WAMC- first time Applicant, low GPA, okay experience

[toastybreadd]

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Hi everyone! I am planning on reapplying next cycle (so far two rejections) because I do not think I am going to get in this round and just wanted some outside opinions. My freshman year was my weakest academically, and while I’ve never been on academic probation I am realistically a B-range student overall. My GPA has steadily increased each year, and my senior-year GPA so far is a 3.67, which I’m hoping will continue to improve before I apply again next cycle. Just want to hear some thoughts of maybe where I can improve. I feel that my experience is okay but not exceptional, and I’m trying to determine where I can best strengthen my application moving forward. I’ve been considering whether a post-bacc or master’s program would be worthwhile vs. retaking a few lower grades. I have already started to plan some improvements and will be spending time on a beef cattle ranch in Montana during peak calving season. I’ll be learning herd management and doctoring of a herd of 150+ cattle and I’m hoping this experience will be very useful for my application. Any feedback of my current application or where I should focus my efforts for next cycle would be really appreciated!

Cumulative GPA: 3.32
science GPA: 3.2
last 45: 3.54

Any degrees achieved:
Graduating Spring 2026 with a B.S.
Major: Veterinary Medicine
Minor: Art

Veterinary Experience:
650 hours
- Veterinary Assistant at a small animal Emergency & Specialty Hospital
- Veterinary Assistant at a small animal General Practice

Shadowing:
100 hours of exotic shadowing between
- National Aquarium in Baltimore (Sharks and sea turtles)
- Academy of Natural Sciences (Reptiles, birds, armadillos)
- Exotic and small animal GP (Birds, Reptiles, Cats, Dogs, Rodents..)

Animal Experience:
- Raised a guide dog ( 7,140 hours is what was calculated but idk how i would've even put these hours in really)
- Foster Parent (specifically cats with illnesses that required lots of medication) (1,500 hours)
- Dog boarding facility – Activities Animal Handler (375 hours) (Dogs and cats of all ages, temperaments, and medical needs)
- Therapy Dog – Stand-In Patient Volunteer (6 hours) (was basically a dummy person to help the dogs train)

Research Experience:
Research Assistant – Orthopedic Research at Penn (pigs, sheep, goats, horses, rats, rabbits)
504 hours (ongoing)
- combines a lot of research and clinical work so maybe I should've split the hours between vet and research
*this is my main large animal experience and the job that made me decide that large animal medicine is for me*

Awards/scholarships:
-Dean's List for 2 semesters

Extracurriculars:
Treasurer and now Vice President – Guide dog club at my school
Teaching Assistant – Animal Anatomy Lab two semesters
Fundraised $7,313 for the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia

Bunch of stuff in high school doing clubs and sports etc..

Employment:
- Currently still working at Penns Research Lab

- Have worked many jobs in the service industry as well as many jobs with children so i have waitress, cashier, camp counselor etc on there

Schools Applied To:
Ohio, Illinois, Upenn, Rowan, Colorado
Rejected so far: Ohio, Illinois

I really only applied to a few schools because I did not think I was going to get in this round, but my parents and mentors wanted me to apply anyways so here I am. Next cycle I will be applying to WAY more schools. Sometimes I wish I applied to more schools this round, but I had too much self doubt (imposter syndrome gets me good) so I only applied to a few. If you have suggestions of certain veterinary schools to apply to next cycle please let me know!

(trying for large animal medicine)
So to kinda organize it all as questions:
1. how is my application looking now?
2. how can I improve my application/experiences for next cycle?
3. opinions on post bacc, masters, or just retaking some classes?
4. Schools I should definitely consider applying to

Also side note would it be worth asking some veterinary schools if I can send them my fall transcript I doubt they would take it, but would that show interest?

 

[CeeGee14]

1. Your GPA and vet hours are on the lower side. I would recommend raising one, or ideally both, so you can increase your odds. Your extracurriculars look alright and having research is a nice bonus. Have you had people who don't know you or are just really dang good at writing review your PS? I've looked over some PS and the number one problem I notice is that applicants are harping on for so long about how much they love animals that they barely answer the prompt. Are you sure the people you asked for rec letters can write you a strong letter instead of just a generic one?

2. If you want to go into large animal, try and get some large vet animal experience. I've heard it can be a red flag if you say you want to do XYZ, but you have little to no experience in said area. As long as the beef cattle herd is vet experience and not just animal experience, that's a good start! I would also try and get some more small animal vet hours too. Low GPA applicants compensate for their lower GPA by having lots of diverse vet hours. Try and hit the 1,000 hour mark.

3. I would not recommend getting a master's unless you can use it as a back-up plan in case vet school doesn't work out. Not all schools will view a master's equally and the most it can do is boost your last 45 and maybe sGPA. If you want to improve your GPA, I would suggest retaking some classes and then look at schools that do grade replacements instead of averaging the two grades.

4. If you're going to retake classes, I would look at schools that do grade replacements and heavily favor the last 45 GPA. I don't know any off the top of my head right now. If you do manage to get those large animal hours in and increase your overall number of vet hours, I think you can try giving Ohio State another shot. OSU generally values non-traditional applicants with diverse experiences over those who only have a high GPA.

I can tell you what schools you should avoid though. Illinois is one. Their phase 1 is just a GPA check and if you don't meet the cutoff, they toss your application without even looking at it. The GPA is always pretty high; it's been like 3.7 and up for OOS for the last couple cycles. I would avoid all GPA heavy schools, like Cornell and U.C Davis.

 

[apoptosis09]

Agree with cg above and a few things to add:

Would add UF to the "maybe not" list based on their OOS mean gpas.

And would add VMCVM to your list to try for next year as they're considered to be holistic now and only consider GPA up the the point of interview invites. They also have an equine and food animal tracking program.

If you are definitely interested in large animal and plan to build your applications around that, I would see if you can get some broader experience (e.g. shadow an ambulatory farm vet) and get some LoRs there! Working and volunteering in rural large animal medicine also gave me a lot of eye-opening experiences that let me shine in my interviews and personal essays.

 

[toastybreadd]

Hello! Thank you so much for your response. I have had multiple people (vet and non vet) read over my PS including a professor from a veterinary school and have only heard good things about it so I am hoping that it will help my application. It focuses on how experiencing the messy, challenging, and often unglamorous aspects of veterinary medicine and research is what solidified my passion for the field. I have 2 vets, 1 professor (that is also a vet), the trainer involved in my dog club, and a manager from a past job. All of which I believe would give me very good letters.

The beef cattle ranch experience would count as animal experience, since it’s primarily husbandry and herd management under ranch owners rather than veterinarians. My current research position, however is largely veterinary/research experience, as I work closely with multiple veterinarians and regularly perform tasks such as blood draws, catheter placement across multiple species, medication administration. By the time I apply next cycle I will likely have 1,000+ hours at this research facility, and I have been offered a head OR position after graduation if I don’t get into vet school this round. I’m wondering whether it would be more beneficial to continue building depth at this position or to seek additional experience elsewhere to broaden my application. There is also a chance I could get a job working at a dairy farm, but that would again just be animal experience and not clinical so I do not know if that is something I should focus on.

I am hoping that by the end of my senior year my GPA will be much closer to or at a 3.5 hopefully putting me at a bit of a better spot than I am now. When retaking classes should I be staying away from community colleges or are they considered okay? Thank you again for the response!

 

[JaynaAli]

The hard part about being a lower GPA applicant is that a lot of schools do initial cuts and may toss your app based on GPA alone and never see the other stronger parts of your app. It’s unfortunate, but just the way it is at some school. If you search around SDN you’ll see that those of us who have stuck around for many years usually advocate that lower GPA applicants apply very smartly and really research schools; don’t bother applying to a school that makes initial cuts solely on GPA and has a high cutoff, find those that look at the whole app or have other metrics where you have a stronger chance. I think your stats are slightly lower than average for accepted students, but I wouldn’t say it’s hopeless by any means. But apply smart, don’t just waste money applying to tons of places…apply to the places where you have a realistic chance. This will require research in schools and a lot of time spent reading websites on how they select applicants but it’ll be worth it to make yourself shine to the best of your abilities. Also different schools give masters degrees different amounts of consideration, so if you do pursue that route, make sure you know how each school will factor it in. Most schools put more of a priority on cumulative, prereq, and last 45 +/- science GPAs and often people get frustrated that a masters didn’t help more.

For example, Illinois is known for having a high GPA cutoff for OOS applicants, so that probably isn’t one I would have recommended with your stats and I am not surprised you didn’t have luck there, unfortunately. Idk what their published minimum is, but in reality, most of their OOS folks have extremely high GPAs of like a 3.8+. Colorado is more holistic but they also have a lot of applicants, so that one is hard to predict.

 

[toastybreadd]

Thank you for you advice! I have been feeling very hopeless recently and wondering if this is even a career I should be pursuing based on my grades. This makes me feel a little bit better. I do think I will just go about the route of retaking the classes I did poorly in, instead of doing a masters degree. Would it be okay to do the classes at a community college?

 

[JaynaAli]

Probably yes, but check the schools websites to see if they say anything specific; there are a few schools (Oklahoma State comes to mind but there may be others) that do require upper division sciences be at four year universities. But if they don’t say anything about requiring that, then by all means go to a CC and save some money where you can.

Also, some schools will replace a grade when you retake a class while others will average the two. That’s another thing to research and make note of somewhere so you can see where your stats look best!

 

[CeeGee14]

Would it be okay to do the classes at a community college?

By all means, go ahead and save money on those retakes. Just be sure the schools you're looking at don't require certain pre-reqs to be taken at 4-year universities.

 

[CeeGee14]

The beef cattle ranch experience would count as animal experience, since it’s primarily husbandry and herd management under ranch owners rather than veterinarians. My current research position, however is largely veterinary/research experience, as I work closely with multiple veterinarians and regularly perform tasks such as blood draws, catheter placement across multiple species, medication administration. By the time I apply next cycle I will likely have 1,000+ hours at this research facility, and I have been offered a head OR position after graduation if I don’t get into vet school this round. I’m wondering whether it would be more beneficial to continue building depth at this position or to seek additional experience elsewhere to broaden my application. There is also a chance I could get a job working at a dairy farm, but that would again just be animal experience and not clinical so I do not know if that is something I should focus on.

Ideally, if you're aiming to go into large animal, get large animal vet experience. Not saying animal experience isn't helpful, but animal and vet hours can be pretty different when it comes to the scope of their responsibilities. Schools want to be sure you know what you're saying when you claim, "I want to do XYZ."

If you're working with multiple species in your research job under vets, you could try classifying those under different hours. For example, when you work with cats and dogs, that's small animal. But when you work with horses, you could classify those as equine vet hours. It'll add a little variety to your hours. Of course, if you choose to go that route, you can't classify those same hours as research hours, so pick wisely.

 

[stinkyfreddy]

I would also add that your high school experiences don't really matter for professional school, unless it was like 4H or something strongly related to vet.

 

[mw1356]

I would also add that your high school experiences don't really matter for professional school, unless it was like 4H or something strongly related to vet.

I was actually told by an admissions officer at Tufts to include all of your high school experiences in your app, even stuff like sports that isn’t vet med related. I’m not sure that all schools feel the same about it, but it can’t hurt to include! Worst case is they just ignore it.