same shelter. "I also fostered 3 litters of kittens through this shelter in addition to volunteering there." That way you can show that you are actively involved in your community's animal welfare efforts but not have to put a number on it.

 

[VeganSoprano]

Another option might be to only include hours for animals who required special care - like neonates or animals recovering from major surgery. Since you're not supposed to include hours spent caring for personal pets, you could exclude time spent just providing basic care for healthy animals. You can count that foster caregiving as community based volunteer work instead of as animal experience.

 

[Minnerbelle]

I know everyone has different opinions, but I'm with bunnity on this one. I didn't count any hours at all from fostering. I did put it under my job descriptions for my volunteer position at the shelter vet services dept, but said it was in addition to the hours I listed. Since I had 500 hrs or so volunteering with a really cool job description, I wanted to emphasize all of those hours. I felt like adding even a couple hundred hours of fostering would really undermine my other volunteer experiences.

 

[nyanko]

Another perspective: I foster and I didn't include it on the application. I guess it is technically volunteer work, and it is a wonderful thing to do, but I would count it more as "doing your part to help out" than something that goes on an application. I wouldn't think badly of someone for including it, but I can see how it might make an adcom skeptical that you were just trying to pad your hours.
Another possibility would be to mention it in passing on the application - it could easily fit into a personal statement "Through fostering dogs for a rescue I have realized..." or even be mentioned in the description of duties if you volunteered at the same shelter. "I also fostered 3 litters of kittens through this shelter in addition to volunteering there." That way you can show that you are actively involved in your community's animal welfare efforts but not have to put a number on it.

I think I did something like this - mentioned fostering sort of in passing in my PS but did not include it in my experience hours.

 

[parietal]

I know everyone has different opinions, but I'm with bunnity on this one. I didn't count any hours at all from fostering. I did put it under my job descriptions for my volunteer position at the shelter vet services dept, but said it was in addition to the hours I listed. Since I had 500 hrs or so volunteering with a really cool job description, I wanted to emphasize all of those hours. I felt like adding even a couple hundred hours of fostering would really undermine my other volunteer experiences.

Hmm... Maybe it's because we're talking about different types of fostering?

I usually foster neonates or ill animals that require regular meds, special care, etc. I don't know if I'd include fostering healthy animals either -- I look at them as sort of temporary pets 🙂 -- but I feel that the more medical-based fostering has actually provided me some excellent experience.

 

[Maschka1]

Ok now I have another question. Everyone is talking about padding your experience. I have LOTS of experience, but I dont want to look bad by listing too much? One of my friends (who is a vet and one of my Elor's) said to put everything I have done on there. Should I not list everything? My GPA is low due to an undiagnosed disability (which is now diagnosed and being treated) so I am hoping to prove that I am committed to the field and that my grades in my post-bac work are improving due to treatment. But I am really banking on my vast experiences to help me.
maybe I should just stick fostering under community/volunteer activities?

thanks again everyone, you guys are awesome!

 

[parietal]

Ok now I have another question. Everyone is talking about padding your experience. I have LOTS of experience, but I dont want to look bad by listing too much? One of my friends (who is a vet and one of my Elor's) said to put everything I have done on there. Should I not list everything? My GPA is low due to an undiagnosed disability (which is now diagnosed and being treated) so I am hoping to prove that I am committed to the field and that my grades in my post-bac work are improving due to treatment. But I am really banking on my vast experiences to help me.
maybe I should just stick fostering under community/volunteer activities?!

In my humble opinion, you cannot have too much experience. I would definitely list every major vet and animal experience you have had.

And just to be clear, listing fostering is NOT padding our experience. A friendly debate of whether and/or how it should be listed is fine, but please don't imply that we've listed experiences that we didn't actually do. Sorry, this just raised my hackles....

 

[that redhead]

Completely agree with VeganSoprano. The organization I foster for calculates our time as 1 hour a day, so that's what I used. That way if they call to check, the hours are consistent.

I actually spoke to one adcom member who said that applications with inflated hours irritated him so much that he was inclined to stop reading at that point and move on to the next person.

That makes me feel nervous, since I have a lot of experience hours. I did my best to calculate the hours and didn't "round up" so hopefully they don't think I'm making it up

 

[parietal]

That makes me feel nervous, since I have a lot of experience hours. I did my best to calculate the hours and didn't "round up" so hopefully they don't think I'm making it up

You should be fine as long as your hours are accurate. 🙂 He was talking more about people who really do pad their application by saying, for example, that they've worked 9,000 hours in a clinic in the past year. (Which is physically impossible, since there are only 8,760 hours in a year.) That kind of thing.

If it's a REALLY big number (if you have been working more than 40 hours a week, for instance), you may want to have your vet mention that in your eLOR. And make sure your numbers are the same as what your employer has on record!

 

[Minnerbelle]

Hmm... Maybe it's because we're talking about different types of fostering?

I usually foster neonates or ill animals that require regular meds, special care, etc. I don't know if I'd include fostering healthy animals either -- I look at them as sort of temporary pets 🙂 -- but I feel that the more medical-based fostering has actually provided me some excellent experience.

I think we're talking about the same thing. I fostered for the vet services dept, so I mostly took home animals that needed a lot of attention. (e.g. litter of half pound 5 week old kittens with severe URI that needed feedings every 3 hrs plus SQ fluids and a butt load of treatments). I don't think I took a cat home that didn't need fluids or to be syringe fed, except for a couple that I took home for behavior probs with the understanding that if I couldn't change it, they would be euthanized.

It's true that these fosters gave me excellent experience, but I would only be dealing with 1 or 2 sets of fosters at a time at home (5-8 animals max) when I would be treating at least 100 animals during one round of treatments while working/volunteering for one shift (where treatments only took 3 hrs). So the same exact treatment that I would take an hour to do at home with my fosters would only take me 10-20 min max with one kennel containing a litter at the shelter.

Like you said above, I don't think it's ever WRONG to put down fostering experience if you've actually done it. I think it's a matter of how you can best list your foster experience to enhance your application. If you have almost exclusively SA private practice experience + a little bit of foster with a local rescue, then yeah, that might add something to your apps. If you work full time at a private clinic and you took home a couple of animals that landed in the clinic to foster for a bit, I'm not sure listing that as a separate thing on the vmcas or inflating your work hours is going to help you per se. A huge portion of my resume was shelter and animal rescue work, so for me, I thought making a separate section for fostering would be overkill.

I decided in the end to add a quick blurb about it in my job description but leave the hours out, since my sales pitch was that even though I only have 750 hrs of clinical vet experience, each of those hours was powerful. I just didn't want to dilute those with my foster hours. I'm one of those paranoid people who's constantly worried that adcoms will wonder if I'm padding my resume, so I just didn't want to risk it.

 

[Minnerbelle]

Ok now I have another question. Everyone is talking about padding your experience. I have LOTS of experience, but I dont want to look bad by listing too much?

That's totally fine as long as they're legitimate experience. There are the obvious ones that you definitely need to include (vet clinic work, research, wildlife, etc...) then there are the iffy ones that's a matter of personal opinion and depends on the exact situation(pet ownership, horse riding, etc...). As long as you have lots of stuff in the "definite" categories and not as much of the stuff in the "iffy" category (or there's less emphasis on them), you're good to go. If everything you've done is in the "iffy" category, I'd worry.

For example, which of these two with a buttload of experience would you pick if you were an adcom?

Person 1:
5000 hrs SA vet
1000 hrs equine vet
600 hrs wildlife rehab
50 hrs shadowing LA vet
300 hrs senior thesis research project
500 hrs volunteering at spay/neuter clinic
500 hrs owning exotic pets

Person 2:
50 hrs shadowing SA vet
75 hrs shadowing LA vet
2000 hrs fostering
300 hrs volunteering as cat socializer
5000 hrs horse ownership/riding
700 hrs hanging around uncle's farm
1000 hrs working at petco


Person 2 kinda sucks IMO, but it's not like any of the things they put down isn't technically legitimate. Any of those experiences can show up on any qualified applicant, and it wouldn't raise an eyebrow... but the way it's listed here = resume padding.