WAMC - 1st year applicant, low-GPA

[barkitecture]

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This is my first year applying. I have a particularly low GPA + vet hours. I'm aware that this will probably not suffice for Cornell which is why I'm largely writing on this forum to ask for future advice (how to improve my app beyond improving my GPA).

M/20/Traditional/NY

Cumulative GPA: 3.38
science GPA: 3.40
last 45: 3.50

Degrees achieved:
Set to graduate with a B.S in Biotechnology in the Spring of 2026. Minor in Chemistry + Environmental Biology

Applying to: Cornell, Long Island, Ross

Veterinary Experience: ~ 600 hours
- Emergency Room Veterinary Assistant - 450 hours
- Urgent Care Veterinary Assistant - 100 hours
- Animal Health Diagnostic Technician (Cornell affiliate) 80 hours

Research Experience: ~ 400 hours
- Research Assistant on a cottontail population genetics project 320 hours
- Independent Researcher on agricultural soil microbiota interactions 80 hours (I know this is not vet relevant but this was during my freshman year when I was unsure what I wanted to do)

Awards/scholarships:
- Presidents 4.00 List Spring 2025
- 2024 Track and Field MVP at my college

LORs:
- Two veterinarians from my local urgent care - have already asked
- Academic advisor (parasitology prof) - have already asked
- Animal health diagnostic technician supervisor (veterinarian) - would this be helpful?
- Independent research supervisor (soil microbiota phd student) - would this be helpful?
- XC coach - would this be helpful?

Extracurriculars:
- I’ve broken the school records in the 200m, 400m, 800m, 600m races at my university
- I scored in my schools cross country national meet in 2024
- Captain of the track and cross country team this year
- Ran my first marathon at 18 years old

Employment/Misc:
- Worked for my fathers construction company in high school and my freshman summer
- Assist an elderly family member during the semester 4 hours a week
- Worked for my grandfather's wine making business all throughout high school
- Dairy queen for a brief period of time in high school
- GPA was 3.9 in high school

Vet med has always been on my radar, but it wasn’t until I worked at an emergency room that I realized it was what I wanted to do. The fast pace environment, complexity of the cases, and the proficiency of the doctors made me fall in love with it. Everytime we had a difficult case come in I’d imagined myself being the one to make those tough decisions. To have the authority and knowledge to confidently lead my team to address the situation in the best possible manner.

My GPA is incredibly low and after looking at this forum a bit and realizing that my hours are also particularly low. I would certainly love to become a veterinarian ASAP but understand my application is extremely weak. I pretty pessimistic about my odds but am uploading here to see what others recommend I do for future apps.

I had a rough freshman year since I was not considering an education past undergrad and I recently had a particularly bad semester because of mental health issues. Knowing that, I plan to take these next two semesters very seriously and get a competitive last 45. I was able to secure a 4.00 this most recent semester since I've started to take pre-vet seriously but feel like my freshman/sophomore year will decrease my odds significantly.

In addition to improving my GPA I was hoping to work on another research project examining parasites in night monkey blood. This is still in the works but I was wondering if that would be a worthwhile project?

*The 3 classes that have brought down my GPA considerably have been Calc 2, Ecology, and Analytical Chemistry. Would it be worth it to retake some of these?

 

[purrlywhites]

I think you’d be able to get into LIU with those stats tbh. As long as you do good on your essays and interview, your stats seem to be diverse enough and within average to maybe score a waitlist/acceptance? They got through a lot of their waitlist these past two cycles from what I know.
I can’t tell you which schools love research b/c I never looked at that, but that’s also something a lot of people don’t have and might make you stand out. Curious if ER is what you plan to go into, otherwise maybe get some more SA hours? I agree with Cornell not being the best option with that GPA, but maybe it’ll help that you’re instate.
I’m mostly speaking about LIU since I got in there but decided to decline.

 

[supershorty]

- Independent research supervisor (soil microbiota phd student) - would this be helpful?

If you're going to get a letter from your research, it should come from the PI of that laboratory, not from a PhD student. Given that you only spent a total of 80 hours in that research, I don't know that you'd be looking at a high quality letter. What made you lean toward this research experience and not the one where you have 4x as many hours?

You also did that with your vet experience where you have markedly fewer hours. Why? If you've spent 3x as much time at the other practice, aren't those veterinarians going to have a better idea of your abilities?

- XC coach - would this be helpful?

Do you feel that this person would be able to attest to your ability to be a successful vet student and veterinarian? Would they be able to write you a strong letter to that effect?

Padding your application with references is not going to be better than having the minimum requirement of 3, all of which are rock solid. You aren't giving yourself an advantage by having 6 letters.