alt=”Upclose with a dog at the shelter”> alt=”Upclose with a dog at the shelter”>Pre-vet students are expected not only to perform well in school but also to earn experience hours with animals outside of school. A competitive vet school application includes veterinary experience hours, and most accepted applicants have thousands of hours logged. Keeping track of your experience in animal medicine is essential for your veterinary school application process. You will want that information when it comes time to apply to vet school.
In addition to taking the right prerequisite courses and a stellar academic performance, veterinary schools require experience hours in with animals and experience working with a veterinarian. The VMCAS (the application for most vet schools) has very clear guidance on how to categorize your experience hours.
Any research experience, even if it is with a veterinarian or with animals, is to be counted as research experience. Scientific research, with animals or not, with a vet or not, would be classified as research experience when applying to vet school.
Veterinary experience “includes any veterinary clinical, agribusiness, or health science experiences that took place under the supervision of a veterinarian”. (AAVMC) This category is only for experiences under the supervision of a veterinarian that are not research. If you have work experience that is under the supervision of a veterinarian and includes working with animals, it would be classified as veterinary experience and not animal experience.
Animal experience will be work with animals that is not research and is not supervised by a veterinarian. Examples given by the AAVMC include “farm and ranch experience, 4-H membership, [and] animal training.”
Most competitive applications to vet school include research, veterinary, and animal experience, but the minimum requirements vary between schools. Most accepted veterinary students provide proof of over 2,000 hours of veterinary experience.
Experience in animal, veterinary, and research is an important part of the veterinary school application process. Gaining essential skills and knowledge in veterinary medicine and animal care makes a strong applicant and indicates that someone is comfortable around animals and has a commitment to and understanding of the veterinary profession.
You will want to track your animal experience, veterinary experience, and research experience so that you have all the detailed information for applying to veterinary school. You may also want that information for preparing a resume, looking for future jobs and internships, or even applying to research fellowships or specific college classes.
There are a variety of ways pre-veterinary students can keep track of every hour they spend working or volunteering with animals. It’s important to stay diligent about keeping track of the hours you have earned.
Paper journals and digital spreadsheets have been a go-to way of tracking animal hours for decades. Using a simple Google Sheet can be an easy way that you can access from anywhere. Students in a Loop Abroad group may even share a sheet to share information about their program and help one another track their hours, contacts made, and skills learned.
It is important to protect your data. Use a waterproof notebook or keep the notebook in a safe place, especially if you are doing fieldwork or volunteering somewhere that can get dirty. Back up your digital spreadsheets to ensure they are safe if something happens to your computer. In addition, it is recommended to scan paper documents to digitize them.
There are apps available for smartphones to help keep track of hours. In addition, some of these apps can help connect you to places offering shadow or volunteer opportunities and prompt the place of work to confirm your hours. Keeping a backup of this data is also recommended in case something happens to your phone or the program itself.
Don’t worry if you don’t have a special app for tracking hours – a Google spreadsheet (free) or a paper notebook is a completely valid way to keep the information you need and to access it in the future.
Having a diligent record of animal and veterinary experience hours shows that you have worked hard and gained valuable real-world experience. As you collect these hours over many years, you will find that keeping a written record helps to ensure that you don’t forget any hours or experiences. It’s also a great place to add specific notes about experience you received, skills you learned, additional responsibility you were given, and even contact information for people you worked with.
If you decide to use a Google Sheet to track your hours, you might also use a Google Drive folder to keep photos of business cards, projects completed, or other information. Even a photos folder on your phone (backed up!) or a note in your phone (backed up!) can help in this purpose. You never know which information you might want in the future.
Most important is tracking your hours and categorizing them as animal experience, veterinary experience, or research experience. This will save you lots of time and effort in the future.
It can be difficult to get a paying job in a veterinary clinic as an undergraduate due to a lack of experience and available working hours for full-time college students. Volunteering, shadowing, and internships are often the best ways to earn these hours in a variety of settings. Veterinary school applicants with a variety of experience across different types of animals (companion, exotic, wildlife, large animal, aquatics, and research animals) stand out, as do applications that show growth in understanding and responsibility within one or more of these categories.
Loop Abroad is an award-winning program that provides pre-vet students with unique veterinary experience opportunities across the world, many of which also offer college credit. Participants have the opportunity to earn up to 40 veterinary experience hours per week working with companion animals, exotics, large animals, aquatics, and wildlife, while gaining experience working with a diverse team and learning across cultures. Loop Abroad teaching vets are there to teach students, so they are able to ensure that each student gets the opportunity to learn, observe, and practice relevant skills and apply their gained knowledge in the field.