WAMC: New Pre-vet coming from Research Field

[Khaiyo]

Hello everyone! This will be my first time applying; I've decided to commit into the veterinary career a few months ago after being invested in genetics research. I'm 23 and live in California. I plan to apply to Western University, NC State, Oregon state uni, Missouri, Washington state uni.

Cumulative GPA: 3.7
science GPA: 3.71
last 45: 3.73

Any degrees achieved
Biological Sciences B.S

GRE results: Haven't Taken Yet

Veterinary Experience:
None.(Difficult to get shadowing opportunity due to covid/will definitely keep trying)

Animal Experience:
~500 hours - Lab Mice Work (surgeries/husbandry)- Will continue through research job.
~40 hours - Small animal shelter volunteer
~10 hours - Horse rescue volunteer
Research Experience:
~700 hours - Undergraduate researcher handling colonies of fruit flies. Performing genetics research to study evolution

Awards/scholarships:
-Deans Honors List
-Research poster presentation


Extracurriculars:
-Chemistry Lab teachers Assistant

Employment:
~ (2200 hours) Full time job as a genetics research assistant. Genetics research involves mice/rats as the model organism and linking to psychiatric diseases


Vet/animal experience is definitely hindering my application but I hope my research experience will make up for it. I hope to find a veterinarian to shadow sometime soon and possibly request for a letter of rec before the app deadline. Could you please give me recommendations on which schools that I have a chance to be accepted to? or Would it be better if I just waited another cycle? Does it hurt your chance of getting accepted if its your 2nd time applying? Thank you for your time!!!

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[JJ Bittenbinder]

Research will definitely be a great aid to your application, but I honestly wouldn’t recommend applying this cycle. Schools want to know you’re dedicated to the profession by having veterinary experiences that show you the highs, the lows, and the boring parts. I think not having any veterinary experience will be a big red flag to them. For instance, they’ll be looking for a justification for why DVM and not PhD or some other field. You’ll need to use examples from your vet med experiences to justify it also.

I didn’t decide I wanted to go to vet school until the 2nd half of my college career and could only do a couple hours per week of shadowing with my schedule. Instead of applying as a senior, I took a gap year and worked full time in an animal hospital and did an internship in a wildlife clinic as well.

I would highly recommend trying to get your foot in the door in any practice you can. They also like to see relatively diverse veterinary experiences if possible (so not just small animal). I would strongly consider this as you take next steps. Also, keep in mind that some schools have a minimum veterinary experience hour requirement you need to hit to be considered for admission.

my thought is trying to get in contact with the lab animal veterinarian for the model organisms you work with. Every facility should have one. Since you already work there it might be easier to get in to shadow them. I know it’s hard with COVID, but I really think you shouldn’t waste your time and money without having more vet experience on your app.

Your GPA, research experiences, and other animal experiences look great.

 

[Khaiyo]

Research will definitely be a great aid to your application, but I honestly wouldn’t recommend applying this cycle. Schools want to know you’re dedicated to the profession by having veterinary experiences that show you the highs, the lows, and the boring parts. I think not having any veterinary experience will be a big red flag to them. For instance, they’ll be looking for a justification for why DVM and not PhD or some other field. You’ll need to use examples from your vet med experiences to justify it also.

I didn’t decide I wanted to go to vet school until the 2nd half of my college career and could only do a couple hours per week of shadowing with my schedule. Instead of applying as a senior, I took a gap year and worked full time in an animal hospital and did an internship in a wildlife clinic as well.

I would highly recommend trying to get your foot in the door in any practice you can. They also like to see relatively diverse veterinary experiences if possible (so not just small animal). I would strongly consider this as you take next steps. Also, keep in mind that some schools have a minimum veterinary experience hour requirement you need to hit to be considered for admission.

my thought is trying to get in contact with the lab animal veterinarian for the model organisms you work with. Every facility should have one. Since you already work there it might be easier to get in to shadow them. I know it’s hard with COVID, but I really think you shouldn’t waste your time and money without having more vet experience on your app.

Your GPA, research experiences, and other animal experiences look great.

Thank you for the input!

 

[TabbyCat2]

I would also recommend vet hours and waiting a year, or getting into a practice ASAP and trying to get 600-800 hours by the deadline maybe? Most schools require a LOR from a veterinarian and it’s important that it’s a very strong letter and some schools require a minimum amount of vet hours so keep that in mind, too!

 

[Lupin21]

Why is Davis not on your list as In State? They have also been historically favorable to high academics and lower veterinary hours. But as others have mentioned, you won't get in without at least ~300 hours in an approximate. Davis I think has theirs posted somewhere.

 

[TabbyCat2]

I applied successfully this cycle from a similar background. I did not decide to pursue vet med until after I finished undergrad, and I spent close to two years working in R&D post-graduation. I also had zero veterinary experience until about 8 months before I applied. At that point, I realized it was time to commit and I took a full-time position as a veterinary assistant to start accumulating hours and networking with veterinarians. I would encourage you to make a career shift sooner rather than later if you want to apply this coming fall. Not sure what CA is like, but I found it easier to find paid opportunities than shadowing.

To generate my school list I first filtered programs by cost of attendance and geography and then further refined the list by looking at program specifics. It looks like you are targeting schools that offer tuition switching. Keep in mind they tend to be particularly competitive for OOS applicants. Since you are a CA resident, I would add Davis to your list as well.

I wanted to come back and add that my experience was very very similar to this, as well! I was working in wildlife research after undergrad before deciding to commit to the vet-route. I didn’t have any vet hours until getting a full time position January of last year and accumulated 8 months of experience before submitting my app and successfully got into my top school.

 

[fawna46]

I applied this cycle; have been accepted to Tufts, interviewed and waitlisted at Washington State and Mizzou, and waitlisted (no interview in app process) at VA-MD and UW Madison. I am a recent pre-med non-trad with my MPH, but I took a year and a half before submitting my application to work and gain experience. Even then, while I was able to acquire a few hundred animal hours, i literally only had 40 vet hours when I applied because of COVID and deciding to do pre-vet very recently. 40 is literally the bare minimum for UW Mad; nowhere else had a minimum or cut-off which is part of the reason I applied to those schools. I was really unsure how this cycle was going to go given that measly 2 digit vet experience accumulation, but it all went better than I could have hoped for. That being said, I had thousands of hours of relevant human clinical experience and research hours for me to draw upon for my essays and to demonstrate that I had the same skills to apply to vet med. Obviously the only reason I could get away with 40 hours of vet hours was COVID consideration.
With that, I would say, unless you could get significant vet hours before the VMCAS deadline in September, I would recommend taking another year to gain more and varied clinical experiences. If you've gained some experience by july/august but aren't sure if it's just quite enough, I might say just apply to a school or two if you're really hankering to apply this cycle.

 

[mcoco1]

I applied this cycle; have been accepted to Tufts, interviewed and waitlisted at Washington State and Mizzou, and waitlisted (no interview in app process) at VA-MD and UW Madison. I am a recent pre-med non-trad with my MPH, but I took a year and a half before submitting my application to work and gain experience. Even then, while I was able to acquire a few hundred animal hours, i literally only had 40 vet hours when I applied because of COVID and deciding to do pre-vet very recently. 40 is literally the bare minimum for UW Mad; nowhere else had a minimum or cut-off which is part of the reason I applied to those schools. I was really unsure how this cycle was going to go given that measly 2 digit vet experience accumulation, but it all went better than I could have hoped for. That being said, I had thousands of hours of relevant human clinical experience and research hours for me to draw upon for my essays and to demonstrate that I had the same skills to apply to vet med. Obviously the only reason I could get away with 40 hours of vet hours was COVID consideration.
With that, I would say, unless you could get significant vet hours before the VMCAS deadline in September, I would recommend taking another year to gain more and varied clinical experiences. If you've gained some experience by july/august but aren't sure if it's just quite enough, I might say just apply to a school or two if you're really hankering to apply this cycle.

Did you have a veterinarian LOR or no?

 

[mackdelraye]

I applied successfully this cycle from a similar background. I did not decide to pursue vet med until after I finished undergrad, and I spent close to two years working in R&D post-graduation. I also had zero veterinary experience until about 8 months before I applied. At that point, I realized it was time to commit and I took a full-time position as a veterinary assistant to start accumulating hours and networking with veterinarians. I would encourage you to make a career shift sooner rather than later if you want to apply this coming fall. Not sure what CA is like, but I found it easier to find paid opportunities than shadowing.

To generate my school list I first filtered programs by cost of attendance and geography and then further refined the list by looking at program specifics. It looks like you are targeting schools that offer tuition switching. Keep in mind they tend to be particularly competitive for OOS applicants. Since you are a CA resident, I would add Davis to your list as well.

Hi! I’m in the exact same boat as it sounds you were. I’m coming from a malaria lab with little vet experience and I’m trying to decide if I want to go to a lab with mouse work (with some vet clinic volunteer outside of work) or do a vet assistant position full time. Do you think even though the vet assistant is low paying and the shifts are odd hours, it’s more favorable for the schools? I probably want to continue with research after DVM but I’m still not sure, or maybe DVM/PhD.

 

[supershorty]

Hi! I’m in the exact same boat as it sounds you were. I’m coming from a malaria lab with little vet experience and I’m trying to decide if I want to go to a lab with mouse work (with some vet clinic volunteer outside of work) or do a vet assistant position full time. Do you think even though the vet assistant is low paying and the shifts are odd hours, it’s more favorable for the schools? I probably want to continue with research after DVM but I’m still not sure, or maybe DVM/PhD.

How little is "little vet experience" - how many hours do you have?
What do you want to do with your DVM?

Did you have a veterinarian LOR or no?

So, here's the thing. There's probably some story out there of someone who applied to vet school and was admitted without a LOR from a vet. But that being said, I think it's pretty reasonable to say that you need to have a letter from a veterinarian. You need someone who is in the profession to be able to vouch for you as someone who can contribute something to it. Applications to veterinary school are essentially you trying to sell yourself to programs as a great candidate - as someone who is going to contribute positively to the field of veterinary medicine as a whole. If no one currently in the field is going to support your assertions, how do you think that looks to the committees reviewing applications?

It either looks like you haven't involved yourself in the field enough to make those connections - and therefore are unlikely to have the knowledge of the field to make an enormous financial and time commitment to its study - or like you aren't a strong enough candidate to have support from people who have gone through the process and working in vet med now. If you were on an admissions committee and reviewing applications, and had one with 3 letters of rec but none of them coming from veterinarians, how much weight would you put on those letters saying that this person has what it takes to be successful during and beyond vet school, compared to an applicant with 1 or more vets?

 

[mackdelraye]

How little is "little vet experience" - how many hours do you have?
What do you want to do with your DVM?


So, here's the thing. There's probably some story out there of someone who applied to vet school and was admitted without a LOR from a vet. But that being said, I think it's pretty reasonable to say that you need to have a letter from a veterinarian. You need someone who is in the profession to be able to vouch for you as someone who can contribute something to it. Applications to veterinary school are essentially you trying to sell yourself to programs as a great candidate - as someone who is going to contribute positively to the field of veterinary medicine as a whole. If no one currently in the field is going to support your assertions, how do you think that looks to the committees reviewing applications?

It either looks like you haven't involved yourself in the field enough to make those connections - and therefore are unlikely to have the knowledge of the field to make an enormous financial and time commitment to its study - or like you aren't a strong enough candidate to have support from people who have gone through the process and working in vet med now.

Hi! I volunteered at a clinic for a few months after work, approximately 40 hours. Due to COVID, I stopped working there when the case rates got higher. I’m going to start observing in the lab animal facility under a vet next week at my current work but I’m going to be changing jobs soon and not sure if I can continue that if I’m no longer an employee.

I definitely want to stay in research. I don’t think I want to be a PI, and I definitely love doing bench work. I don’t have much exposure to the clinical side of veterinary medicine but from what I’ve seen so far I think I would really like it as well. So maybe a combination of clinical and research but I’m still not completely sure (not planning on applying until I’m 100% sure anyways).

 

[supershorty]

Hi! I volunteered at a clinic for a few months after work, approximately 40 hours. Due to COVID, I stopped working there when the case rates got higher. I’m going to start observing in the lab animal facility under a vet next week at my current work but I’m going to be changing jobs soon and not sure if I can continue that if I’m no longer an employee.

I definitely want to stay in research. I don’t think I want to be a PI, and I definitely love doing bench work. I don’t have much exposure to the clinical side of veterinary medicine but from what I’ve seen so far I think I would really like it as well. So maybe a combination of clinical and research but I’m still not completely sure (not planning on applying until I’m 100% sure anyways).

I think the bolded is really important. You need more clinical hours - and ideally, in a variety of areas of medicine (lab animal, small animal, large animal if you can get it) to be able to make an informed decision. A DVM is a big undertaking, both financially and mentally, and that's part of why programs want to see those hours - to know that you are making that decision with enough knowledge of the field to really know what you're committing to. That's particularly important for people who want to go into things like research, where you could do what you want to do with a master's or a PhD (particularly if you don't want to be a PI and really prefer bench work over grant writing) - you need those other exposures to be able to understand and explain why you need a DVM to do what you want to do.

@WildZoo and I are both dual degree students, although we've approached it in different ways (she completed her DVM first; I'm doing my PhD in the middle of my DVM) and would be happy to talk more about how we landed on doing both degrees if that would be helpful. Don't mind me just casually volunteering her for things

 

[WildZoo]

I think the bolded is really important. You need more clinical hours - and ideally, in a variety of areas of medicine (lab animal, small animal, large animal if you can get it) to be able to make an informed decision. A DVM is a big undertaking, both financially and mentally, and that's part of why programs want to see those hours - to know that you are making that decision with enough knowledge of the field to really know what you're committing to. That's particularly important for people who want to go into things like research, where you could do what you want to do with a master's or a PhD (particularly if you don't want to be a PI and really prefer bench work over grant writing) - you need those other exposures to be able to understand and explain why you need a DVM to do what you want to do.

@WildZoo and I are both dual degree students, although we've approached it in different ways (she completed her DVM first; I'm doing my PhD in the middle of my DVM) and would be happy to talk more about how we landed on doing both degrees if that would be helpful. Don't mind me just casually volunteering her for things

Ha, I don't mind being volunteered

Nothing to add right now though - basically agree with everything shorty has said so far. I think it's important to figure out why you need the DVM to do what you want to do before going through the time and stress and expense of even applying to vet school, let alone attending.

 

[mackdelraye]

I think the bolded is really important. You need more clinical hours - and ideally, in a variety of areas of medicine (lab animal, small animal, large animal if you can get it) to be able to make an informed decision. A DVM is a big undertaking, both financially and mentally, and that's part of why programs want to see those hours - to know that you are making that decision with enough knowledge of the field to really know what you're committing to. That's particularly important for people who want to go into things like research, where you could do what you want to do with a master's or a PhD (particularly if you don't want to be a PI and really prefer bench work over grant writing) - you need those other exposures to be able to understand and explain why you need a DVM to do what you want to do.

@WildZoo and I are both dual degree students, although we've approached it in different ways (she completed her DVM first; I'm doing my PhD in the middle of my DVM) and would be happy to talk more about how we landed on doing both degrees if that would be helpful. Don't mind me just casually volunteering her for things

So helpful thank you!! I was hoping to just be able to get away with the DVM or even just a masters to avoid the PhD.... but it looks like to continue in research I will need it. I’m sort of new to the forums... can I DM you somehow to ask about your dual-degree process?

 

[supershorty]

So helpful thank you!! I was hoping to just be able to get away with the DVM or even just a masters to avoid the PhD.... but it looks like to continue in research I will need it. I’m sort of new to the forums... can I DM you somehow to ask about your dual-degree process?

Yup, I set one up

 

[mcoco1]

How little is "little vet experience" - how many hours do you have?
What do you want to do with your DVM?


So, here's the thing. There's probably some story out there of someone who applied to vet school and was admitted without a LOR from a vet. But that being said, I think it's pretty reasonable to say that you need to have a letter from a veterinarian. You need someone who is in the profession to be able to vouch for you as someone who can contribute something to it. Applications to veterinary school are essentially you trying to sell yourself to programs as a great candidate - as someone who is going to contribute positively to the field of veterinary medicine as a whole. If no one currently in the field is going to support your assertions, how do you think that looks to the committees reviewing applications?

It either looks like you haven't involved yourself in the field enough to make those connections - and therefore are unlikely to have the knowledge of the field to make an enormous financial and time commitment to its study - or like you aren't a strong enough candidate to have support from people who have gone through the process and working in vet med now. If you were on an admissions committee and reviewing applications, and had one with 3 letters of rec but none of them coming from veterinarians, how much weight would you put on those letters saying that this person has what it takes to be successful during and beyond vet school, compared to an applicant with 1 or more vets?

That makes sense, thank you! I worked as a vet assistant part time for a semester in college and got around ~160 hours, but I'm not sure if that vet will write me a letter of rec since I didn't work there for a long time. I'm struggling to find places to get veterinary experience at now too.

 

[fawna46]

Did you have a veterinarian LOR or no?

It looks like mackdelraye already addressed this comprehensively, but yes I did have a vet LOR. The vet was aware of my hours situation as well of course of COVID, so I think it was a unique situation to this year. I will say, even for the schools that did not require a vet LOR, I would have felt very unconfident applying without one, as with my nontrad background, I think having a vet vouching for me was a bare minimum to say, yes, I believe this student despite her lack of many hours still has the right perspectives and experiences for her to be ready for vet school.