WAMC - First time applicant, how can I further build my resume?

[vetstudent23]

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Hi there! I'm currently a second-year Pre-Veterinary (biology) student and am on track to graduate a year early. I'm applying to vet school this summer for the first time and would like to know if there's anything experience-wise y'all would recommend I do this semester/summer before submitting my application. I'm planning on applying to Michigan (my instate), Ohio, Iowa, and Kansas.

I don't plan on taking the GRE since these schools don't require it.

Cumulative GPA: 3.5
Science GPA: 3.3 (I think)
*I'm taking 18 credits right now and 2 classes this summer, so this will be changing (hopefully for the better)

Animal Experience:
Volunteering at an animal shelter - 300 hrs by the end of the semester
Volunteering with a cat rescue - 300 hrs
Horse reproduction facility - 220 hrs
Animal research lab (caring for lab animals, not sure if this will count for research experience) - 300ish hours by the end of the semester

Veterinary Experience:
Small animal vet clinic - currently about 750 hrs, hoping to bring this up to ~1000 this summer

***This summer I will be going to Zimbabwe for 3 weeks to do volunteer work with a wildlife sanctuary. I should get to work directly under a vet who works on wildlife/exotics/the local cattle and pets and get about 300 hours of experience.

Extracurriculars:
Pre-Vet club - community service chair, in line to be next president
PetSavers club - Vice president my freshman year, current president
*we work with the local animal shelter to do educational/fundraising events
Peer mentor for honors students (also currently an honors student, but not sure if I'll be graduating with this since I'm graduating early)

Non-animal experience:
During the summer, I work as a job coach for disabled high school students through a government program. This basically means that I go to work with them and observe/guide them to make sure they're getting their work done so the manager doesn't have to take attention away from other employees.

Awards:
Deans list fall 2018 and spring 2019

Let me know if you guys need me to include anything else! Thank you!

 

[deleted676737]

I don't plan on taking the GRE since these schools don't require it, and I'm not going to include my GPA right now since I'm currently taking 18 credits and it's likely going to change by the end of the semester.

I'd highly recommend either replying with or editing your OP to include your GPAs (cumulative, science, last 45 hours); they don't need to be exact, but providing us with some idea of where things stand would help. Academics are still such a major part of vet school admissions that it's difficult to really evaluate your chances without them. Different vet schools also weigh various parts of the application differently (for example, ISU doesn't care about cumulative GPA past making sure you meet the 2.5 minimum; they only look at their calculated science and last 45 hours GPAs), so having that information would enable us to let you know how you'd likely fare at the individual schools you're looking to apply to.

Your experience looks okay, if not standard cookie cutter pre-vet; basically, there's not much there that's unique. The Zimbabwe trip sounds cool, though! In terms of areas of improvement, you might help yourself stand out a bit better among the crowd if you were able to take on a couple more non-animal/non-vet med experiences; I think vet schools are starting to look for well-rounded students who have developed interests/hobbies/talents/jobs completely outside of animals to combat things like burnout and compassion fatigue. If you've got anything like that that you just neglected to list, I'd personally suggest that you include it on VMCAS (I listed a smattering of various things, like that I have knowledge of several languages, have some experience in programming, do hobbyist translation work, and play a couple different musical instruments). A lot of vet school applicants, especially traditional applicants, are pretty samey on paper, so if there's some special, uncommon asset or experience that you feel you can bring to your class and the profession at large, definitely be sure to mention it.

ETA that it's just hard to say where your chances lie currently as a lot will depend on the whole, overall package. As a general rule, if you're very strong academically, then you can probably get away with a little less experience in terms of both quantity and quality than if your grades aren't great. Yet another reason why it'd be nice to have at least rough estimates for your GPAs, if at all possible.

 

[vetstudent23]

I'd highly recommend either replying with or editing your OP to include your GPAs (cumulative, science, last 45 hours); they don't need to be exact, but providing us with some idea of where things stand would help. Academics are still such a major part of vet school admissions that it's difficult to really evaluate your chances without them.

Makes sense! Thank you. My current GPA is 3.5 and my science GPA is a 3.3 (I think). Like I said I'm taking 18 credits right now and hope to bring both of these up by the end of the semester, and I'm taking 2 summer courses that should also improve them.

Regarding what you said about being well rounded- I'm honestly not sure what else to include. Since starting college I've focused 100% on getting the animal experience. It's not like I didn't have time for anything else, I just wasn't interested in doing anything else. Like honestly going to help out at the shelter IS my hobby, I'm there 3-4 days a week. In high school, I was in marching band for 3 years so I guess I can play an instrument but I don't know if I'm allowed to include that since it wasn't that recent? I've always been told only to list things on my application that I did while in college.

You've given me a lot to think about, thank you!