Zoo/Wildlife focus, 21 M

[CondorClub]

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Recent graduate in the wildlife field, interested specifically in zoo/aquatic/wildlife medicine. Second time applicant, only applied to one school first time and rejected on a technicality. Lots and lots of wildlife and aquatic/zoo focused experience, not as much small animal experience. Goal is to improve the shortcomings of vet medicine in the interface between wildlife and zoos/aquariums. Undergrad at UW Madison, graduated early with AP credits. In-state in Illinois (as far as I know, I move around too much!).

Cumulative GPA: 3.87

B.S in Wildlife Ecology

GRE results: not taken

Veterinary Experience:

• Large metropolitan aquarium Animal Health Intern (210 hours)
  • Basic introduction to aquatics vet med, shadowed and participated in procedures on marine mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, and fish. Learned basic diagnostics and pathology. Helped extract DNA for a herpesvirus project.
• Small remote local aquarium/rehab/research center Vet Lab Intern (440 hours)
  • Similar to prior aquatics experience, added responsibilities of processing blood, urine, fecal diagnostics for mammals and birds both rehab patients and collection animals. "Extracurricular" participating in the rehab team, seabird research team, and husbandry teams.
• Low-cost small animal clinic Vet Assistant/Receptionist (294 hours)
  • Basic receptionist and vet assistant duties, limited ability for blood draws and other technical skills due to constraints from other employment
• State wildlife department Wildlife Health Intern (600 hours, current position)
  • Largely responsible for the implementation and management of the state's Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD) surveillance program including sampling, public education, data management, and working with federal, tribal, and private partners. Also assist with necropsies and sample collection for the Wildlife Health Program. Opportunities to help with prairie dog trapping, prairie dog colony mapping, bison sorting, and future pronghorn captures. Experience conducting fieldwork in remote locations.

Animal Experience:

• Medium rehab wildlife clinic internship + volunteer (516 hours)
  • Basic rehab responsibilities for raptors, songbirds, turtles, snakes, opossums, rabbits including food prep, handling, cleaning, and medicating. Also helped train new interns and volunteers and provided public education at local nature events.
• Bird banding (32 hours)
  • USGS federal bird banding station, predominantly songbirds including new world warblers, finches, sparrows, thrashers, cardinals/grosbeaks, and thrushes. Banded birds independently and extracted birds from mistnets.
• Large rehab wildlife clinic internship (72 hours)
  • Fewer responsibilities than my other rehab experience. Worked with similar species with added raccoons and gulls.

Research Experience:

• Fieldwork/Fossil Prep Volunteer (78 hours)
  • Helped prepare fossils in the prep lab and conduct remote fieldwork in Wyoming to uncover Triassic-age fossils

Awards/scholarships:

• Women's Board scholarship from local zoological society
• Dean's list all semesters
• Distinctive scholastic achievement UW Madison
• Wildlife Ecology scholarship UW Madison

Extracurriculars:

• Student chapter of the Wildlife Society - Outreach Coordinator (120 hours)
• Zoo volunteer during High School, 4 years (633 hours)
  • Mostly public education, limited experience with husbandry with a variety of species and research on Mexican gray wolves and Sarasota bay bottlenose dolphins. Leadership experience planning a nation-wide virtual teen conservation conference.

Employment:

• Worked for student housing for two years in college, 20 hrs/week (1320 hours)

Personal Statement: Story of a marine mammal rehab patient I worked with that died, tied into why veterinary medicine is important for conservation and my current work regarding plague and chronic wasting disease. Mentions of small-animal experience, but no detail. Felt disingenuous to not write a wildlife-heavy statement.

ELORS: Large aquarium vet, small aquarium lab technician, wildlife ecology professor for 2 sems, state wildlife vet, medium rehab clinic coordinator

Very confident about my ELORS, they have all been very open about their thoughts on me.

Applied to:
UIUC, UW Madison, MSU, UC Davis, OSU, NC State

Preference:
UIUC, UC Davis, or UW Madison

Main concern is that my experience isn't varied enough and that wildlife/zoo isn't the best field to be banking on from an admissions viewpoint. I don't come from a very animal-loving or outdoorsy family (no pets) and wildlife was the thing I understood best from exploring over my life. I know that my main goal is to do wildlife/zoo work, but want to also have small animal to fall back on. My small animal experience was limited by the number of hours I could legally (and mentally/emotionally) work in college due to my second job. I think my experience within the specific field I'm interested in is very strong and varied (wildlife rehab, zoo/aquarium medicine, free-ranging wildlife medicine), but my veterinary experience is lacking.

 

[pp9]

I don't remember the exact number of hours I had when I applied, but I was very zoo/wildlife heavy for both animal and veterinary experience (I still had small animal hours as well) and it wasn't an issue. I don't think it's wrong to make zoo/wildlife the focus of your application since it is your background, as long as it's done well. Poor wording can definitely leave a reader with a bad impression, so make sure you have a lot of proofreaders.

You've already identified where you could improve - you need more clinical experience in a small animal clinic/in general if this cycle doesn't work out for you. When I have a pre-vet come to me and tell me they want to be a zoo vet, one of the biggest pieces of advice I give is that they need to make sure they want to be a vet first. It is far more likely that you won't end up in zoo/wildlife for a variety of reasons. The most likely fallback is small animal medicine. If you hypothetically hated small animal medicine, I'd tell you that your chances of a career in zoo/wildlife are higher outside of vet med.

I don't know that your experiences, as they are described here, would give the adcom an impression that you know what you're getting yourself into. With that said, you wouldn't be the first student with a very niche background that gets accepted...wanting to do zoo/wildlife is just very different from saying 'I want to do lab animal/equine/food/industry/etc' with experience limited to said niche however. If you've already applied for this cycle, just see how it goes and do file reviews if it doesn't work out this time. I wouldn't be surprised if they told you to get more clinical hours in any field.

Goal is to improve the shortcomings of vet medicine in the interface between wildlife and zoos/aquariums.

I'm not sure what you mean by this, but it isn't coming across well and should be reworded.

 

[CondorClub]

I don't remember the exact number of hours I had when I applied, but I was very zoo/wildlife heavy for both animal and veterinary experience (I still had small animal hours as well) and it wasn't an issue. I don't think it's wrong to make zoo/wildlife the focus of your application since it is your background, as long as it's done well. Poor wording can definitely leave a reader with a bad impression, so make sure you have a lot of proofreaders.

You've already identified where you could improve - you need more clinical experience in a small animal clinic/in general if this cycle doesn't work out for you. When I have a pre-vet come to me and tell me they want to be a zoo vet, one of the biggest pieces of advice I give is that they need to make sure they want to be a vet first. It is far more likely that you won't end up in zoo/wildlife for a variety of reasons. The most likely fallback is small animal medicine. If you hypothetically hated small animal medicine, I'd tell you that your chances of a career in zoo/wildlife are higher outside of vet med.

I don't know that your experiences, as they are described here, would give the adcom an impression that you know what you're getting yourself into. With that said, you wouldn't be the first student with a very niche background that gets accepted...wanting to do zoo/wildlife is just very different from saying 'I want to do lab animal/equine/food/industry/etc' with experience limited to said niche however. If you've already applied for this cycle, just see how it goes and do file reviews if it doesn't work out this time. I wouldn't be surprised if they told you to get more clinical hours in any field.


I'm not sure what you mean by this, but it isn't coming across well and should be reworded.

Fair enough, didn't explain myself very well there! In particular, I am really interested in captive breeding and zoo management which I think could improve significantly by DVMs both as parts of management discussions and directly practicing vet med. I find captive breeding fascinating as a management technique since there are so many factors involved with making an actually successful program (this is my favorite topic in wildlife/conservation and likely what I'd pursue more directly if vet school doesn't work). I have sat in on a lot of management discussions and I really enjoy the politics and back-and-forth of the zoo world. There are definitely some management decisions that could've been better if the DVM had more say. I also love the improvisation of zoo med due to exhibit, patient, and handler constraints. I really enjoy that zoo and wildlife vets are expected to be skilled in so many areas of vet med while being fluent in wildlife topics.

I am also very interested in the idea of using veterinary medicine to manage free-ranging populations of wildlife which you can't work with quite as hands-on. Working for a state wildlife agency also inspired me since there are some clear miscommunications and inconsistencies between zoos and wildlife agencies that occur with translocation, release, and captive breeding programs for native species. Additionally, there are some mistakes that have been made in the past by a lack of DVMs that still affect the wildlife populations in this state today (translocation/capture mortalities, animal mishandling, disease spread into naive areas, etc). Similarly, I see the uphill battle other wildlife DVMs are fighting with their wildlife agencies over disease surveillance, handling/capture practices, etc. I have also really enjoyed working on the CWD program, partially because I've been given so much freedom to make changes to the program and improvise as I see fit. I think the CWD problem is genuinely the most fascinating issue with North American conservation (and the North American Model as a whole) and obviously state wildlife vets play a large role in working to manage it. I also really enjoy necropsies and pathology which falls pretty hand-in-hand with wildlife. I also found rehab to be very fun, but it isn't necessarily what I am most passionate about with wildlife.

This was worded much better in my personal statement which mostly discussed the roles veterinarians can play in individual, population, and ecosystem health using a past rehab patient and current work on disease surveillance. Thankfully, I had some aquarium and wildlife vets who know me and my beliefs on the field well enough to proofread and make sure I don't come across poorly while keeping my central themes.

I do realize that my interests are not necessarily "veterinary" and fully plan on just pursuing a Phd if this next application cycle is not fruitful. I think I mostly want the DVM because I enjoy the veterinary work 1:1 with individual animals, including in small animal clinics. That said, my plan after CWD season wraps up is to get back into small animal med until next cycle to make extra sure I don't hate it. My original small animal clinic I worked for was not a great experience for me, but those were very clinic-specific problems. Additionally, I haven't had much opportunity to keep up with my clinical skills which I want to keep sharp before vet school anyway.

Thanks for the advice, appreciate it! I will try to update with results for future reference of others.

 

[CondorClub]

Small update for future pre-vet students to reference! Rejected from MSU, UC Davis, OSU, and NC State. Holding out for UIUC and UW Madison

 

[applepie002233]

Hi, I was a wildlife-focused applicant and am blessed to say that things went my way this past cycle! Your experiences are amazing.. I wonder if perhaps having a broader background (in vet med and in extracurriculars) would benefit your application. I did work a summer (~60 vet hrs/ ~200 animal hrs) at a small animal ER, but more than that I think it would also be beneficial to show who you are outside of vet med. What hobbies, clubs, extracurriculars are you part of that have nothing to do with animals? Do you volunteer in your community? I think that’s the main thing I noticed missing from your original post. Let me know if you’d like any more of my info, and take these suggestions with a grain of salt (I was in your shoes just recently too). Best of luck!

 

[CondorClub]

Results are in, accepted to both UIUC and UW Madison! Thanks to all who gave advice, good luck to future applicants reading this