WAMC: first time, d1 athlete, low hours

[riordaa]

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Hi, I'm Amy, I'm a current senior at the University of South Carolina! I'm from Georgia originally and I'm currently a D1 student athlete on the swim and dive team here at UofSC. I only realized I wanted to be a vet after freshman year of college, and that combined with the fact that we have mandatory 24 hours of practice a week in between classes, even during summers! I have low veterinary hours as I did all I could while living and training in Columbia, SC. I know that being an athlete has prepared me well for vet school, as I have succeeded tremendously in the athletic field and will apply the same effort to the veterinary field I just hope a school will overlook the hours because of it.
I applied to SGU, Ross, UGA, UF, NCSU, Mizzou, CSU, Western, USU, Midwestern, Purdue, Illinois, tOSU, Tennessee
Cumulative GPA: 3.92
science GPA: 3.93
last 45: 3.93

NO GRE

Any degrees achieved: will end with a double major : B.S in Biological Science and Marine Science

Veterinary Experience
- (270) small animal GP private practice in 2 summers of shadowing

Animal Experience:
- (56) local shelter volunteer
-(352) Rover pet sitter

Awards/scholarships:
- merit scholarship for UofSC based on SAT
- Rensselaer Medal
- full athletic scholarship awarded for my swim performance after freshman season
- 2x NCAA All American in the 200 backstroke
-2x SEC freshman of the week
-2024 Olympic Trials qualifier in the 200m freestyle
- 7x SEC honor roll
-CSCAA First-Team Scholar All-America
-CSC Academic All-District
- 3x Deans and 3x Presidents Lists at UofSC

Extracurriculars:
- D1 athlete on the swim team at UofSC (3750 hours)
- Pre-vet club

LOR's
- my head swim coach at UofSC
- 2x GP vets I've shadowed

 

[supershorty]

Your GPAs will be competitive at most places and your extracurriculars are impressive (be careful with how much you share on an anonymous internet forum though! It would not be hard for someone to identify you with the information you provided here!).

@pp9 addressed a very similar number of hours in another thread and worded it well, so rather than trying and failing to do it better, I'm going to quote it below:

If you sit and think about it, you have a total of 6 weeks of experience...that's not a lot. [...] wonder how good of a veterinary LOR you got with only a few weeks of experience. There is a lot of potential for red flags there.

With that said, people get in with minimal hours all the time. At this point, just wait and see what happens. If there are any schools on your list that do open-file interviews, I would be prepared to discuss/defend your lack of experience

In your case, I think it will be an additional red flag that all of your hours are solely in small animal GP. You have extremely limited exposure to the field of veterinary medicine. With so few hours and so little exposure to the wide world that is vet med, it may be challenging for an admissions committee to feel that you understand what you're getting into. If you end up having another application cycle, I strongly encourage you to focus on getting many more and VARIED hours, even if you don't think that a particular aspect of the field appeals to you.

 

[pp9]

FWIW, I do think we are very much in a place in admissions where schools are going to emphasize academics over experience. At least, that's what it seems like. There are pros and cons to that, and it's true that few schools actually have minimum hour requirements. Those that do have minimums (or 'suggested' minimums) want something pathetically low, like 40 or 100 hours from what I can recall.

With that said, there are applicants with GPAs similar to yours that also come with hundreds, if not thousands, of hours. There might be applicants with slightly/moderately lower GPAs (or even higher, who knows), but will have extensive experience and amazing written components that will sail through admissions. There are definitely people with perfect GPAs that get rejected, so it happens.

With such high GPAs, I personally would wait and see what happens given what I said above. Agree with shorty that your focus should be expanding your experience going forward though. I would be doing that now, partly because you never know if you'll need to apply again, partly because I don't think 7ish weeks of time in vet med is enough to give you a good idea of whether or not this is something you actually want to/should do with your life. The field is not in a good place and there are some grave concerns for the profession's sustainability going forward. If you continue to gain experience and realize you have some doubts about becoming a vet, lean into that and spend more time in the field before you fully commit.

Here is the other thread where there is more discussion on low hours/related LOR concerns: WAMC: low hours

 

[riordaa]

Just an update: I just got accepted to SGU after interviewing, waiting on the others!

 

[Georgethecat]

UGA should appreciate your gpa's and the experiences of being a DI athlete. Honestly I would not pay OOS tuition with your stats. Worst case would be take a gap year and get more experience next summer.

 

[cardamom23]

You have great chances! You will get in to the school where you are meant to be! I have fond memories of hanging out with fellow Swivers at my school when I was a college athlete. Good luck!