What should my backup plan be?

[thebunnygirl]

This past cycle was my first time applying and I got waitlisted at two schools and I want to start forming a plan incase I don't get pulled off either waitlists this year. Right now, my science GPA is a 3.4 and Last 45 is a 3.88, both will be going up after this semester is over. Main concern is my Overall GPA, which is a 3.0 (3.5 with grade replacement). I've already retaken every science/math class I got a C or below in and got mostly As, give or take a few Bs. I did the math and it would take me about 1.5 years of full time courses to raise this GPA to a 3.1 (and that's if I get all As)... Which does not seem worth it in my opinion. I think my best bet, financially and time-wise, would be to raise my Science GPA. Does anyone have recommendations on how I should go about that?

Would taking extra post-bacc science classes like ecology be more beneficial, or a science-based Master's?

Another possible concern would be the diversity of my hours. I have about 3-4000 vet hours total and 2-3000 of animal experience. As for my veterinary hours, only 100 are in large animal/equine and 100 are in exotics. I would assume raising these would be a good game plan, so I am looking to find places to shadow come the summer.

I have 3 humanities classes in there that I did not do well in (during COVID as a high school duel-enrollment student w/ the local community college). Should I bother retaking these since they are not part of my prereq courses? I took several humanities classes throughout my degree and got all As again, so I only used those as my humanities requirements when applying.

I'm mainly worried about my overall and science GPAs, but I want to be smart about how to raise them and not waste money/time on random classes that won't matter. Any advice is appreciated!!!

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[DVM882029]

Just take some courses at a two year institution to get your cGPA up. You can take sciences if you want to, or just some regular courses would probably be fine.

 

[pp9]

Master's degrees are only helpful at certain schools - if you poke around, there are multiple threads where we have gotten into the nitty gritty of it. I would suggest not getting one unless it's in a field you want to work in should vet school not work out for you. Personally I would just repeat courses and/or take new higher level science courses, and aim for schools that either replace grades or take the newest attempt. For the humanities courses, I would try to determine what your schools actually look at. If they only look at science/last 45, for example, those humanities courses wouldn't matter (unless they were in your last 45). As opposed to a school that takes cumulative GPA, were they would matter. If that were the case, I would still recommend focusing on improving your science GPA which would give you more bang for your buck (two birds with one stone). There is some subjectivity to GPA interpretation depending on the school, and an adcom is far more likely to care that you did really well on higher level science courses you took between cycles than a repeated humanities course you did well on.

Diversity of hours can be really helpful, but when you have thousands of hours, I don't think it matters quite as much. If you can get more large animal (or whatever), that's great, but I'd focus on improving your GPA first. I don't think your hours held you back this cycle. Being waitlisted is still an achievement even though it may not feel like it.

Also, do file reviews where you can. Sometimes it's got nothing to do with your stats and everything to do with essays and/or interview. Sometimes it's all of the above.