Answers needed from vets or vetmed students!

i am a year 12 student and i want to apply for vet medicine, i also just finished a work experience recently therefore i had some concerns.
1. will i be disadvantaged when it comes to dealing with big dogs or farm animals because i am pretty short?
2. how should i organize my time right now? should i start doing more work experiences or start looking into unis or focusing on my predicted grades?
3. what is something that people often not talk about when studying vet med? any advice from that?
4. one of the vet from my work experience had mentioned not to choose unis from scotland since they often accept internationals or locals (students from scotland). Is that true?
5. i am thinking to apply RVC, surrey and nottingham. any university recommended apart from these?

i am a year 12 student and i want to apply for vet medicine, i also just finished a work experience recently therefore i had some concerns.
1. will i be disadvantaged when it comes to dealing with big dogs or farm animals because i am pretty short?
2. how should i organize my time right now? should i start doing more work experiences or start looking into unis or focusing on my predicted grades?
3. what is something that people often not talk about when studying vet med? any advice from that?
4. one of the vet from my work experience had mentioned not to choose unis from scotland since they often accept internationals or locals (students from scotland). Is that true?
5. i am thinking to apply RVC, surrey and nottingham. any university recommended apart from these?

Do any vets/ vet students regret their choices of career?

Do any vets/ vet students regret their choices of career?

I am currently a first year vet student at rvc, I got in right after college so I was in your position fairly recently.
1. No you shouldn’t face any major issues, I am average height but know plenty people on my course that are on the shorter side, it’s likely that you’ll face a few challenging situations but it isn’t something that could prevent you from becoming a vet.
2. I can’t really answer this question for you as it’s something that you need to figure out yourself. My advice is make sure you know what you need to make sure your predicted grades meet the requirements, you don’t need to aim for more than the minimum requirement but you do need to make sure you meet that minimum no matter what as it is a checkbox that needs to be ticked to even be considered for a place at vet school. It’s important that you have a basic understanding of the vet school options available to you and their minimum requirements but you still have time to narrow down your list of unis and do more in depth research during holidays such as the easter and summer. With work experience, a lot of unis stopped requiring a minimum but i’m pretty sure RVC is the vet school with the highest requirement of 70 hours of clinical and 70 hours of non clinical so as long as you do that minimum you should meet the work experience requirements for any vet school. With work experience I always say quality over quantity, if you meet those hours and feel like you have a good number of situations/cases to discuss in interviews you’re good to go, if you need a little more to work with look for more work experience.
3. this is a tough question, i’ve only just started so I don’t think I am the right person for this question, hopefully someone else can give you a better answer but from my first term my biggest challenge was just adapting to the very very different learning style. Vet school really humbles you and can feel like a constant guessing game, it can often feel like you’re being thrown tons of information and you’re just praying it sticks 😭
4. It is true that scottish universities heavily prioritise Scottish students and have a small number of places available for RUK students. If there’s a Scottish vet school you really like though don’t be afraid to apply, I just wouldn’t recommend you apply to more than one scottish uni. Remember vet school is going to be difficult to get into no matter where you apply and getting one or two offers is a lot more common than getting them all so prioritise making a list of vet schools which you’d be happy going to.
5. I applied to those 3 as well as liverpool, I didn’t enjoy the interview style that surrey and liverpool had but that’s because it didn’t personally fit me therefore didn’t help me show of my strengths but that might be different for you. As mentioned above make sure you love the 4 vet schools you apply to by doing your research, remember it’s a 5 year degree so make sure you like the location/city/town as well as the teaching style. If you have any particular questions about RVC let me know!
6. If you are considering other animal related courses you need to really think about why you want to study vet med. You need to have a clear understanding of the veterinary career as it is very different to others such as vet nursing or physiotherapy. I recommend you do more research and figure out what fits you best.