WAMC - 1st time applicant, traditional, high GPA but lacking in other areas - any and ALL responses/critiques/opinions greatly appreciated!!!

[FermiParadox]

Hello! This is my first post so I apologize if there are any formatting errors or anything like that. But I really wanted some outsider perspectives, so thank you!

I am 21, a C/O 2028 hopeful, and am graduating in December 2023 as summa cum laude.

Major: Animal Science
Overall GPA: 4.0
Schools applying to: Texas A&M, Texas Tech, Cornell, Louisiana State, Purdue, Washington State, North Carolina State.
I am a resident of Texas, so I ideally I would love to get into either Texas A&M or Texas Tech so I can pay in-state tuition. But of course I am applying to a couple OOS to get my best chances.

Veterinary Experience: Only a little over 200 hrs :/
-Shadowed as a freshman in college at a vet clinic (2020)
-Shadowed some other doctors during a veterinary clinical internship in Peru (2022)
-Worked as a veterinary tech assistant for about a month (2023) after moving up from animal care attendant. I was unable to return to the clinic where I worked as a vet tech assistant this Summer, as they had no open positions I am hoping to find a new job this summer for more vet hours (AND ALSO A LOR!!! Yikes.)

Animal Handling Experience: ~1500 hrs
-SPCA volunteering in HS (75 hours)
-Doggy daycare/boarding center (628 hours)
-Student Aquarium Technician (319 hours)
-US Dairy Education Training and Consortium (150 hours on various farms)
-Animal Care Attendant at SA clinic (359 hours)
-Student worker at an aviary on-campus (83 hours)
-Pet ownership (200 hours) - I forget, but either TMDSAS or VMCAS allows pet ownership hours up to 100 hours per pet. They were guinea pigs.

Employment Experience:
Pretty redundant, as I gained most of my animal handling hours through my jobs I've already listed above.
-Student Aquarium Technician
-Doggy daycare/boarding center
-Animal Care Attendant and Veterinary Tech Assistant at SA clinic
-Student researcher for dairy cow research for about a year
-Student worker at an aviary

Volunteering: Probably 20 hours
-I do not have much from college...I joined a volunteering org two semesters ago so I sometimes went to go pick up trash and stuff like that.
-But I did volunteer (since I was unpaid) as an LA (learning assistant) for O-Chem II for a semester, and plan on doing it again for my next semester. Not sure if I would include this in this section though.

Research: Around 425 hrs (name published in one abstract, and hopefully published in an article soon)
-Participated in a research program as a freshman, where I was in a small online group and we just worked on this paper for my first semester. No publications came out of it. I participated in the same program for my second semester as a freshman, but in a different group, and got to present some research to interdisciplinary professionals at an R1 university. But presented online. (This was all during 2020).
-Worked as a student research assistant for some professors on dairy cow research as mentioned in work experience, which was mostly just organizing Excel data and stuff. However, I got my name added to their abstract, published by the ADSA in 2021.
-Virtual Data Internship in 2022 (Training and work program where we used data collection systems, created databases, and stuff like that.)
-Took a research class for the Spring 2023 semester, where I helped my professor with organizing surveys, and am currently working on this paper with another grad student that works under the same professor. We are hoping to get it published soon.

Activities/Leadership:
-Section Leader in HS for band (I believe TMDSAS says pre-vet students can add HS leadership. Not sure about VMCAS though).
-Treasurer for VAW (Volunteers Around the World) for about 2 years
-Mentor in IDEAAL (this is a two year Asian-American mentorship program. You get a group of freshmen, and you basically help them transition to college life as their "mentor." This org had workshops focusing on finding your identity as an Asian-American, concepts like the Model-Minority Myth, etc.)
-LA for O-chem II
-Pre-vet society (not unique at all, I know. Should I even add this? I was only in it for a year, but couldn't join the next year because the general meetings would have coincided with meetings for IDEAAL, which I had a leadership position for. I guess I just didn't bother to join PVS again after IDEAAL was over for some reason).
-Women's org called BABES (Best at Being Excellent). I joined Spring 2023, but am hesitant to add this to my apps? It was mostly for social activities...some volunteering but I didn't go to all of them. Also haven't been in it for long.
-TCCA: A volunteering org that I joined two semesters ago but I haven't gotten many hours volunteering so also hesitant to add this to my apps as well. It looks like I was in it for no reason, right?

Academics:
-I was initially in the animal science honors program at my college but didn't get the required number of points in Fall of 2022 (which you get by attending different events, presentations, etc...) so not in it anymore. But I did take some honors courses while I was in it, so yeah. Idk.
-Dean's list 4 semesters
-A couple animal science related scholarships

LORs:
-NO vet LOR yet!! - EDIT - I have found a vet that will potentially write me a letter!! I started working at a SA clinic in June, and it's a pretty new clinic that opened up in January. The team is small and so I've been able to chat with the doctor a lot more than my previous job and get to help handle animals in exam rooms with the doctor!! I think I will probably ask in a month or so!! I know 2-3 months really isn't long of a relationship with my vet recommender, but it's not like I have any other choice. Omg why am I writing all this at 3am in the morning? No one is reading this LOL. lalalalalallal
-one from an O-chem prof that I LA'ed for. She only writes letters for students that have LA'ed for her, so hopefully it will be good.
-one from a professor that I initially got to know through the research program I was in my freshman year in 2020, and am still doing research with him. I think this one will be strong.

If you read all this, thank you very much for your time. I just wanted to list out everything I could think of to help respondents.

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[matthirten13]

Veterinary Experience

What type of vet experiences were these? Large? Small? Exotic? etc.

Section Leader in HS for band (I believe TMDSAS says pre-vet students can add HS leadership. Not sure about VMCAS though)

VMCAS you can add it if you wish afaik

Activities/Leadership

Personal opinion, keep the volunteer, drop the pre-vet club. As you pointed it out, it's not going to help you stick out, and it doesn't seem like you were very committed to it.

Overall: You need to try get those vet hours up, and if they are all in one area of vetmed (like small animal), go for a different part of vetmed. Getting more vet hours will give you more insight before you fully commit to hopping in, will also give you more experiences to utilize for essays/interviews, and it will just make your app look better. Research experience is solid for a regular app though.

 

[AppyDust]

With a 4.0 gpa you might consider UCDavis. Cost of living is expensive but they do give you IS tuition after one year which makes them in the top 10 cheapest options.

 

[JaynaAli]

You need more vet experience hours but I think the bigger barrier in your app is the lack of vet LOR. You absolutely need a vet to vouch for you. I question whether you’ll be able to find an experience and accumulate enough hours for someone to get to know you and write you a strong LOR in the time remaining before deadlines for c/o 2028 apps comes (that’s like this fall right?). You need to find more vet experience and get a vet LOR lined up ASAP. All the schools I know of require a letter from a vet so if you don’t have that there’s no point in applying. I’m sure you’ll be very competitive once you have that arranged but for now it’s a glaring hole.

 

[FermiParadox]

What type of vet experiences were these? Large? Small? Exotic? etc.

VMCAS you can add it if you wish afaik


Personal opinion, keep the volunteer, drop the pre-vet club. As you pointed it out, it's not going to help you stick out, and it doesn't seem like you were very committed to it.

Overall: You need to try get those vet hours up, and if they are all in one area of vetmed (like small animal), go for a different part of vetmed. Getting more vet hours will give you more insight before you fully commit to hopping in, will also give you more experiences to utilize for essays/interviews, and it will just make your app look better. Research experience is solid for a regular app though.

The vet experiences were all small animal! And thank you for the suggestions, I will most definitely keep those in mind. Thank you so much!!

 

[FermiParadox]

With a 4.0 gpa you might consider UCDavis. Cost of living is expensive but they do give you IS tuition after one year which makes them in the top 10 cheapest options.

I did not know that!! Thank you so much for your input!!

 

[FermiParadox]

You need more vet experience hours but I think the bigger barrier in your app is the lack of vet LOR. You absolutely need a vet to vouch for you. I question whether you’ll be able to find an experience and accumulate enough hours for someone to get to know you and write you a strong LOR in the time remaining before deadlines for c/o 2028 apps comes (that’s like this fall right?). You need to find more vet experience and get a vet LOR lined up ASAP. All the schools I know of require a letter from a vet so if you don’t have that there’s no point in applying. I’m sure you’ll be very competitive once you have that arranged but for now it’s a glaring hole.

You are absolutely right - that is the part of the application that I have the most anxiety about right now, and am a bit frantically searching for jobs in my area where I can work with a vet. But thank you very much for your input!!

 

[HorseObsessed]

Luckily, you have a whole summer, during which you can gain up to 500 hours if you find the right spot! If you are anywhere near Houston, I know a number of small and large animal clinics here that accept shadowing students and can offer recommendations. If you really want to apply this cycle, you might need to take anything you can get for the summer, even if it is unpaid.