#jessstudies

Hiya!

So first of all I am going to give you a link to @soontobedvm​‘s master post of her How To Get Into Vet School series. If you search the notes on each individual post in the series you can see the responses I wrote which include my thoughts and experiences too (unfortunately I didn’t have the foresight to tag them :( ) here it is!

First of all I was an animal science major at Virginia Tech, which is a 4-year college with a vet school, and most of the kids in the animal science program there wanted to go to vet school (or at least they started out that way even if they didn’t end up applying). So there was a lot of good pre-vet advising and a lot of opportunities to interact with the vet school administration through the pre-vet club and other undergraduate clubs that had joint activities with the clubs at the vet school. If your situation is similar, definitely get involved as early as you can with activities that involve the vet school. Connections with vet school administration won’t necessarily get you into vet school (I know at my school, the admissions committee wasn’t allowed to review the application of any student they knew personally and I was not accepted at Virginia Tech’s vet school), but they don’t hurt either and may end up getting you some job/veterinary/internship/research experience and/or recommendation letters.

I chose animal science because I knew it would give me a lot of hard science background (like anatomy/reproduction/genetics/etc) as well as give me time to complete my prerequisites (like organic chem/biochemistry/physics) and give me lots of hands-on experience with animals especially ones I hadn’t gotten to play with before undergrad (like sheep/cows/pigs/chickens). But you don’t have to be an animal science major to get into vet school at all! Pick something you like and that will keep you interested for the next 4 years. As long as you have your prerequisites in, you can apply to vet school with any major. The How To Get Into Vet School series goes into more detail on this.

Get good grades. Get veterinary experience - the more varied, the better! Get to know your professors. Get animal experience - again, quality over quantity. Get undergraduate research experience. But also have fun! Not everything you do has to be vet school/veterinary oriented. Take classes that interest you (personally, I loved the Indoor Plants and Abnormal Psychology classes I took) and join clubs that involve your hobbies.

Also, don’t be afraid of rejection or reapplying. My first year applying, I didn’t get into Virginia Tech, like I said. I did get into Ohio State and University of Tennessee, but I decided to take a gap year and reapply. I *still* didn’t get into Virginia Tech, so I decided to go to another school, which is where I am now. There are plenty of people who think that going out of state or taking a gap year and reapplying if they didn’t get in, is the wrong way to go, but it’s really up to you and your personal experience.

Finally, here is a list of what I PERSONALLY did in undergrad/gap year to strengthen my application:

- club where we walked the teaching dogs at the vet school: member in freshman year, became Public Relations Officer sophomore year, Vice President junior year, President senior year- massage club: member 2 years, became President senior year- polo club in sophomore year- eventing club junior and senior years- horseback riding (counts as animal experience!)- fish keeping (also counts as animal experience!)- intramural sports all 4 years- teaching assistant for one class per semester in junior and senior years (4 classes total) - this is actually how I met my boyfriend :)- worked at the university sheep barn from sophomore to senior years (love love love sheep)- summer internship at the university sporthorse breeding center between junior and senior year (I did undergraduate research during this time and the program is open to any student in the country so let me know if you’re interested in this)- helped with a black bear hibernation research project on campus- participated in Baptist Collegiate Ministries on campus- volunteer note-taker in classes with students with special needs- BQA and IACUC certification required for a couple of my classes- studied animal agriculture abroad- worked at a small animal emergency hospital: 700 hours over summers and breaks- shadowed at an equine vet: 100 hours over summers and breaks- worked at a small animal clinic: 2320 hours (working full time during my gap year)- worked at Petsmart part time during my gap year (good exotic experience)- 3.6 overall GPA

I’m probably forgetting a couple things. It’s coming up on 2 years since I graduated D:

Let me know if you have any more questions! Welcome to the crazy and fun world that is pre-vet!

Aw thank you!! Some of my interests are fashion, makeup, photography, reading and kpop :) 

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