VMCAS -- Thoughts?

[VMCAS001]

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Hey All... Congrats to all of you who successfully submitted... I know it was a long, tough road for many of you.

Now that the waiting games begin.. I'd appreciate it if you would take a moment to send some thoughts, comments, suggestions and, yes, complaints to me regarding your VMCAS experience.

I'd like to hear the good, the great, the bad, and the ugly so that I am better positioned to manage next year's service. It's important to me to hear your comments.

Thanks!! And, don't take this the wrong way, but I hope to NOT see many of you next year!

VMCAS001

 

[EqSci]

My only complaint is that in the experiences section, we could not insert entries into the middle of the list. It was a pain to delete each entry up to that point if we forgot something. I also think a "re-send" button on the evaluators page would be useful.

Other than that, it was a great first experience with VMCAS. I never had any problems with logging in and using the system. I enjoyed the intructions section on each page because it was easily accessible. Everything was pretty clear-cut and straightforward, at least for me.

This probably isn't possible this year, but perhaps in the future you might be able to save applications from previous years so that re-applicants would only have to update instead of redoing the whole thing.

Thanks for a great experience!

 

[turnandburn]

My only complaint is that in the experiences section, we could not insert entries into the middle of the list. It was a pain to delete each entry up to that point if we forgot something. I also think a "re-send" button on the evaluators page would be useful.

I second both of those suggestions. 👍

For whatever reason, two of my three evaluators had difficulty recieving the email from VMCAS (was not in spam folder or anything, just was not recieved).

For the experiences section, possibly it would be easier to have the application put the experiences in order by date automatically, so that way if someone forgets to add something it could just be added at the bottom and it would automatically be put in the right spot.

It was also really helpful having a staff member on this forum to answer questions.

 

[wildvet]

I definitely agree with all of the above suggestions. It was a pain for me to have to delete some of my experiences and then reenter them if I forgot one of them. The system should automatically place the experiences in chronological order.

Fixing the problems that people have had with the personal statement would be a possibility as well. Mine would only submit if I had 4991 characters, so I had to cut down my personal statement to fit that length, even though the limit was actually 5000 characters. I suppose this may have been some sort of glitch? I know that other people have had problems with it too, and it was kind of annoying having to cut down my essay even more even after I had already refined it down to 5000 characters in MS Word.

 

[CBRGrl]

Having used last year's VMCAS as well, I second the suggestions already made. Being able to insert new experiences in the right place would save everyone a lot of aggravation. Also, I second the suggestion to add a 're-send' button to the ELOR section. There was one last year, why did you guys take that away? Both years I had to have the email resent to a professor (this year they didnt recieve it at all...last year he accidentally deleted it haha).

Also, the print preview this year REALLY annoyed me. Why doesnt the print preview actually look like the VMCAS you submit? All the experiences were out of order, the PS had crazy formatting...it was just badly done. Last year was much better, the print preview was exactly as it appeared when you submitted it so you could fix mistakes...

Lastly...take away the e-submit button once someone submits their whole application. I understand NOW that it's only for changing personal info or LORs...etc, but it really confused a lot of people (including me, who hit it like 4 times and also called VMCAS to make sure they had recieved it, despite having recieved the confirmation email...it really freaked me out!) Maybe you could change it from 'E-Submit' to 'Edit personal info' or something...

Overall, those were my big complaints. Thanks so much for getting our feedback, hopefully next year's applicants will bennefit from our experences 🙂

 

[sumstorm]

I agree concerning the experience section and the eLOR re-send option.

I would like to see a 'questions asked and answered section' so that all applicants received the same answers to questions. On at least 2 questions I received different answers via email from the answers I received by phone (and different answers by phone depending on who I talked to.)

I also think another experience section that listed experience type (livestock, wildlife, marine, etc) with a level system (1-5) and a brief explanation of previous experience could be helpful. I believe either Cornell or U of IL has such a list on the supplemental application. I think that might make things a bit easier on adcoms and on applicants with diverse experiences that might be lost in a long experience list.

The instructions need to be updated on some sections (coursework) and clarified on other sections.

Define terms, such as "small animals" which could refer the typical dog/cat clinical practice, pocket pet practice, or in the zoo world, can refer to small cats (ocelots, fishing cats) or small mammals (bats, kangaroo rats, kinkajous, etc) or other variations, depending on which zoo you work at.

 

[Barnaby]

Could not agree more with EqSci- the ability to insert or reorder the experiences lists would have saved a lot of headaches. Also, I agree with WildVet that there are some issue on the Personal statement section; it's so trying to whittle your p.s. down to 5000 characters. It's even more frustrating when the system won't accept 4999 characters or whatever the "real" cutoff was.

Perhaps they can adapt the system so that it conforms to MS word formatting- I feel as though everyone uses word anyway.

Finally, I personally had some concerns because my school is on the unit system rather than the credit system. I just had general confusion on how best to format that information- I would have been helped if that were addressed in the instructions.

I think the VMCAS service agents were very helpful and polite- kudos on that. The overall formating of the application website is very user friendly.

 

[Pomona2006]

Wow...I agree with pretty much everything mentioned here!

- Experience Section - we need a way to insert in the middle (or have order automatically determined by date)

- Print Preview Button - we should be able to see what the schools will see (otherwise it's a frustrating waste of time! 😱)

- Personal Statement - the character issue

- Terminology Clarification - clearly defining things such as what each type of animal experience is (small animal, mixed animal, etc). Without clarification, there is too much room for interpretation.

- Last Year's App - Although it did not apply to me this year, in case I don't get in this round, having a way to have info from this year's app automatically show up next year would be phenomenal! 😀

And VMCAS001, thanks for being on SDN, helping us out with questions, and now asking for our feedback. I think means a lot to us, as applicants!

 

[LVT2DVM]

As a multiple times applicant, I have to say I really liked the new format.

I liked the messages from VMCAS section, used that a couple of times.

Things I didnt like:
Previously mentioned:No resend button for ELORS-2 of my LOR didnt get the original email.

Inability to delete and re-register evaluators without VMCAS permission. What difference does it make really?

I had issues the entire time with "bad security certificate" messages. Finally I just learned to ignore them, but what a pain.

I too think its extremely time intensive to have to put all this info in each year, but since Ive inquired about this before, all I can say to the newbies is I was told: Since VMCAS makes improvements each year and basically rebuilds the system for each new application cycle, there is no way to save applicant information. Sorry🙁. VMCAS correct me if I am wrong.

 

[efab]

i did not get timed out once!!
whatever you did differently this year to make this happen thank you, thank you, thank you.

the printer friendly version is not that friendly, though. stressful and hard to read/edit is more like it.

i thought that an interactive word table would be a great way to input coursework data - something to make it less arduous.

 

[winddolphin]

On general I did not have any problems using VMCAS; entering information was easy. However, I do agree with eqsci about inserting experience and re-sending eLORs.
I like the print preview's cleaniness, but everything that needs to be in chronological order for easy proof-reading is not. (ex. experience list, courses taken)
There are 2 things I would like to see in the FAQ or instruction section:

1. AP classes---AP credits that are accepted by your primary institution and will show up on your transcript should be listed under the first quarter/semester of attendance.
2. Attendace dates for summer school---If you take summer classes from the same school (not primary) in different years, it's OK to have the attendance dates to include time you don't actually go there. Ex. Had summer courses in the year 2000 and 2004, attendace will be from 2000 to 2004 even though you do not actually attend that school most of the time.

 

[sambone]

I agree with what's said above.

I also wish for the GPA section, we could list our undergrad GPA and also our overall GPA (Although it's hard to calculate due to different grading systems, I think most of us can figure it out with instructions such as those Penn provides) . I know it says to put the overall in the explanation section, but I've heard Adcoms dont look at that.