First Time Applicant

[kaelynlabelle]

Hello! I am a first time applicant, non-traditional. I wanted to see how my chances were..I’m planning on applying to tOSU (IS), University of Tennessee, and LMU. Here are my stats:

Hours:
Research: 15 hours
Veterinary: 3,360 hours including urgent care, surgery, and general practice
Animal without veterinarian supervision: 3,658 hours including dog training/boarding facilities, 260 hrs equine with some cattle.
Extracurricular: 110 hours + plus going to add more (these are my CE credit hours)
Employment: 1,584 hours including a human hospital and a human nursing and rehabilitation facility
Volunteer: 195 hours including helping disabled veterans, as well as assisting those with disabilities and cerebral palsy

GPA (I’m not too proud of it)
Science: 3.49
Total: 3.47
Last 30: 3.73
74.5 credit hours

Letters of recommendation:
3 from veterinarians
1 from former college professor
1 from current vet practice manager

I also have one question…so I wrote my personal statement starting out with my deciding factor being my mother being diagnosed with cancer—I led into how that made me want to go into veterinary oncology. Will me putting this as my goal on my personal statement look poorly to the people looking at the applications? Due to me not having any experience in oncology I wasn’t sure if they would look at it as if I wasn’t putting effort towards my goals. TIA!!

---

Members don't see this ad.

 

[kaelynlabelle]

Hello! I am a first time applicant, non-traditional. I wanted to see how my chances were..I’m planning on applying to tOSU (IS), University of Tennessee, and LMU. Here are my stats:

Hours:
Research: 15 hours
Veterinary: 3,360 hours including urgent care, surgery, and general practice
Animal without veterinarian supervision: 3,658 hours including dog training/boarding facilities
Extracurricular: 110 hours + plus going to add more (these are my CE credit hours)
Employment: 1,584 hours including a human hospital and a human nursing and rehabilitation facility
Volunteer: 195 hours including helping disabled veterans, as well as assisting those with disabilities and cerebral palsy

GPA (I’m not too proud of it)
Science: 3.49
Total: 3.47
Last 30: 3.73
74.5 credit hours

Letters of recommendation:
3 from veterinarians
1 from former college professor
1 from current vet practice manager

I also have one question…so I wrote my personal statement starting out with my deciding factor being my mother being diagnosed with cancer—I led into how that made me want to go into veterinary oncology. Will me putting this as my goal on my personal statement look poorly to the people looking at the applications? Due to me not having any experience in oncology I wasn’t sure if they would look at it as if I wasn’t putting effort towards my goals. TIA!!

I also forgot to add my achievements..
-Elite Fear Free Certified
-Equine Fear Free Certified
-Avian Fear Free Certified
-Dean’s List my last 2 semesters
-Honor throughout all years of high school, along with honors medallion
-Graduated one year early (my junior year) of high school to get a head start on my career

 

[matthirten13]

Will me putting this as my goal on my personal statement look poorly to the people looking at the applications? Due to me not having any experience in oncology I wasn’t sure if they would look at it as if I wasn’t putting effort towards my goals.

Personally, I would not focus your statement on onco if you don't have onco vet experience. I think it's okay to tell the story about how you initially became interested in vetmed (cancer), but the core of the VMCAS essay should explain why vetmed is right for you and what you have to offer imo. I do not believe it would be a convincing personal statement to focus on a vetmed specialty you have no involvement with.

For myself, I applied with 1.3k clinical radiation oncology vet experience, and an additional 1k hours of vetmed oncology research. Even though I am very much-so interested in oncology, my main VMCAS statement was focused on more widely applicable aspects of vetmed and why I wanted to become a vet in general.

 

[supershorty]

Will me putting this as my goal on my personal statement look poorly to the people looking at the applications? Due to me not having any experience in oncology I wasn’t sure if they would look at it as if I wasn’t putting effort towards my goals.

Yes, this would look unfavorable. If you're going to be focused on a specific specialty but have no actual experience in it, it just highlights that you're uninformed. Veterinary oncology and human oncology are quite different in their treatment goals and so saying you're interested in it without having any experience in it would be a red flag on your application, IMO.

What proportion of your veterinary hours are in small animal vs large/equine/other?

 

[kaelynlabelle]

Yes, this would look unfavorable. If you're going to be focused on a specific specialty but have no actual experience in it, it just highlights that you're uninformed. Veterinary oncology and human oncology are quite different in their treatment goals and so saying you're interested in it without having any experience in it would be a red flag on your application, IMO.

What proportion of your veterinary hours are in small animal vs large/equine/other?

All of my veterinary hours are focused on small animal and some exotics. I only have around ~300 hours of experience with equine and cattle that is under animal experience.