Question

What are veterinary schools looking for in an applicant? How can I best prepare for the application process?

Answer 1

Veterinary schools will be evaluating you based on the following things:

1. Your grades. Schools have a variety of ways to calculate these. Most look at your cumulative, but many also look at the GPA of your last 30-45 credit hours, of the required courses (or a specific set of courses they use for this calculation), and of your GPA in all science courses. So, do your best to get good grades, especially in required courses.

2. Your general GRE scores. You can find more information about the basic structure of the test here:

http://www.ets.org/gre/general/about/content/

Different schools have different ways to use the score. Some will take the best from each individual section, whereas others will take the best overall. One school (Purdue) takes the average of all scores. Two schools (Georgia and Oklahoma) also require the biology GRE. You can find information about that test here:

http://www.ets.org/gre/subject/about/content/biology

You should study and prepare for the GRE tests and make sure that you leave enough time before application deadlines to re-take the test in case you do not get the score you want on your first try.

3. Veterinary/animal experience. This part is important! You will need both veterinary and animal experience. You need to start early! It can often be hard to get your foot in the door when trying to shadow or volunteer at a clinic. Try and shadow as soon as possible so that you can see a lot and get as many hours as possible. Also, look for experience in a variety of areas - small animal, large animal, wildlife, zoo, research. Be creative!

4. Other experience, honors, awards, leadership, community service. Take some time to do some non-vet related things. Find a few hobbies to pursue, join some clubs. Volunteer for a non-profit organization. You want to be a well rounded applicant (and you want to do some non-vet stuff you enjoy, like sports or a hobby). Anything that shows leadership is a plus, so consider running for an office in a club or taking a student leadership position.

5. Good letters of recommendation. At least one of these will need to come from a veterinarian, so this is another reason why that experience is so important to get started with. You want these people to know you WELL and be able to speak highly of you. Also consider professors, employers, advisers, and PIs (in a laboratory setting).

So, these five things are what you should start thinking about and working on NOW for your future application. I wish I had known *exactly* what I needed to worry about in advance, so I hope this helps others who are getting started.

Answer 2

I'll start, and someone else can add-on.

You need to:

A)  Decide which schools you might possibly want to apply to.  This gives you the starting point of telling you which pre-requisites you need to even apply.  The pre-requisites for an individual school can be found here: http://www.aavmc.org/vmcas/College_Requirements.htm

B)  Take the GRE!  Multiple times if needed.  The higher your GPA, the lower GRE score you can get by with and vice versa.

C)  Have money!  Applying to vet school is expensive.  Application fees, supplemental fees, clothing fees for interviews, travel fees if applying OOS, GRE fees, GRE score sending fees, etc.

D)  Fill out the VMCAS!

E)  Fill out supplementals!  Not all schools have these, and some are very weird about it.  I think one of them has you apply, then you make the first cut which allows you to fill out the supplemental.  Others just go "here, fill out your name, number, and give us $70".   You can usually find the supplemental on the school's CVM website.