Need help deciding when to apply to vet school

[RiverRunner05]

Hello Forum World,
I will be applying for vet school within the next two years and need some help deciding if my application would be strong enough to apply this year (matriculation in 2020 or wait until next year (matriculation in 2021). The schools I would like to apply to are Washington-Pullman, Missouri-Columbia, and North Carolina-Raleigh.

Quick bio and stats:
BS in Biological and Natural Sciences - graduated spring 2017
Cumulative GPA: 3.52/4.00
Last 45 credits: 3.72/4.00
Average course load: 14.5 credits/semester
GRE: Taking it this month
Prerequisite courses: I need take biochemistry and an animal nutrition course (NCSU requires it), both of which I will be taking this fall.

Vet hours:
Currently zero.
I am working on getting these-let's assume I have 200-300 hours by early September if everything goes as planned.

Animal hours:
~2200 Goat husbandry
~270 Swine husbandry
~200 Horse husbandry
~1000 Chicken husbandry
~500 Rabbit husbandry
~1000 hours Chinook Salmon Study
~10 hours care of mice at a lab
~50 hours Seabird dissections
~100 hours Juvenile salmonid study

I currently work as a lab technician in an environmental lab (environmental toxicology and public health related projects-nothing biomedical). I worked every semester while in school and have had a full time job since leaving college.

At this point I am thinking the weakest part of my application is the number of vet hours I would have if I applied this fall. I have noticed that many who are accepted into vet programs have ~1000 hours or much, much more. To get a decent number of hours this year, I would need to quit my job and find a tech assistant job in which I could work 40+ hours a week for 10 weeks (assuming I could get a job in a reasonable amount of time) and I still wouldn't have anywhere near 1000 hours by September.

Any input on this is much appreciated!

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[Lupin21]

Hello Forum World,
I will be applying for vet school within the next two years and need some help deciding if my application would be strong enough to apply this year (matriculation in 2020 or wait until next year (matriculation in 2021). The schools I would like to apply to are Washington-Pullman, Missouri-Columbia, and North Carolina-Raleigh.

Quick bio and stats:
BS in Biological and Natural Sciences - graduated spring 2017
Cumulative GPA: 3.52/4.00
Last 45 credits: 3.72/4.00
Average course load: 14.5 credits/semester
GRE: Taking it this month
Prerequisite courses: I need take biochemistry and an animal nutrition course (NCSU requires it), both of which I will be taking this fall.

Vet hours:
Currently zero.
I am working on getting these-let's assume I have 200-300 hours by early September if everything goes as planned.

Animal hours:
~2200 Goat husbandry
~270 Swine husbandry
~200 Horse husbandry
~1000 Chicken husbandry
~500 Rabbit husbandry
~1000 hours Chinook Salmon Study
~10 hours care of mice at a lab
~50 hours Seabird dissections
~100 hours Juvenile salmonid study

I currently work as a lab technician in an environmental lab (environmental toxicology and public health related projects-nothing biomedical). I worked every semester while in school and have had a full time job since leaving college.

At this point I am thinking the weakest part of my application is the number of vet hours I would have if I applied this fall. I have noticed that many who are accepted into vet programs have ~1000 hours or much, much more. To get a decent number of hours this year, I would need to quit my job and find a tech assistant job in which I could work 40+ hours a week for 10 weeks (assuming I could get a job in a reasonable amount of time) and I still wouldn't have anywhere near 1000 hours by September.

Any input on this is much appreciated!

Can I ask what area of vet med you are interested in? I don't think it wise to apply when you have no real idea of the day to day having no veterinary hours. There are a lot of aspects of this profession that are far from ideal, including high debt to salary ratio, burnout, and an overall incredibly alarming suicide rate. So while it looks like you may have an interest more geared to lab animal, you also must be understanding that it is getting very difficult to get those specialty positions and you would have to ask yourself if general practice would be okay.

 

[RiverRunner05]

Can I ask what area of vet med you are interested in? I don't think it wise to apply when you have no real idea of the day to day having no veterinary hours. There are a lot of aspects of this profession that are far from ideal, including high debt to salary ratio, burnout, and an overall incredibly alarming suicide rate. So while it looks like you may have an interest more geared to lab animal, you also must be understanding that it is getting very difficult to get those specialty positions and you would have to ask yourself if general practice would be okay.

Thanks for the reply!
I am mainly interested in large animal medicine as I grew up working around many large animals and am particularly interested in food animal medicine. General practice would be the goal here as, from what I understand, there generally isn't any other way of doing large animal medicine.
I agree with you that it would be unwise to jump into vet medicine without understanding the field nor having a realistic understanding of the struggles and sacrifices one would encounter (the rate of suicides among vets is especially alarming and I am glad to see many schools incorporating mental health and counseling into their programs). To remedy this, I do intend on doing shadowing and, hopefully, volunteer or assistant work with one or more vets in the very near future. This should give me a good idea if the sacrifice, risk, and money are worth the reward (in addition to fulfilling one of the application requirements).

I believe my question (though I did not make it very clear) was, could someone with my stats at this point have a chance of getting accepted into vet school if I were to apply this fall with only 200 or so veterinarian shadow/volunteer/work hours under my belt?

 

[Lupin21]

Thanks for the reply!
I am mainly interested in large animal medicine as I grew up working around many large animals and am particularly interested in food animal medicine. General practice would be the goal here as, from what I understand, there generally isn't any other way of doing large animal medicine.
I agree with you that it would be unwise to jump into vet medicine without understanding the field nor having a realistic understanding of the struggles and sacrifices one would encounter (the rate of suicides among vets is especially alarming and I am glad to see many schools incorporating mental health and counseling into their programs). To remedy this, I do intend on doing shadowing and, hopefully, volunteer or assistant work with one or more vets in the very near future. This should give me a good idea if the sacrifice, risk, and money are worth the reward (in addition to fulfilling one of the application requirements).

I believe my question (though I did not make it very clear) was, could someone with my stats at this point have a chance of getting accepted into vet school if I were to apply this fall with only 200 or so veterinarian shadow/volunteer/work hours under my belt?

Your stats are average, so it really depends on how you present yourself on paper. You have a nice last 45 trend, so that will help. If you are wanting to do food animal, you will need to make sure the hours you get there that qualify for veterinary experience emphasize that you understand that lifestyle. I think you would also be doing yourself a favor if you have a good number of small animal too as life happens and sometimes due to monetary reasons, you have to take a job that is small animal based instead.

 

[dogtorhopeful]

@ OP honestly it can go either way. I would say just give it a try if you have the money and just see what happens, don’t be discouraged if you get rejected as you’ll have time to better your app for the next cycle and you’ll have a better idea of the process!

I know tons of people that got in with minimal hours but also had high stats. Also people that had high hours and low stats. I think it really depends on how you appear on paper and then in your interview. I think 200-300 hours is a good amount and totally doable (I would get around 300 every summer, i did this for 3 summer straight). I also think that sense you grew up around the industry that you know what you’re getting yourself into (and obviously compounded by a average).

Also because you have to have letter of recs from a couple veterinarians, try to branch out and of course try to observe large and small animal! Get a good relationship with them because they would be more inclined to write one.

Just to give you a reference of my experience Incase your were interested, I applied last cycle and was waitlisted at 4 schools and ultimately got into all 4, ultimately choosing the Ontario veterinary college. I had around 1800 vet shadowing hours across large, small, and exotics. For animal experience I had around 2500 from being a large animal caretaker, working at a wildlife rehab, and volunteering at shelters. My GPA was around yours at overall 3.56, last 45 hours at 3.70, and a science GPA at 3.62 (my degree was in biomedical sciences at Texas A&M).