WAMC?

[halsmiles]

Hello everyone! I am a rising biology senior. A little background about me: I come from a super rural area (56 people in my graduating class), declared pre-vet my sophomore year of college, and I am interested in small animal! My current school list (in no order) is: UPenn (my IS), Cornell, LMU, LSU, Michigan State, Mississippi State, Ohio State, Oklahoma State, NC state, Purdue, Tuskegee, and University of Missouri. I know this is a lot of schools, so I was hoping to get some advice on how to narrow these down. Cost and chance of getting in are my biggest factors. I do not want to go to an island school due to cost. My stats are:

Cumulative GPA: 3.7
Science GPA: 3.55
Last 45: 3.7

Major: Biology
Minors: Business and Chemistry

Experience:

Veterinary:
150 hours shadowing over 2.5 years at a rural small animal clinic
Approx 50 hours shadowing at mixed large/small animal clinic
Approx 10 hours shadowing emergency clinic (hoping to increase this by end of summer)

Animal:
200 hours working at a doggy dayacare
25 hours volunteering at local shelter


Volunteer:
160 hours through my school's orientation program
approx 50 miscellaneous volunteering

Research:
Current doing a summer internship focusing on river identification studies. (350-400 hours)
I know my hours are definitely the weakest point of my application. Living in a rural area, there aren't many diverse opportunities for me to shadow. Additionally, I worked part time all throughout college and summers in order to pay for college. I shadowed and volunteered when I could, but wasn't able to get in an animal related job until this past year.


Extracurriculars/Leadership
Founded the Wildlife Career Club on campus. I started this club in order to help other pre/vet and wildlife majors gain opportunities. I organize volunteer events through shelters, bring in Veterinarians to give advice, and work on dexterity skills.
Vice President of ODK, an honor society on campus
Treasurer of my biology frat
Also involved in ecology club, health professions society, and orientation.

Employment:
Worked as a student aide on campus for two years (800 hours)
Worked as a tutor on campus for the past year (350 hours)
Waitressed for two summers (500 hours)

I know other employment isn't super important, but I wanted to be able to show that my lack of animal hours were mostly due to working in different fields.

Other:
Volunteered as a mentor within my major (30 hours)
Ambassador of the pre-vet program
CPR certified, bloodborne pathogen training, HIPPA certificate

Achievements:
Merit scholarship
Dean's List for 5 semesters
AP scholar (not sure if this is important)


My LOR's will be coming from the Veterinarian I shadowed under, my faculty mentor, and the advisor for my club. I am okay with taking a gap year, but I want to apply to schools that give me the best chance of getting in without excessive debt. Based on my stats, what are the best schools for me? Thank you in advacne for your help 🙂

---

Members don't see this ad.

 

[halsmiles]

Additionally, I am going to talk about the importance of education and preventative care in rural medicine in my personal statement. Hoping to use my rural background and my passion for teaching people to tie my stats together in my personal statement.

 

[JaynaAli]

I think your GPAs are decent but your experience is on the extremely low side. Which luckily, getting more experience is usually easier to “fix” than GPA issues. If you could get another couple hundred hours of vet experience I think you’ll be reasonably competitive but as things stand right now the lack of experience may hold you back a bit compared to other applicants. I know some places are saying they don’t have minimums anymore, but I’d say most of the competitive applicants are going to have at least 500 if not thousands of hours. I’ve seen some people get in with 300-500 but they’re less common, and you’re only at 200. I do understand rural living and those challenges, as I am also from a rural area, but that doesn’t mean you don’t still need the hours. So I’d be sure to spend as much time this summer at the ER clinic and you can to increase your hours as much as possible before your app is due and keep looking for other vet experience opportunities.

Also, including other employment is important and shows that you’re well rounded and that you probably learned valuable life skills in those roles, so definitely include and down downplay those other jobs.

In regard to your school list, I don’t have a lot of super specific advice other than making sure they don’t have minimum numbers for experience. You’re probably a long shot at NCSU; they don’t accept a ton of OOS and it’s extremely competitive because they let you switch residency so it’s the cheapest option. The OOS average GPA at ncsu is almost always like a 3.9. Not saying you have no chance there, but it’s one I’d consider cutting if you need to save money. Also I would cut Tuskegee off the list; their NAVLE pass rate has recently only been 50% recently and the school will potentially lose accreditation soon because of that atrocious/unacceptable NAVLE pass rate. A school’s pass rate should be 90% or higher. It’s historically been like 97-98%. The cutoff for acceptable according to the AVMA is 80% and even that’s low. But 50% of students at Tuskegee go through four years of school and still fail, which means they can’t go be vets but they still have the debt. That’s not a gamble I am willing to take, personally.

 

[fauna]

Hello everyone! I am a rising biology senior. A little background about me: I come from a super rural area (56 people in my graduating class), declared pre-vet my sophomore year of college, and I am interested in small animal! My current school list (in no order) is: UPenn (my IS), Cornell, LMU, LSU, Michigan State, Mississippi State, Ohio State, Oklahoma State, NC state, Purdue, Tuskegee, and University of Missouri. I know this is a lot of schools, so I was hoping to get some advice on how to narrow these down. Cost and chance of getting in are my biggest factors. I do not want to go to an island school due to cost. My stats are:

Cumulative GPA: 3.7
Science GPA: 3.55
Last 45: 3.7

Major: Biology
Minors: Business and Chemistry

Experience:

Veterinary:
150 hours shadowing over 2.5 years at a rural small animal clinic
Approx 50 hours shadowing at mixed large/small animal clinic
Approx 10 hours shadowing emergency clinic (hoping to increase this by end of summer)

Animal:
200 hours working at a doggy dayacare
25 hours volunteering at local shelter


Volunteer:
160 hours through my school's orientation program
approx 50 miscellaneous volunteering

Research:
Current doing a summer internship focusing on river identification studies. (350-400 hours)
I know my hours are definitely the weakest point of my application. Living in a rural area, there aren't many diverse opportunities for me to shadow. Additionally, I worked part time all throughout college and summers in order to pay for college. I shadowed and volunteered when I could, but wasn't able to get in an animal related job until this past year.


Extracurriculars/Leadership
Founded the Wildlife Career Club on campus. I started this club in order to help other pre/vet and wildlife majors gain opportunities. I organize volunteer events through shelters, bring in Veterinarians to give advice, and work on dexterity skills.
Vice President of ODK, an honor society on campus
Treasurer of my biology frat
Also involved in ecology club, health professions society, and orientation.

Employment:
Worked as a student aide on campus for two years (800 hours)
Worked as a tutor on campus for the past year (350 hours)
Waitressed for two summers (500 hours)

I know other employment isn't super important, but I wanted to be able to show that my lack of animal hours were mostly due to working in different fields.

Other:
Volunteered as a mentor within my major (30 hours)
Ambassador of the pre-vet program
CPR certified, bloodborne pathogen training, HIPPA certificate

Achievements:
Merit scholarship
Dean's List for 5 semesters
AP scholar (not sure if this is important)


My LOR's will be coming from the Veterinarian I shadowed under, my faculty mentor, and the advisor for my club. I am okay with taking a gap year, but I want to apply to schools that give me the best chance of getting in without excessive debt. Based on my stats, what are the best schools for me? Thank you in advacne for your help 🙂

I think you are in a great spot because like JaynaAli said, it’s way easier to “fix” experience than it is to fix GPA, so do whatever you can to ace your last few classes and then after that jump into full-time experience. Of course whatever more experience you can get right now would be great but above all just keep your GPA up! I would say go into this cycle knowing that your experience is a little low and just have that mindset of being content with needing to apply a second time. You could always wait but me personally I would still try this cycle. That’s not to say you don’t have a chance this time, I think you do! It’s just crazy competitive. Applying this cycle would be a way that you can really learn the application cycle, learn and practice the written statements, learn more about your LOR writers— this was huge for me my first cycle as two of my go-to’s just totally ghosted and I was left scrambling for a letter from someone who didn’t know me well. Plus, going in the second round I felt way more prepared for the amount of work that is the supplemental applications and all those extra essays. My writing was better quality the second time. Maybe I was underprepared but I didn’t truly understand VMCAS until I was actually in the process But, keeping that in mind, maybe be strategic about where you apply, keep it a shorter list that way you don’t spend so much money

 

[indysadventures]

I agree with Jayna and fauna - your biggest weakness is your veterinary experience hours, and I think it’s a pretty significant area that needs work.

Compounding the issue, 200 hours is also unlikely to give you enough time to really get to know your veterinary recommender, which will likely affect your LOR strength. It’s not that they’ll write you a bad letter, it’s just that lukewarm or boilerplate letters weaken applications. The longer someone works with you, the more they can reflect on your skills, strengths, and personality!

If possible, I’d aim for at least 400-500 hours before submitting this year - if you got a part-time summer job you’d probably get there before September. Considering this, perhaps treat this application season as a strong learning experience? You could very well get in, but I haven’t seen many people get accepted with ~500 hours, let alone less. So, I’d maybe limit your scope this year to your IS and a few schools that are reasonable considering your stats.

As for your schools, why did you pick some on this list - What is your main driver for choosing them? I think you said cost? Anything else?

A few thoughts - Cornell is quite expensive OOS, cost of living is expensive in Ithaca as well - honestly, Penn is right up there too, even for IS. Ohio State is worth a try but they heavily favor experience, and I’d expect NC State to be a long shot, too. (At least this application cycle!)

Have you considered WSU? If you’re considering cost (which you should!), they should be on your radar. Michigan State requires ALL science prereqs to be finished before application, so just be aware.

I think you have a great shot, and are building a strong application! I just think you need some more experience in the field to truly have a competitive application.

 

[mw1356]

As everyone has already said, definitely work on getting those vet hours up. If you can reach 400-500 by the end of the summer, I think you have a decent chance! I was accepted into multiple schools this cycle with ~400 vet hours (and a LOR from a vet I only worked 100 hours with) - of the schools on your list rn, I got into Cornell and Ohio State. You have a lot of leadership experiences and a good amount of research, which can help make up for lower vet hours. It'll also be important to write a strong PS and supplementals to prove that you've gotten quality insight out of your vet experiences despite having lower quantity.

 

[halsmiles]

I agree with Jayna and fauna - your biggest weakness is your veterinary experience hours, and I think it’s a pretty significant area that needs work.

Compounding the issue, 200 hours is also unlikely to give you enough time to really get to know your veterinary recommender, which will likely affect your LOR strength. It’s not that they’ll write you a bad letter, it’s just that lukewarm or boilerplate letters weaken applications. The longer someone works with you, the more they can reflect on your skills, strengths, and personality!

If possible, I’d aim for at least 400-500 hours before submitting this year - if you got a part-time summer job you’d probably get there before September. Considering this, perhaps treat this application season as a strong learning experience? You could very well get in, but I haven’t seen many people get accepted with ~500 hours, let alone less. So, I’d maybe limit your scope this year to your IS and a few schools that are reasonable considering your stats.

As for your schools, why did you pick some on this list - What is your main driver for choosing them? I think you said cost? Anything else?

A few thoughts - Cornell is quite expensive OOS, cost of living is expensive in Ithaca as well - honestly, Penn is right up there too, even for IS. Ohio State is worth a try but they heavily favor experience, and I’d expect NC State to be a long shot, too. (At least this application cycle!)

Have you considered WSU? If you’re considering cost (which you should!), they should be on your radar. Michigan State requires ALL science prereqs to be finished before application, so just be aware.

I think you have a great shot, and are building a strong application! I just think you need some more experience in the field to truly have a competitive application.

Hi! Thank you so much for all the advice. I totally agree with your comment on getting more experience from my LOR veterinarian. I am planning on shadowing a little more with her this summer. I am lucky to have a uniquely close relationship with her - we communicate regularly and she has done many events with my club (she was actually the one who pushed me to make the club!) so I do feel as though she could give me a strong letter. Unfortunately for the next ten weeks I will be working 9-5 in my research internship while working at the doggy daycare on the weekends - it doesn't leave me much time to get more veterinary hours in. I have about three weeks between when my internship ends and my fall semester begins, so I am hoping to up my large animal and emergency hours in this time.

Honestly, not much drove my school list other than cost and hearing that applying IS is a good idea. I know Penn doesn't give much preference to IS, which doesn't help me too much. I honestly just really want to get accepted to a school (LOL) without going into an insane amount of debt. I definitely will add WSU. I have completed all of my science prereqs and am just spending my last year at school finishing my business minor and a concentration for my major - these classes should hopefully get my GPA up to a 3.75-3.8.

Thank you again for the help and info!

 

[halsmiles]

I think your GPAs are decent but your experience is on the extremely low side. Which luckily, getting more experience is usually easier to “fix” than GPA issues. If you could get another couple hundred hours of vet experience I think you’ll be reasonably competitive but as things stand right now the lack of experience may hold you back a bit compared to other applicants. I know some places are saying they don’t have minimums anymore, but I’d say most of the competitive applicants are going to have at least 500 if not thousands of hours. I’ve seen some people get in with 300-500 but they’re less common, and you’re only at 200. I do understand rural living and those challenges, as I am also from a rural area, but that doesn’t mean you don’t still need the hours. So I’d be sure to spend as much time this summer at the ER clinic and you can to increase your hours as much as possible before your app is due and keep looking for other vet experience opportunities.

Also, including other employment is important and shows that you’re well rounded and that you probably learned valuable life skills in those roles, so definitely include and down downplay those other jobs.

In regard to your school list, I don’t have a lot of super specific advice other than making sure they don’t have minimum numbers for experience. You’re probably a long shot at NCSU; they don’t accept a ton of OOS and it’s extremely competitive because they let you switch residency so it’s the cheapest option. The OOS average GPA at ncsu is almost always like a 3.9. Not saying you have no chance there, but it’s one I’d consider cutting if you need to save money. Also I would cut Tuskegee off the list; their NAVLE pass rate has recently only been 50% recently and the school will potentially lose accreditation soon because of that atrocious/unacceptable NAVLE pass rate. A school’s pass rate should be 90% or higher. It’s historically been like 97-98%. The cutoff for acceptable according to the AVMA is 80% and even that’s low. But 50% of students at Tuskegee go through four years of school and still fail, which means they can’t go be vets but they still have the debt. That’s not a gamble I am willing to take, personally.

Thank you so much! I appreciate all the help and advice. Luckily, my school is in a more urban area and with my summer internship I get free housing for the summer. I am in a tough spot right now as for the next ten weeks I won't have extra time to up my veterinary hours but I will definitely aim to add 50-75 before I apply. I appreciate all your advice and help 🙂

 

[halsmiles]

As everyone has already said, definitely work on getting those vet hours up. If you can reach 400-500 by the end of the summer, I think you have a decent chance! I was accepted into multiple schools this cycle with ~400 vet hours (and a LOR from a vet I only worked 100 hours with) - of the schools on your list rn, I got into Cornell and Ohio State. You have a lot of leadership experiences and a good amount of research, which can help make up for lower vet hours. It'll also be important to write a strong PS and supplementals to prove that you've gotten quality insight out of your vet experiences despite having lower quantity.

Thank you so much! Do you have any insight into if writing about rural medicine and preventative care is a good topic for a personal statement? If not totally okay - just curious!

 

[mw1356]

Thank you so much! Do you have any insight into if writing about rural medicine and preventative care is a good topic for a personal statement? If not totally okay - just curious!

It sounds like that's both your passion and the area you have the most experience in, which should make it a good topic to write about!