2023 Veterinary Medicine Applicants

Hi guys! I am an international applicant and the options in my country for work experience are very limited so I'm unsure whether I should still take up vet med because I don't think I'd get accepted anyway. My top uni is Edinburgh and it seems like Edinburgh really prefers applicants with good quality of work experience. I have read several posts and when I compare the work experience that I could do with the work experience that other applicants have done; my work experience is pretty low. I only have a 2 week break before my the UCAS deadline for vet med.
So far the work experience that I could do are:
small animal vet clinic
volunteer at animal shelters

so yeah I don't know if I should go for it since it seems unlikely that I'll be accepted.

I am in Year 12 and so far I’ve done:
• 1 x week lambing
• 1 x week small animal practice
• 1.5 x week city farm (every Saturday)

Is this okay for a start? I’m really struggling to get any other work experience and I’m starting to panic that I won’t have enough in time for October!

Sounds like a good start. We've still got 6 months til October so there should be plenty of time left to get placements done and meet the uni reqs. Keep at it and you'll find a practice that will take you on

I've been planning my placements since last summer so I've managed to get my work experience sorted and planned out for the summer. Now I'm just patiently waiting to apply

I’ve been looking for work experience for months but because I live in London it’s really hard to find any practices that will accept me.

Do you think people that can’t find LA Vet will be at a disadvantage? I’m really worried about that as it’s basically impossible for me to find anywhere living in the city.

I’ve been looking for work experience for months but because I live in London it’s really hard to find any practices that will accept me.

Do you think people that can’t find LA Vet will be at a disadvantage? I’m really worried about that as it’s basically impossible for me to find anywhere living in the city.

I’ve been looking for work experience for months but because I live in London it’s really hard to find any practices that will accept me.

Do you think people that can’t find LA Vet will be at a disadvantage? I’m really worried about that as it’s basically impossible for me to find anywhere living in the city.

hi! I applied for Edinburgh this year for 2022 entry and was able to get in! I would say that Edinburgh do have an mmi interview dedicated for work experience alone! The questions were very open bar the clinical ones for e.g it was talk about a farm you had been on etc and they would question you off of what they said! I would say they value clinical experience more for example you being able to see surgery and vaccination consultations. I’d say clinical experience is more worthy to them so I’d say if you could at least get a week would be perfect!

On the offers holders day I recently went to other offers holders never had experience with equine or lambing. So I’d say stick to a farm and clinical if you are able to get some experience there! Edinburgh are very welcoming to international students so I’d say the quality of your experience means more to them than the quantity as you are asked about 1 place clinical and 1 place non clinical.

Hi! Congratulations for your application! What is an mmi interview? I read somewhere in this thread that Edinburgh requires applicants to submit an academic transcript, what exactly is that? Did you do a lot of work experience? When you say 1 week of work experience, is it like 24hours x 7 days?

Thank you so much! An mmi is just a type of interviewing. Mmi stands for multiple mini interviews, so I had three interview categories for Edinburgh which were 7 minutes long (they’re normally shorter!). Each interview is with a different interviewer so if you say something silly in one interview your next interviewer doesn’t know about that and you can start fresh!

Maybe because I am a Scottish student, I don’t know what an academic transcript is because I never had to submit one! After I applied in October you get emailed saying you need to fill out a form of all your work experience placements and how many hours you done there and that’s it!

Experience wise I was very fortunate to have a lot of work experience but that’s due to myself living in a more agricultural county. I was able to get 126 hours in a small vet clinic before covid by volunteering every Saturday for 4 hours. And the rest of my hours I was able to get in non clinical placements such as dairy, lambing, equine and wildlife. I had 351 hours of experience in total. This is way over what you need! A week is subjective so Liverpool set how many hours they consider a day is while other unis don’t. I did a week of lambing which was 7 hours a day for a week. Most universities use this as their standard guide for experience. However in my personal statement I used my hours as I mostly did my placements during the weekend.

Hi, I saw that you did 351 hours, well done, that must have been very long! Do you think that having this many hours was a big factor with getting an offer? And were these all abt 18 months before application date, or how far back were they? Thanks!

Where else did you apply? and what grades did you get at a level?

I applied to Nottingham, Liverpool, Bristol and Surrey (and my backup was marine bio at Liverpool). I got AAB at A-level!

Hi, I’m sorry if this thread has already been made, (in that case it can be deleted), I’ve looked for a thread for students currently in the summer between Year 11 and Year 12 who’ll be applying to study Veterinary Medicine in 2023 but couldn’t find one.

If you’re new to the thread, it would be great if you could introduce yourself!
I’ll start:
1. The subjects you are doing:
I’m doing AQA A Level Biology, Chemistry and Maths.
2. The work experience you have so far:
I have three weeks- lambing, SA Vet and City Farm.
3. The universities you’re considering:
I’m not sure but am thinking of Nottingham, Surrey, Bristol, and Liverpool.

Should i be worried that I haven’t received an answer from glasgow so close to the deadline?

The bias against English students IS something significant which is why when you stated you had offers from 2 Scottish schools I asked your fee status.Edinburgh states that this year there are 40 places for Scottish applicants, 30 places for the English, Welsh and N. Irish combined, and 35 places for Internationals. Therefore Scott’s and Internationals have a higher chance of getting a place than an English or Welsh applicant and as such it is something that really should be taken into account when applying. It would be almost irresponsible to use 2 out of 4 choices if you weren’t a Scott imo!

I did say that I wouldn’t post on what is supposed to be a student forum given that I am a parent but all of your choices are «*International friendly*» with the exception of Edinburgh if you are doing the French bac, in which case you will require all grades ( even sport, music and philo) to be of 14 (A) with the stipulated subjects being 16 I believe. If you can achieve that then even Edinburgh is a possibility for you.
All the statistics concerning the total numTber of places and their split are available on the university web sites so I advise you to look and compare and cross with your academic achievement and work experience so that you don’t waste choices.

Thank you so much!