WAMC Midwest Vet Schools

[littlefred3]

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Hello!

I'm a 21 year old female from Illinois interested in laboratory animal medicine, and I applied to Wisconsin, Purdue, Illinois, Missouri, and Iowa State.


Cumulative GPA: 3.96
science GPA: 3.93
last 45: 3.98

Graduating Spring 2020 with BS in Bio, minors in Animal Science and Spanish

GRE results: 158/161/3.5

Veterinary Experience:
-Vet Assistant and Kennel Attendant: 1300 hours
-Veterinary Research Tech Assistant (companion animals & genetic disease): 200 hours
-Shadowing Equine Surgeon: 40 hours
-Short Study Abroad w/ companion, exotic, and livestock experience: 40 hours

Animal Experience:
-Volunteer horse grooming and exercising: 160 hours
-Pre-vet club animal handling: 10 hours

Research Experience:
-Veterinary Dental Project: 40 hours
-Zebrafish in regards to human genetic disease: 100 hours
-Mare-Foal Behavioral and Physiological Stress Project: 260 hours
-Entomology Project 1: 60 hours
-Entomology Project 2: 70 hours

Awards/scholarships:
-Dean's List (6 semesters)
-Biology Sophomore Success Scholarship
-President's Award for Competitive Excellence
-Team Excellence Award for and engineering competition
-WCLA DII Lacrosse All-American

Extracurriculars:
-Women's Lacrosse Club (current: president, past: treasurer)
-Pre-Vet Club (current: treasurer, past: co-treasurer, exotic animal interest chair)
-Honors Program

Employment:
-Team Advisor for a veterinary/leadership camp for high schoolers

Concerns:
-Lack of large animal experience
-Low GRE writing score
-Writing skills aren't great, so my VMCAS essays were probably very average

I'm aware of the cost differences between schools.

 

[deleted676737]

Frankly, your stats are excellent and I can't think of a whole lot of suggestions I'd make. Large animal experience is nice to have, for sure, but if you're confident that you don't really want to go in that direction, it's definitely not necessary; the experience you already have seems to be pretty diverse as-is. As for your low AWA GRE score... the majority of schools either don't consider it and, even if they do, your scores in the other two categories are great and those, in tandem with your other qualifications, will likely outweigh that.

While there are certainly no guarantees in the process, I would be pretty surprised if you didn't receive at least one offer from the schools you've listed. Wisconsin OOS admissions are indeed very competitive from what I've seen of the average admitted stats, but I think you'd still have a fair shot there since that seems to be your first choice. I would imagine that IS COA at Illinois is quite a bit less expensive, though, so keep that in mind. The debt is very real.

I'm not there anymore, but I attended Iowa State's CVM for a couple of years, so if you have any questions or concerns about that school in particular, you can shoot me a PM or post here or whatever.

Good luck!

 

[SkiOtter]

I would imagine that IS COA at Illinois is quite a bit less expensive, though, so keep that in mind. The debt is very real.

Just the in state/out of state tuition price difference is insane. Just straight tuition for IS UIUC is 28k and OOS at UW is 50k. That’s basically double the price for OOS UW than going to your in state. Pretty sure rent in Madison is also much more expensive than rent in chambana.
Just tuition without any extra fees or cost of living, you're looking at about a 90 THOUSAND dollar difference. Before interest. That’s an insane amount of money.

 

[deleted676737]

Just the in state/out of state tuition price difference is insane. Just straight tuition for IS UIUC is 28k and OOS at UW is 50k. That’s basically double the price for OOS UW than going to your in state. Pretty sure rent in Madison is also much more expensive than rent in chambana.
Just tuition without any extra fees or cost of living, you're looking at about a 90 THOUSAND dollar difference. Before interest. That’s an insane amount of money.

Yes, which is why I mentioned it. It's a huge difference, even when considering tuition alone. Even attending vet school IS has more or less destroyed me financially; I can't imagine enduring over double the debt if I had another cheaper option. It's possible that OP didn't realize just how much more expensive it is.

 

[SkiOtter]

Yes, which is why I mentioned it. It's a huge difference, even when considering tuition alone. Even attending vet school IS has more or less destroyed me financially; I can't imagine enduring over double the debt if I had another cheaper option. It's possible that OP didn't realize just how much more expensive it is.

Yep. I was just agreeing with you and bringing the numbers for OP to see written out. It’s terrible. Sometimes people don’t do the actual math and realize how much different it is and some people still don’t understand even after it’s pointed out :\

 

[EngrSC]

Yep. I was just agreeing with you and bringing the numbers for OP to see written out. It’s terrible. Sometimes people don’t do the actual math and realize how much different it is and some people still don’t understand even after it’s pointed out :\

I think it’s a hard thing to really appreciate before someone’s lived in the real world.

 

[deleted676737]

I'm aware of the cost differences between schools.

Hey, there. I saw you edited this bit into your OP after our posts bringing up the subject.

I guess, if you’re fully aware of the cost differences, that I’m just curious as to why Wisconsin is your first choice school when you’ve got an extremely high chance of getting into Illinois IS with your stats and it’s significantly less expensive. Both are great schools and will provide a robust education.

I know pre-vets tend to want to avoid thinking or talking about the debt issue and we beat that horse often on SDN, but we beat it for a reason. An extra $100,000 or more of debt could mean the difference between being approved for a car loan or a mortgage down the line. Vet school is only four years; the debt is much longer than that (in most cases). Even if you are fortunate enough to not need to take out loans to attend vet school, why pay more when you don’t have to and you can put that excess money towards something else?

Unless you’ve got a seriously compelling reason not to, if you get admitted IS to Illinois, I urge you to consider attending that school over a less affordable OOS option. Your future self will thank you.

 

[battie]

OOS Illinois third year.

I'd be surprised if you did not move onto phase 3 of the process in December. The IS pool is significantly smaller and your chances are high as long as your non-tangibles (essays, letters, etc) are solid.

I love this school, and I especially love my class. I'm super involved in a lot of ways. The faculty and staff have stepped up for me in a ton of ways during a horrible year last year. I cannot rave enough about the school.

But as an OOS student, I personally could not justify a 50+k difference between here and my in state, CSU. Even if we were tangibly better than CSU in every way, I still would have gone to CSU. I will be graduating with 282k in debt and am planning on moving back to the Denver Metro Area, which is very expensive to live in now. I will need a salary that is a minimum of 90k/year to be able to support myself and pay school debt off. I will not be able to do it with a salary any less than that. And 50% of veterinarians make less than 90k. My options are limited and I'll have to take offers I wouldn't have to if I was graduating with 130k in debt.

By having more student debt, you're limiting your future, simple as that.