In my experience, most schools don't list online courses any different on your transcript than traditional courses.
However, VMCAS does specifically have the applicant list them as distance/online.
I took my first distance course in highschool in 1995-97. That was a telecomm course, which was actually really awesome. We had vid link with the lecturer, could ask questions, see what was happening, etc. I took it to understand how it would work for the classes we were hosting. It was all in real time. I was also, in the same years, in the student body of the class where the lecture was occuring. So normal class EXCEPT that the room was set up differently, constantly had interruptions from disembodied voices, and a fish bowl effect. The biggest problem with these courses is that they are on a schedule...you have to show up at the right time.
I have completed other corrrespondence courses for a variety of non-prereq courses.
Then, when I decided to relocated to NC, I was missing some pre-reqs: biochem, genetics, econ, business, & animal nutrition. I completed all of these online. The first 4 were through OSU and the last through Rutgers. The differences in these courses were pretty shocking. Biochem had video lectures with 1/2 of which were of questionable quality and were 3 years old...and did not reflect the actual current schedule or tests and were obviously just recorded from a traditional 100 person lecture course so lots of background and visual disturbance, at least 3 videos completly lost visual and 2 lost sound (or had loud static overlay) and, probably the most frustrating is that things the professor said 'absolutly will NOT be on the exam' were (of course, he wanted to change hte exams from 3 years ago.) None of the others had lectures.
Microecon was read and test. Professor was foreign with a poor grasp of written American English with lots of grammatical and spelling mistakes on tests, which were on the computer. However, it was survivable. Business Management involved reading, twice weekly postings on specific topics in the readings, and tests. One big stressor here; a test that should have published on a Thursday did NOT become available until the following Tuesday. Then entire class was in a panic. The professor was never involved in the class; we only ever had contact with TA's who apparently 'forgot' about the class pretty regularly. It was relatively easy to work ahead. Also, posting wise, it was very important to post early, because posts were scored partly for original content, so agreeing with or stating what others stated didn't score points. Many questions on tests came from the text. Some were way out of left field though or were questions that probable came from a set (where you have a descriptive paragraph followed by several questions) and we didn't get the first half of the set, just the random question, which didn't make any sense.
Genetics involved reading the text book, reading the supplemental book (written by the professor), doing the assigned homework (prof wrote problem sets and assigned problems from the book) using the online forum to discuss issues, concepts, problems, etc, and working through a couple of scientific articles. Tests were decently challenging but multiple choice on the computer.
Animal Nutrition used an 'interactive' cd-rom developed by the school. This had some issues. There was an online forum that no one used, much to the frustration of the professor. We had one 'project' that used the forum. The tests were 3 day open book open note essay tests that were pretty challenging, but only because they assumed knowledge beyond what was covered in class. The professor couldn't answer any questions about lab methods...she knew that things were determined in a lab, but if you asked for a methodology, or the chemicals or equipment used, or how to do it, she didn't know. She was a very responsive professor via email, and available via phone. She had a passion for animal nutrition on the theoretical level. Text wasn't very useful, and I spent a lot of time lookig up information to complete the tests.
I intentionally avoided classes where 'group projects' were required. I also avoided tests where proctoring centers are required (adds to the cost.) I had proctors for 2 classes; one was a local librarion and the other was a supervisor. Both proctors had to be 'pre-approved.'
So, the most important thing about the classes is to ask questions before signing up! Find out about the prof, the class style, the dependence on computers, the drop policies (biochem had a 48 hour drop period, no incomplete options unless you were hospitalized, in another class computer failure during an exam = failed test = failed grade, and I have had problems with a test submitting due to the school server timing out), and how the class is layed out. Getting a copy of the syllabus helps alot. How tech savy the school is can be important as well. Some of teh schools 'self built' platforms are problematic, while some professors are very tech illiterate and have issues with something as basic as blackboard.
As for vet schools: I think it is important to show that you have the ability to handle a full semester or year of a relatively heavy traditional class load. After all, traditional classes are typical of vet school. I was accepted to my IS. Sounds like many others have a class or two at distance/online and do ok with acceptances.
