WAMC - 1st time, DVM/PhD applicant, high GPA/low vet hours

[jazzymack]

I am a rising senior from Pennsylvania hoping to apply for vet schools for the first time during the upcoming application cycle. Specifically, I intend to apply for DVM/PhD programs, as I am hoping to eventually become a faculty member for a vet school and pursue research of emerging zoonoses (or potentially pursue similar research with a government job).

Currently, my schools of interest are: Cornell, UPenn, UCDavis, NC State, UGA, CO State, Michigan State, and Illinois

Cumulative GPA: 4.00
science GPA: 4.00
last 45: 4.00

Any degrees achieved: Currently double majoring in Immunology and Infectious Disease / Veterinary and Biomedical Sciences with a minor in Global Health

GRE results: n/a

Veterinary Experience:
- 36 hours lab animal
- planning to get as many additional hours as I can this summer in small animal medicine + avian pathology

Animal Experience:
- 30 hours volunteering with cats at a local shelter (will be getting more hours over the summer)
- 40 hours working with a dairy heifer for my school's Dairy Expo
- previously rode horses throughout middle/high school

Research Experience:
- 800 hours in a neuroscience lab over the past two summers working with rats; I was trained in and performed survival surgeries, and I am third author on a paper (with another in the works)
- 200 hours in a vector-borne disease lab, where I helped with cell-culture, plasmid design, bacterial transformation, and other molecular bio techniques; I presented my research at a symposium at my university
- 40 hours (and ongoing) with a microbiome lab, where I am researching antimicrobial resistance of UTI pathogens at my university's health clinic, and I will be completing an undergraduate thesis based on my project

Awards/scholarships:
- National Merit Scholar
- student at my university's Honors College
- Multiple university-specific scholarships / academic awards
- competed at a global health case competition and placed 4th out of 31

Extracurriculars:
- Club Cross Country
- Honors College Student Council (service committee)
- Pre-Vet Club
- One Health Club
- Volunteering at my school's annual Science Olympiad Invitational
- TA for an intro to animal science lab (past two semesters + continuing into next year)

Employment:
- worked at a (human) dermatology clinic as a receptionist/assistant throughout high school
- applying for part-time jobs in the food service industry over this summer

Other:
- I am also pursuing a global health fieldwork program in Mexico over the summer, which will involve clinical rotations at (human) hospitals and visits to NGOs/public health centers

I recognize that my current veterinary experience is lackluster. I wanted outside input about whether it is worth my time/money to apply for schools during this cycle (given that even by the end of the summer I will likely only have a couple hundred hours). I don't know if my added experience in global health will be sufficient to make me stand out as an applicant, considering that is one of my primary interests for my future research. As I am primarily interested in the research/professor route, I am also considering applying to PhD programs as well for this upcoming year, which would still give me the flexibility to later pursue a DVM. Any advice/feedback on how I can strengthen my application would be greatly appreciated!

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[JaynaAli]

I think the main thing that you need to do is work on those vet hours. We really need to see more, but if your career goals are research, places may be a little more forgiving on and a couple hundred may be enough. However, they’re still gonna want to see some hours, because what if you get to graduation and you can’t get a research position? Will you still be happy in another field of vet med? We want to make sure you’ll be happy in this field down the line. My question to you is, do you even need a veterinary degree at all to do the research that you want to do? It seems like in the research world, a vet degree doesn’t add a whole lot of value and it certainly costs a lot. So I’d spend some time really thinking if you even need the DVM. Maybe you do need it, but if you don’t, don’t spend time and a lot of money pursuing it.

 

[Hungry_Hippo]

I applied to the DVM/PhD program at a single school this last cycle and got in (after a very short stint on the waitlist), so here is what I learned from my own experience.

I was really weak when it came to vet hours. I had a little less than a thousand hours of experience that felt like it didn't count as such, but technically were considered vet hours under VMCAS rules. I was surprised I got an offer for the regular DVM program for this reason.

On the flip side, I had really robust research hours and a very compelling reasoning for why the DVM and PhD are so important for my career goals. I think that really made up for the low number, and poor quality of veterinary hours.

The next biggest flaw to my application, and why I think I was wait listed, is that the school I applied to is fairly lacking in folks who work in my field of interest (we are a small, often underappreciated group). However, I want to use the PhD experience to gain more knowledge and technical skills in neighboring field(s) of research and I truly believe that I will still greatly benefit from the program. So that was challenging to work around during the interview. I faced a lot of "why here??" questions from the committee because there are other schools that seem like a better fit when it comes to research interests. They knew that, I knew that, but a number of factors mean that they aren't feasible or are not good fit for me at this time.

I think doing a lot of research ahead of time so you can say why you are a good candidate for their specific program would be ideal. I think that the other strong candidates had good reasons as to why the school was a good fit. Alternatively, maybe a DVM/MPH or UCD's DVM/MPVH programs would also be a good options for what you are looking to study.

Another thing to think about is residency. If you are interested in a residency program that is combined with a PhD or MPH, then that might be a good route. Several path residencies do this, as does CSU's combined microbiology residency that studies infectious disease, and Minnesota's and OSU's Veterinary Public Health residencies also include completion of a MPH. More probably fall into this category, I just did a quick search.

At the end of the day, be prepared to defend your choice to do both degrees. Explain that in your application and any interviews.

And hey, take this with a grain of salt because this is one person's experience from one application cycle at one school. And listen to JaynaAli, they have some great questions and points.

 

[matthirten13]

I think some good points have been made above regarding actually deciding to pursue a DVM or not.

I also think your low vet hours will be problematic in terms of chances (I'm not even convinced you'd meet minimum hours for all schools). And I'm not sure your research experience will be enough to make up for that.

My personal opinion is that considering gap year to get more vet experience or starting by applying to a PhD might be optimal. If you're deadset on DVM, I'd only apply to a couple schools you have the best shot at (possibly Penn since IS ?)

 

[supershorty]

I think the main thing that you need to do is work on those vet hours. We really need to see more, but if your career goals are research, places may be a little more forgiving on and a couple hundred may be enough. However, they’re still gonna want to see some hours, because what if you get to graduation and you can’t get a research position? Will you still be happy in another field of vet med? We want to make sure you’ll be happy in this field down the line. My question to you is, do you even need a veterinary degree at all to do the research that you want to do? It seems like in the research world, a vet degree doesn’t add a whole lot of value and it certainly costs a lot. So I’d spend some time really thinking if you even need the DVM. Maybe you do need it, but if you don’t, don’t spend time and a lot of money pursuing it.

I'll reiterate this and what matt said. Particularly thinking about whether you even need the DVM for what you want to do.

After that, I'll say that as someone who did complete a dual degree program (well, I have 2.5 more days before I complete it, technically), I strongly recommend NOT doing a dual program that does concurrent degrees - i.e. 2 years DVM, 4 years PhD, 2 years DVM or some derivation of that. The quality of research that you are able to do when there's a hard deadline on your PhD is quite a bit lower than what you're able to do with a more flexible timeline, and if primarily research is your ultimate career goal, having those high impact, high quality publications is going to be important. There are some programs where the tuition benefits are better with doing a concurrent track (mine being one of them) and there are arguments for doing it concurrently that are good arguments (I did mine concurrently because I want to specialize and wanted my clinical year to be at the end of my program so I could roll into internship right away). But the research quality of a PhD done after - or before - is generally going to be better than one smashed into 3-4 years.

@WhtsThFrequency can also speak to this point.

 

[WhtsThFrequency]

I'll reiterate this and what matt said. Particularly thinking about whether you even need the DVM for what you want to do.

After that, I'll say that as someone who did complete a dual degree program (well, I have 2.5 more days before I complete it, technically), I strongly recommend NOT doing a dual program that does concurrent degrees - i.e. 2 years DVM, 4 years PhD, 2 years DVM or some derivation of that. The quality of research that you are able to do when there's a hard deadline on your PhD is quite a bit lower than what you're able to do with a more flexible timeline, and if primarily research is your ultimate career goal, having those high impact, high quality publications is going to be important. There are some programs where the tuition benefits are better with doing a concurrent track (mine being one of them) and there are arguments for doing it concurrently that are good arguments (I did mine concurrently because I want to specialize and wanted my clinical year to be at the end of my program so I could roll into internship right away). But the research quality of a PhD done after - or before - is generally going to be better than one smashed into 3-4 years.

@WhtsThFrequency can also speak to this point.

Absolutely. For the OP, I'm a DVM/PhD specialist. I mostly teach (MD and DVM students), and do clinical service and collaborative research on the side. I did my PhD after my residency, and while it took an extra year or two compared to a combined program, I had a ton more time to focus on said research and got much higher quality output from it. Combined programs are very dicey IMO and depend a LOT on program timeline, mentor, and $$.

If you want research to be front and center in your career, I would heavily consider going the straight PhD route. You say that you want to be research faculty at a vet school - why a vet school in particular? Emerging diseases, including zoonotic ones, are not just researched in that setting. Or did you just mean research in an academic setting in general?

Here are the big questions: what will a DVM degree do to make you a better or more successful researcher? Really think about that - the specifics of it, not just the "oh a DVM will make me well-rounded blah blah blah" - what exact advantageous skills will it give you in a purely research environment, if any, compared to an intensive standalone PhD? What advantage over a PhD with postdoctoral experience and more publications will a DVM give you in your proposed field? Are you prepared to go through four years and pay a TON of money for an multispecies clinical degree that in the long run you would almost never use if you decide to go full on research?

Edited to add: I don't mean to sound like I'm completely dissuading you from this path - I mean look at me, I did both the clinical degree and the research. So maybe I'm being a bit hypocritical, but just wanted to get you to really think about the "why" behind pursuing both. The DVM was more the required stepping stone to get into my specialty. I use that specialty knowledge and my research chops every day - you know what I don't use? A huge amount of all the clinical stuff I learned in vet school.

 

[WhtsThFrequency]

Another thought - what I would also do is look up people who have the type of job you want. If you’re into researching emerging zoonoses, go to pubmed and find recent high impact papers, and look up the authors (especially the corresponding and first authors). Where are they, what are they doing, what degrees do they have? Google prominent research groups or government in that area - who makes up those groups? Are veterinarians a featured or significant component? That might also give you some great context as to experiences and schooling that will help you get to a similar spot.