Realistically, do I have a shot of getting into vet med?

- Just done my A levels this year - got A (biology) B (chemistry) B (geography)
- I didn't apply to uni in year 12 due to terrible predicted grades + very unsure of what to study - so I am now on a gap year
- planning to resit my exams for chem and geography independently next year
- I have a week of work experience at a stables but that's it

Because the deadline for applications is October 15th, and I won't be able to get enough work experience by then, I was thinking my best shot would be to resit my exams and then have to take another gap year - applying with my new grades and more experience.

My question is, due to the fact that I will have resat my exams without any extenuating circumstances, do I have a decent chance of getting into vet med or should I just give up?

It may be worth mentioning i live in a POLAR4 quintile 2 area so I qualify for contextual at some unis.

- Just done my A levels this year - got A (biology) B (chemistry) B (geography)
- I didn't apply to uni in year 12 due to terrible predicted grades + very unsure of what to study - so I am now on a gap year
- planning to resit my exams for chem and geography independently next year
- I have a week of work experience at a stables but that's it

Because the deadline for applications is October 15th, and I won't be able to get enough work experience by then, I was thinking my best shot would be to resit my exams and then have to take another gap year - applying with my new grades and more experience.

My question is, due to the fact that I will have resat my exams without any extenuating circumstances, do I have a decent chance of getting into vet med or should I just give up?

It may be worth mentioning i live in a POLAR4 quintile 2 area so I qualify for contextual at some unis.

You were unsure on what you wanted to study. How did you decide on vet med? What is your motivation

Ok, so grades-wise do you stand a shot at vet med if you at minimum resit your chemistry to an A? Yes, as long as you also have the correct GCSE grades - they are important too. Ideally geography to an A too then it opens most doors. You will not be able to apply to Edinburgh and Glasgow as they don't accept resits. Liverpool raise their offer from AAA to A*AA if you resit. I'm unsure on Cambridge's exact resit/grade rules. But that would still leave you with plenty unis you meet the grade requirements for. You certainly can take 2 gap years and apply in October 2024 instead without it looking bad - there are people from all walks of life on the course and this scenario isn't too uncommon, I'd say a great % of students take at least 1 gap year.

But the work experience is a big issue. To be harsh, you don't know if you want to do vet med until you've done the work experience. It is just as important as the grades and if you don't meet each uni's individual requirements it will be an instant rejection, and tbh getting more than the minimum of varied work experience is important to 1 figure out you actually want to be a vet, 2 I think it shows more motivation to become a vet and 3 it is essentially what most of the forms and interviews talk about so you need to do it to have things to discuss and convince the admissions team that you'd be a good fit for a vet student. Honestly, there are what 6 weeks until 15th October deadline? And as you are resitting independently, if you really pushed for it, you could get the 4 weeks minimum (usually 2 weeks with a vet and 2 weeks general husbandry) most unis have by that time. 35 hours = 1 week - you can easily do more than 35 hours in 1 actual week if you push for it.

Start contacting everyone you can right now - vet clinics it may be very short notice but a lot of both vet med and pre-vet students can only do their placements until mid/end September, so you may be in luck as they may have the 2/3 weeks prior to the October deadline free. Don't bother emailing, call every vet clinic in your area, and also outside of your area - be willing to travel further than you'd normally, utilise staying at any family or friends' houses, maybe see if you can get cheap B&B somewhere - it is only a sacrifice for 2 weeks. Look up Fb groups which may advertise placements. And get at least 1 week more (assuming your stables was within the last 18 months) of husbandry - ask the stables to come back or search up different businesses in your area and call them. Look up dog groomers, kennels, catteries, shelters, petting zoos, dairy/beef/pig/poultry farms, other stables. You could even do 5-day placements Mon-Fri and then a Saturday at another place every week up until the deadline. Make sure to get your references in Surrey's guide way so that's not an issue later on. If you get on it right away I do think 4 weeks between now and 15th October isn't impossible if you really wanted it. Not ideal, but not impossible, and then you'll be sure if the career is actually for you.

If for whatever reason you can't secure the work experience by that point, that's fine too, you can do the plan of not applying this year to focus on getting the grades and work experience by next October. That is a good plan. I presume you'll have a lot of time around revising for exams if you are doing it independently, i.e. not limited to holidays? In which case you have loads of work experience you can plan. Even though it's less of a rush, places are more likely to give a positive answer if you call rather than email so I'd stick to that. I'd try get 2 weeks at 2 different clinics (can be both smallies as large animals is a bit harder to get), and then as much varied husbandry as you feel necessary. I'd definitely get a week or two of lambing in Spring, use the National Sheep Association website when it opens in November, a lot of farmers offer meals and free accommodation so you don't have to be near a farm. Lambing really prepares you for the realities of long hours, bad weather, possibly aggy farmers and all the fluids, smells, situations, deaths etc. You already have stables but just make sure you have the reference and it is within the 18 month application deadline - another week of it wouldn't hurt. Dairy and/or beef cattle is a good one to get in too - Fb may have links (the lambing club etc may be open to you enquiring about calving placements too). Some smallies husbandry like kennels, shelters, catteries, dog groomers etc would be good too. Keep a diary and link what you see and learn to how it makes you a good vet student, e.g. the traits like empathy, organisation, team working, observation etc. Look into doing some MOOCs like Nottingham's 'Virtual Work Experience' on FutureLearn or EdiVet courses on Coursera, they are free and not a subsitute for real work experience imo but don't hurt to get some extra insight into the career.

I'd also get a table going of the different vet med unis (not too many) and their GCSE, A Level and work experience requirements, so you know not to apply in vain anywhere. If in doubt about anything, you can always contact the admissions teams. You can also note the way they do their admissions, i.e. their different form and interview styles, and figure out if you think one suits you better as it may help to apply to your strengths - many don't get in on their first application cycle (I didn't, took a gap year, got 1 offer second time round but I am a vet student now so that's all that matters).

If vet med is for you, chase it, you'll get there eventually and it doesn't matter how long it takes. But do figure it out first - it isn't for the faint of heart, the salary isn't as amazing as the general public think, there is a high suicide and dropout rate with a lot of stressors like difficult owners, making life or death choices sometimes based on the owner's financial situation, pressure of people think you are just money grabbing etc. It's a long and intensive course followed by a stressful career to get into without giving it proper thought as a pre-vet student, definitely not one to look at through rose-tinted glasses which is why work experience is so key. Best of luck and I'm happy to answer any questions

Thank you for the reply, I really appreciate it.

I understand how important work experience is which is why I didn't think applying this October would be a great idea. I'd have taken a year longer than the other applicants to apply and only just scraped the minimum requirements for work experience (assuming I could manage to meet it at all). I can't be certain but I was under the impression that the average applicant greatly exceeds the minimum requirements, so this, coupled with the fact that I am resitting, would make my application very weak. I have read that vet schools don't favour people who have applied more than once, especially if you get to interview the first time, so to me it seems like my best shot would be waiting another year and making my application as strong as possible before applying, rather than applying this year and probably getting instantly rejected.

I should've mentioned my GCSEs in the post, they weren't the best but also not too bad I don't think:
Chemistry 8
Biology 7
Geography 7
History 7
RE 7
English lit 7
English lang 7
Physics 6
Maths 6

I meet the minimum requirements for most vet med courses with these but do you know if they would realistically still be a problem if I were to apply?

So your GCSEs should be fine for most courses, but as it's been a few years since I've applied I don't keep up to date with them so I would still make the tables I suggested just in case - I know Nottingham used to ask for a 7 in either maths or physics etc and I wouldn't bother applying anywhere if you don't meet them even by 1 grade. Important to note that apart from for Cambridge, no vet schools care about what you get above the minimum grade requirements - someone getting all 9s or all A*s won't be ranked any higher than someone scraping the minimums. So no, they wouldn't be a problem They won't look down upon you for applying with resits either as long as you read the admissions carefully to ensure they allow them (like the Scottish ones do not), they also aren't even really bad grades for a first time sitting so it won't pose any issues. Getting the minimum grades and work experience hours is really just a check in the box that you can be moved onto the next stage of the admissions process rather than a ranking applicants aspect.

Work experience too, they won't reject you just for getting the minimum, they theoretically do not rank you on the amount you do, although personally where you can I would aim to exceed it at least a bit purely because I still think it 'looks better' and obviously the more you do and see, the more you would have to discuss - but that is also just more of a my opinion than fact. Once you get over the minimum it is quality over quantity, it is better to do 1-2 week placements in various places than say 10 weeks at the same stables where you are unlikely to learn much after the 2nd week. So pre-covid times when I applied the first time I did only get the minimum and I did look stupid on interview days meeting other vet school applicants (for the first time pretty much as my school didn't have any and I didn't know about TSR etc yet) where everyone had 10+ weeks of work experience, but since covid honestly I feel a lot of the candidate cohort has stopped trying so much with work experience and the majority of applicants I speak to now only have the minimum or not greatly above. So I wouldn't say you'd stick out if you did only manage to get 4 weeks by October 15th, and as long as you did exhaust your options and managed to get it I don't think it would be a 'bad thing' if you really think you are overall prepared for the career etc. You could always still attempt to get the 4 weeks (or whatever the unis are asking as again not up to date since covid) by 15th October, nearer the deadline decide whether you feel 'ready' to apply or not (at least you'll have the option to), and you can always carry on doing more work experience after the deadline to either make your next application look better if you don't apply/things don't go well and also just to prepare better for becoming a vet student - I did my first lambing placement after I already held my Liverpool offer for 3 months just as I wanted to experience it. And as interviews tend to be spread November-March depending on the vet school, you could still discuss your new experiences even if they weren't on your initial application form.

As for reapplying, as long as the uni takes reapplicants (check admissions policy but I think apart from possibly Scottish all allow up to 1 reapplication) then they won't judge you at all on this, they don't look at this positively or negatively, so you have an equal shot. Honestly I actually would encourage you to consider going through an application round this year and take it as a learning experience - the admissions process is tough, and I think getting experience of how the unis do it, getting the interview experience and where you can reflect upon your performance later is actually really good and sets you up better for if you do have to do a round in Oct 2024. And if you do manage to get in first time, then obviously happy days! Still treat it as an actual round and only apply where you meet requirements for and where you would feel happy going, but just don't put the pressure on of whether you'd get in or not - just thinking of it as a learning experience imo would be a good idea. I did feel much better prepared as a reapplicant as I had a much better idea of what the admissions staff were looking for, and where I felt I 'went wrong' the first time and I had much more confidence in interviews, e.g. first time I definitely would've answered ethical dilemmas the way I thought the interviewers wanted me to, whereas I was confident the second time that I could answer however I wanted as long as I provided good discussion points and did explore the other ideas but stuck to my opinion.

So it is up to you how you choose to do it. I don't think either applying this time or deciding to just take 2 gap years are a bad idea, and (as long as you did manage to get the work exp for this cycle) then I think you'd have a shot at getting in both rounds. But to summarise my advice is I would get on top of getting as much work exp by Oct 15th, do your research into the unis, do the online courses, if you wanted to apply then do so to those you meet the minimum GCSEs and work exp for, continue getting more work exp until next summer, if you did apply then make sure to evaluate all your performance so if it didn't go ideally you have that experience backing you up for next year.

Thank you for all your help!

My new plan is to do as you suggest and try to get enough work experience to apply this October, and if I don't get enough I'll just take another year out