The Student Room Group

Vet work experience help

Hi, I’m a year 12 hoping to apply for vet med at Liverpool, Cambridge, Nottingham and Surrey. I mostly have clinical work experience and a week spent lambing. Am I at a disadvantage because I don’t have much animal handling or customer facing experience? I do have the minimum requirements for weeks and have been in consultations but haven’t been able to get any other type of experience. I have seen treatment of dogs, cats and horses. Is this enough for these universities?
As long as you meet the minimum requirements you’re all good. I would get references for your work experience if you haven’t already so you’re prepared in case the unis ask. Make sure you have notes on what you saw, what you did etc and can link the experiences meaningfully to why they helped you develop/realise skills which will come in handy once you’re a vet/student, as that is likely going to come up during the application process and is the important part. If you feel you can do more, there is still time between now and October to get more, perhaps a riding school as they tend to love helpers, or kennels, shelters, dairy farms etc, but as I said if you have the minimum I wouldn’t stress too much.
Original post by CustardoTart
Hi, I’m a year 12 hoping to apply for vet med at Liverpool, Cambridge, Nottingham and Surrey. I mostly have clinical work experience and a week spent lambing. Am I at a disadvantage because I don’t have much animal handling or customer facing experience? I do have the minimum requirements for weeks and have been in consultations but haven’t been able to get any other type of experience. I have seen treatment of dogs, cats and horses. Is this enough for these universities?

If you meet the minimum requirements then you are completely fine and not at a disadvantage. I would maybe recommend more animal handling experience. I did 4h every saturday morning at cats protection which is a manageable way of getting experience!
Original post by CustardoTart
Hi, I’m a year 12 hoping to apply for vet med at Liverpool, Cambridge, Nottingham and Surrey. I mostly have clinical work experience and a week spent lambing. Am I at a disadvantage because I don’t have much animal handling or customer facing experience? I do have the minimum requirements for weeks and have been in consultations but haven’t been able to get any other type of experience. I have seen treatment of dogs, cats and horses. Is this enough for these universities?

I think as long as you have the minimum amount it’s fine. If you want to do more you’re welcome to do so, but I found when I arrived at uni that I’d done way more than all of my friends- you really don’t need to spend every free day doing work experience. Remember that you have holidays for a reason! You’ll have plenty of time to fill them with placements when you start uni :smile:
Honestly, veterinary (clinical) experience is often valued over general animal experience. However, the wider variety and the higher quality of animal or clinical experience you have, the better chance you have of getting in. I'm from the U.S., but I would look at the universities requirements and see if you can find anything on the statistics of the students who get into the schools. Here, schools place value on variety and quality, such as if you've done research or volunteered at a zoo for a long time. Honestly, if you can get research experience you will have a higher chance of getting in. Other than that you just need to come up with a good personal statement of why you want to become a veterinarian because "I want to help animals" isn't good enough, and look up questions they're likely to ask in an interview so you can practice how to answer more difficult questions such as "Do you think euthanasia is ethical?" and "How would you handle a patient who came in who's owner doesn't have the money to pay for the treatment the patient needs?"
Original post by Veterinary2031
Honestly, veterinary (clinical) experience is often valued over general animal experience. However, the wider variety and the higher quality of animal or clinical experience you have, the better chance you have of getting in. I'm from the U.S., but I would look at the universities requirements and see if you can find anything on the statistics of the students who get into the schools. Here, schools place value on variety and quality, such as if you've done research or volunteered at a zoo for a long time. Honestly, if you can get research experience you will have a higher chance of getting in. Other than that you just need to come up with a good personal statement of why you want to become a veterinarian because "I want to help animals" isn't good enough, and look up questions they're likely to ask in an interview so you can practice how to answer more difficult questions such as "Do you think euthanasia is ethical?" and "How would you handle a patient who came in who's owner doesn't have the money to pay for the treatment the patient needs?"

I want to point out that the UK and US processes for entry into vet school are vastly different so I’d be a little careful giving advice to students looking to apply in the UK if you haven’t had experience of the process yet. I wouldn’t say doing research offers you any kind of better chance at getting into vet school in the UK. A common question on here is whether doing an EPQ (basically a research project you can do during your A Levels) offers you better chances at getting in, and the answer is honestly no. The grades aren’t lowered except I think at one vet school and then it’s by 1 grade in the non bio/chem subject. Because it’s quite a common thing I don’t think the unis are awfully “wowed” by it, and I advise if one is struggling with their normal A Level subjects at all to not bother with doing research. Sure, you can mention it in the application process and perhaps it can give you a few good answers if you know how to apply the experience into skills you learned which will help you as a vet student, and admittedly it might be useful practice for the research project you’ll have to do in vet school. But otherwise I don’t think it’s a massive advantage at all. And whilst clinical experience is obviously important to have, I actually generally recommend having more non-clinical is better for a pre-vet student because you’ll actually be able to understand what’s going on fully and be more hands on, which makes for better reflections generally. Personal statements are not generally looked at (or much at least) for most vet schools here.
Original post by RambleAmple
I want to point out that the UK and US processes for entry into vet school are vastly different so I’d be a little careful giving advice to students looking to apply in the UK if you haven’t had experience of the process yet. I wouldn’t say doing research offers you any kind of better chance at getting into vet school in the UK. A common question on here is whether doing an EPQ (basically a research project you can do during your A Levels) offers you better chances at getting in, and the answer is honestly no. The grades aren’t lowered except I think at one vet school and then it’s by 1 grade in the non bio/chem subject. Because it’s quite a common thing I don’t think the unis are awfully “wowed” by it, and I advise if one is struggling with their normal A Level subjects at all to not bother with doing research. Sure, you can mention it in the application process and perhaps it can give you a few good answers if you know how to apply the experience into skills you learned which will help you as a vet student, and admittedly it might be useful practice for the research project you’ll have to do in vet school. But otherwise I don’t think it’s a massive advantage at all. And whilst clinical experience is obviously important to have, I actually generally recommend having more non-clinical is better for a pre-vet student because you’ll actually be able to understand what’s going on fully and be more hands on, which makes for better reflections generally. Personal statements are not generally looked at (or much at least) for most vet schools here.

I see, although I guess it may also differ depending on if you're an international student applying or not. I'll be applying to schools in the UK as well and, as far as I've read, they do care about personal statements. If your personal statement essay is crappy and they don't think you're a good fit just based on that, they won't even invite you for an interview. I did say that it was best to look at the schools requirements and what the stats of students who get in are. Admittedly, I haven't looked into UK school stats. I know that the RVC is notoriously hard to get into and is the #1 veterinary school in the world. However, it's comparable to UC Davis, the hardest vet school in the U.S. to get into, and the stats of students who go there are 4.0 GPA's, thousands of hours of animal experience, including clinical, plus most who get in have done some form of research. I'm assuming UK schools may be a bit more lenient about certain things since they take kids right from secondary school, which is basically unheard of in the U.S.. So here, at least, they do put more interest in you if you have completed research since it shows an active passion for continuing the science and education of veterinary medicine. It makes for a stronger application in most cases, however, in the end, it's your interview that will make or break your your chances of getting in somewhere. If you could teach me a bit more how the UK education system works, I'd love to learn! I have family who live there but I've grown up in the states. I honestly envy that you guys get to take classes like Organic Chemistry and such in secondary school. We don't get to touch subjects like that until university unless we go to a special high school, which are also nearly impossible to get into.

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