WAMC - first time applicant!

[cassiebudds]

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Hello! I am a fourth-year undergrad attending the University of Illinois at Chicago (just finished my Fall semester, yay!), and I am planning to apply during this upcoming cycle. My IS is UIUC and I am most likely leaning towards general small animal medicine. I am a chronic over-thinker (lol) and would really appreciate any thoughts/advice you guys have regarding my stats!

Here is my current list of schools I plan on applying to:
UIUC (IS), Missouri, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa - there are others I may apply to as well, but these are my top choices.

Here are my current stats:

cGPA: 3.7
sGPA: unsure, roughly ~3.6
last 45hrs GPA ~3.75

Veterinary/Animal Experience:

• Small Animal Hospital Veterinary Assistant/Technician: 1,700+ hours -
  • I also know how to do all CSR duties but am rarely up-front
• Small/Exotic animal hospital technician: Starting Feb 17th, will work there through my gap year
• Shadowing surgeries at the University of Illinois at Chicago labs (shadowing under the Clinical DVMs - animals include pigs, beagles, monkeys, mice, etc).
• Farm Volunteer: 25+ hours - working hands-on with the animals (sheep, goats, chickens, pigs, cows, etc) and teaching children about the animals (will continue to get hours)
• Dog Daycare Attendant/CSR: ~200 hours
• Pet Sitting: ~100+ hours (will continue to get hours)
• HS Volunteering at NAWS (shelter): 20+ hours (sick cat room and adoptable cats - feeding, cleaning (proper sanitation, etc)

No research experience, unfortunately. However, my microbiology lab class is participating in the Tiny Earth Project research this semester, I'm not sure if this can count for anything.

Non-Animal Work Experiences

• Chick-fil-a FOH employee for 2 years: Gained valuable customer service experience

Extracurriculars

• Peer mentor for BIOS 102 seminar (at UIC): Spring semester
• BridgeUSA - VP of Social Media and Outreach (May 2022-August 2023)
• Code Red Organization - Digital Director (Fall 2024-Spring 2025)

Awards/Honors

• Dean’s list (x5 semesters)

Letters of Recommendation (3 confirmed, 1 pending)

Associate Veterinarian - small animal (previously worked at our hospital/my mentor), Associate Veterinarian - small animal (currently working with), Professor (Animal Physiological Systems class)

Planning to ask one of the program managers at the farm I volunteer at OR my academic advisor who knows me well.

I would absolutely appreciate any advice or suggestions you guys can provide for me on how I can improve my application during my gap year! Thank you so much in advance!! <3

 

[JaynaAli]

Overall I think you’ll be reasonably competitive! Many of the schools have an average accepted student GPA of around 3.7, so your GPA is good. Though do be sure to keep your grades up as you finish classes…don’t want to tank anything like the last 45 and overall GPAs.

I do think your app would benefit from a wider variety of veterinary experiences, if possible. You have a good number of hours and they are in the area of vet med you want to pursue, which is good. But are they all at a single clinic? It may be good to see how other small animal clinics do things or even dip your toe into other fields of vet med, such as ER, a specialty hospital, lab animal, or large or mixed animal practice even if you can find it. Like does the farm you volunteer at have a vet you could ask to shadow for a day or two? Is there an ER you could shadow at or work at one day or evening a week? I’m not saying to quit your current job but I think it would look good if you also had a few hours in different settings. Not having breadth of vet experience isn’t horrible, but I think you’d be more competitive with more variety. Research is nice but it’s not super necessary…I honestly don’t know that you’d be able to get a significant enough research experience in a gap year to be worth the effort? Tons of people get accepted into vet school without research experience. I view it as nice when you have it but not necessary.

Where your stats are pretty average-to-good among applicants (which I absolutely don’t mean negatively, being right at the average stats for accepted students is excellent), I’d make sure your letters of rec and your personal statement stuff are excellent to help you stand out from the crowd. That doesn’t mean you need to go crazy with them, but be sure to answer the questions asked, highlight yourself, and really sell why someone should choose YOU among all the other nicely competitive applicants. It’s not uncommon for people to have to apply multiple times but overall I’d be optimistic about your chances.

 

[cassiebudds]

Overall I think you’ll be reasonably competitive! Many of the schools have an average accepted student GPA of around 3.7, so your GPA is good. Though do be sure to keep your grades up as you finish classes…don’t want to tank anything like the last 45 and overall GPAs.

I do think your app would benefit from a wider variety of veterinary experiences, if possible. You have a good number of hours and they are in the area of vet med you want to pursue, which is good. But are they all at a single clinic? It may be good to see how other small animal clinics do things or even dip your toe into other fields of vet med, such as ER, a specialty hospital, lab animal, or large or mixed animal practice even if you can find it. Like does the farm you volunteer at have a vet you could ask to shadow for a day or two? Is there an ER you could shadow at or work at one day or evening a week? I’m not saying to quit your current job but I think it would look good if you also had a few hours in different settings. Not having breadth of vet experience isn’t horrible, but I think you’d be more competitive with more variety. Research is nice but it’s not super necessary…I honestly don’t know that you’d be able to get a significant enough research experience in a gap year to be worth the effort? Tons of people get accepted into vet school without research experience. I view it as nice when you have it but not necessary.

Where your stats are pretty average-to-good among applicants (which I absolutely don’t mean negatively, being right at the average stats for accepted students is excellent), I’d make sure your letters of rec and your personal statement stuff are excellent to help you stand out from the crowd. That doesn’t mean you need to go crazy with them, but be sure to answer the questions asked, highlight yourself, and really sell why someone should choose YOU among all the other nicely competitive applicants. It’s not uncommon for people to have to apply multiple times but overall I’d be optimistic about your chances.

Thank you SO much for such a detailed response, I appreciate it!
I am confident my last semester will go well (hopefully)!
Yes, all my hospital hours are from a single clinic as of right now. I am in the process of looking for more shadowing (possibly ER/Farm, like you mentioned) and maybe even switching to a new clinic in the new year.
I am also confident my letters of rec will be strong, as they will be from Veterinarians/mentors who know me well (in and outside of the clinic) and my professor who I connected with/went to office hours multiple times per week - she is excited to write my letter). The personal statement stuff will be something I will tackle when it comes time to write it, but I am not too worried.

Thanks again for your advice and comments!!!

 

[battie]

Being at UIC, consider asking around for the lab animal vets on campus. Your campus absolutely does have a lab animal vet or two on campus helping to manage the colonies. The lab animal elective at UIUC goes up there once a year to check out the facilities and talk to the vets on staff.

Try searching the directory and shoot them an email. Even if you only hung out with them one hour a week, that's a ton of time you can get.

 

[cassiebudds]

Being at UIC, consider asking around for the lab animal vets on campus. Your campus absolutely does have a lab animal vet or two on campus helping to manage the colonies. The lab animal elective at UIUC goes up there once a year to check out the facilities and talk to the vets on staff.

Try searching the directory and shoot them an email. Even if you only hung out with them one hour a week, that's a ton of time you can get.

Hi, Battie! I just wanted to reach out and say that due to ur advice I will be shadowing some of the veterinarians at the UIC labs this semester! Thank you for the advice!

 

[rhinolovergirl]

To increase your chances for UIUC, I would recommend making an advising appointment with their admissions (the guy who does it is known for not being super nice so don't be alarmed). But, I remember them being pretty straight up about grade expectations and will let you know whether or not you should take the GRE to increase your chances. They have a strict GPA cut off which is based on ranking the applications they receive but after that they consider your app holistically. So make sure you are within the range they want you in because their in-state tuition is great! Goodluck!!

 

[cassiebudds]

To increase your chances for UIUC, I would recommend making an advising appointment with their admissions (the guy who does it is known for not being super nice so don't be alarmed). But, I remember them being pretty straight up about grade expectations and will let you know whether or not you should take the GRE to increase your chances. They have a strict GPA cut off which is based on ranking the applications they receive but after that they consider your app holistically. So make sure you are within the range they want you in because their in-state tuition is great! Goodluck!!

Thank you for your response! I will absolutely try to reach out to admissions 🙂