Weaknesses?

[Mylez]

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Hey everyone,

Do you mind critiquing my application and letting me know where my weaknesses lie in applying to veterinary school this fall? I'm planning on applying to Washington, Oregon, Colorado, Wisconsin, and California.

GPA: 3.7 cumulative
GRE: Haven't taken the GRE yet, I'm planning on taking it this summer

Extracurricular:
President of pre-vet club (this next year)
Secretary of pre-vet club this past year
I've been an active and involved member since my freshman year

Experience:
Two years in an animal laboratory
Two years shadowing zoo veterinarians on school breaks
One and a half years kennel technician in mixed practice, assisting mostly with cats and dogs
Two and a half years working in wildlife rehabilitation, and am now in charge of the wildlife rehab program (on-call, first responder and implementer of care protocols)
Recently hired as a vet tech for a mixed animal practice (equine, and small animal)
Worked at the state veterinary laboratory with the laboratory animals (ponies, sheep, cattle, mice, bison, rabbits, sage grouse)
Worked briefly on a West Nile Virus project as husbandry care
Managed the Children's Museum Nature Center and care (medical!) of the animals there for a year
Internship caring for Cassin's auklets
And five years of work as a zoo volunteer and employee

I know that I don't have a lot of "veterinary" work per se, how badly is this going to affect my application? I'm going to work 25 hours a week as a vet tech this summer, so will that help?

I'm also going on a "Vets in the Wild" trip to South Africa this summer for three weeks.

Any ideas/input?

My state does NOT have a vet school.

 

[chris03333]

Hey everyone,

Do you mind critiquing my application and letting me know where my weaknesses lie in applying to veterinary school this fall? I'm planning on applying to Washington, Oregon, Colorado, Wisconsin, and California.

GPA: 3.7 cumulative
GRE: Haven't taken the GRE yet, I'm planning on taking it this summer

Extracurricular:
President of pre-vet club (this next year)
Secretary of pre-vet club this past year
I've been an active and involved member since my freshman year

Experience:
Two years in an animal laboratory
Two years shadowing zoo veterinarians on school breaks
One and a half years kennel technician in mixed practice, assisting mostly with cats and dogs
Two and a half years working in wildlife rehabilitation, and am now in charge of the wildlife rehab program (on-call, first responder and implementer of care protocols)
Recently hired as a vet tech for a mixed animal practice (equine, and small animal)
Worked at the state veterinary laboratory with the laboratory animals (ponies, sheep, cattle, mice, bison, rabbits, sage grouse)
Worked briefly on a West Nile Virus project as husbandry care
Managed the Children's Museum Nature Center and care (medical!) of the animals there for a year
Internship caring for Cassin's auklets
And five years of work as a zoo volunteer and employee

I know that I don't have a lot of "veterinary" work per se, how badly is this going to affect my application? I'm going to work 25 hours a week as a vet tech this summer, so will that help?

I'm also going on a "Vets in the Wild" trip to South Africa this summer for three weeks.

Any ideas/input?

My state does NOT have a vet school.

Your app. looks great so far. Just do your best on GRE. One MAJOR critique is that if you are not WICHE applicant you should rethink your choices (expand them) because you did not pick very many of the out of state applicant(non WICHE) friendly schools. Consider more of the midwest schools which tend to accept more out of state applicants (Michigan, Kansas, Ohio, Illinois).
Good luck

 

[wishes]

Do you mind critiquing my application and letting me know where my weaknesses lie in applying to veterinary school this fall?

Really, your application looks great. Getting more & varied veterinary experience can never hurt, but I think you have done a pretty good job of that so far.
Some people (not me) might say your GPA is a little low, but as long as you did pretty well in your science courses I do not think it will be a problem at all.
Study up for the GRE. Some schools are more particular about the GRE than others. The best thing I found to study for the GRE was the Flip-O-Matic GRE Vocabulary book. I loved this book and it is cheap and is an excellent reference for all those weird words you need to know. I also thought it was worth while to get a study book with practice tests in it. Barron's comes with a CD. ETS will also send you a CD with tests on it when you sign up for the test.
I would suggest buying the Veterinary Medical School Admission Requirement book if you haven't already. This book gives a break down of each school's admission requirements and, more important for you, the number of non-residents that they take. I am a non-resident applicant and there are definitely particular schools that take large numbers of non-residents and some schools that do not. If you are not a WICHE applicant some of the schools you mentioned will be rather tricky to get into. I did apply to all five schools you mentioned and was accepted at Washington and Oregon and waitlisted at Wisconsin so if you have any specific questions about the programs let me know.
Lastly, make sure you get some good letters of recommendation. I would also suggest having a college advisor, veterinarian, or similar person look over your admissions essay/statement of purpose.
Good luck. I'm sure you'll so just fine!

 

[Infamous]

Extracurricular:
President of pre-vet club (this next year)
Secretary of pre-vet club this past year
I've been an active and involved member since my freshman year

Everything looks great to me and with a mean GRE score looks like you'll have no worries.

My only concern regarding you extracurriculars:
Doesn't anything else interest you besides "vet" stuff? I hope you have a healthy social life b/c your in college man - live a little. 😉

But then again, live your dreams. what do I know anyway - Im the one who may be forced to go abroad ( I had a bit too much fun) to realize mine.

Cheers!

 

[chickenboo]

Your app. looks great so far. Just do your best on GRE. One MAJOR critique is that if you are not WICHE applicant you should rethink your choices (expand them) because you did not pick very many of the out of state applicant(non WICHE) friendly schools. Consider more of the midwest schools which tend to accept more out of state applicants (Michigan, Kansas, Ohio, Illinois).
Good luck

I absolutely second this. Get the VMSAR book wishes mentioned and start looking at the # of out-of-state candidates each school accepts.

 

[Mylez]

Yes, I'm a WICHE applicant, thank goodness.

Infamous, yes, other things do interest me! I was involved in the Swing Dance club for a semester before evening labs forced me to no longer go. 🙁 I was also involved in the marching band my first year out of high school. The biggest issue for me now is time, and those things just eat up precious time. :/ I was also (briefly) involved in IHSAA...so, heh, yeah, guess it's mostly pre-vet stuff.

Thanks for your input guys!

 

[miltonmcdougall]

Hmmm...I think that volunteer experience (not volunteer animal experience) is something that could add some dimension. I had a lot of work with the elderly, with disabled kids, volunteer tutoring, etc. I was really surpirsed that during two of my interviews, the interviewers focused heavily on that kind of thing. In fact, in one, they actually said something about that making me an asset to their program. That said, I had relatively little what experience, and what I did have was entirely small animal. My GPA was 3.6-3.7 ish, and my GREs were a teensy weensy bit above 1300 (V+Q). Other than that, I had some outside research in Psychology, but really nothing insanely impressive. Anyway, that's my 2 cents worth. Make them see you as something other than smart. Everyone did well in Biochem and Orgo. Go hang out at a nursing home, and play some BINGO or something. You've got everything else. Add something that not everyone will have. 🙂

 

[Mylez]

Hmmm...I think that volunteer experience (not volunteer animal experience) is something that could add some dimension. I had a lot of work with the elderly, with disabled kids, volunteer tutoring, etc. I was really surpirsed that during two of my interviews, the interviewers focused heavily on that kind of thing. In fact, in one, they actually said something about that making me an asset to their program. That said, I had relatively little what experience, and what I did have was entirely small animal. My GPA was 3.6-3.7 ish, and my GREs were a teensy weensy bit above 1300 (V+Q). Other than that, I had some outside research in Psychology, but really nothing insanely impressive. Anyway, that's my 2 cents worth. Make them see you as something other than smart. Everyone did well in Biochem and Orgo. Go hang out at a nursing home, and play some BINGO or something. You've got everything else. Add something that not everyone will have. 🙂

I agree! I've heard that a lot...and what I have done is visit the nursing home with my cat once a month. Granted, I guess it's "animal related" but it's fun anyway.

What I think will also make me stand out is my veterinary trip to Africa this fall to visit the school there, learn game capture, and meet other vets and students! 🙂

 

[mammalmama]

I have to agree with everyone that your application looks great. I wouldn't apply to Oregon only because they take like 2 out of staters and that's it. There class size is very small. Davis is very political, I had similar credentials as you and I still got rejected. One of the vets I work with had 3,000 hours of vet tech experience, she's a minority and had very good grades and GRE scores and still didn't get in. Try to apply to colorado state and perdue. Those are two schools that I know that take a lot of out of state people. I'm sure you would have good luck with them.