WAMC c/o 2027 (second time applicant after gap year)

[RazzJazz]

Howdy y’all! I was hoping for some advice on if/where I should apply this cycle. I applied previously with pretty bad stats (minimum vet experience, average GPA, and underreported animal experience) for c/o 2025.

22, Female, Texas resident (area of practice I’m most interested in is shelter medicine with behavioral intervention/support, bonus points if it's in a large city with mixed residents [ex. equine and exotics])


Schools I’m looking at applying to:

Texas A&M University

Texas Tech (basically a 0% chance of getting in but would be included in the set cost for TMDSAS application cost so why not right)

Kansas State University

Washington State University

North Carolina State University

Purdue University

University of Florida


Degrees:
B.S. in Biomedical Sciences, Texas A&M University (received)

M.S. NTO in Biomedical Sciences, Texas A&M University (graduating in December)

Cum. UG GPA: 3.67 (possible ‘red flags’ from UG coursework: q dropped the second semester of BICH [metabolism] and retook over summer for a B, C in honors Biomedical Anatomy, C in biomedical physiology, W on my transcript from a 0-hour research project I dropped right after add/drop week ended, avg course load of 14 hours)

Cum. G GPA: 4.0

Total Cum. GPA: 3.72
Prerequisite GPA: 3.6

Science GPA: 3.67

BCPM GPA: 3.69

UG Last 45: 3.6

Last 45 if they include G coursework: 3.78


Veterinary Experience:
Volunteer: 92 hours at a SA-one doctor practice and 24 hours at a SA-three doctor practice. 4 hours at TAMU LA hospital (cut short due to COVID). ~90 hours of exotic vet experience from local WC (tiger surgery, routine treatment and observations, Xrays, etc.)



Paid: 13 hours at a monthly mobile shot clinic (vet assistant, 4 months), ~510 hours as a vet assistant at a local 2-3 doctor SA hospital while in graduate school (~7.5 months by app close)

Total: 639 hours SA, 4 hours LA, and 90 hours exotic [733 hours]. Still not great but a lot better than the last time I applied.

Animal Experience:
- 2700 hours training service dogs (full time for all of UG)

- 80 hours volunteering at SA shelter (focus on animals w/medical or behavioral problems)

- 683 hours exotic (675 at WC center, rest split between one-off experiences)

- 2 hours cattle handling clinic

- 200 hours from pet ownership (100*2 for TAMU, actually have owned 10+ species of pets)


Letters of Recommendation:
WC Vet who I’ve worked/volunteered under for over a year now

Vet at the SA hospital I worked at during graduate school/currently

Not sure about the third one (either professor who has written me a number of rec letters at this point though it’s been a while since I’ve taken their class or the other vet at the SA hospital I work at)

GRE:
I know it’s not considered for most schools but I took it for graduate school admissions.

158 Verbal Reasoning (79th percentile), 157 Quantitative Reasoning (61st percentile), and 5.0 Analytical Writing (91st percentile).



Research:

- 50 hours volunteering under a psychology PhD student (behavioral intervention and support techniques for improving the social and emotional outcomes of African American learners with/at risk of emotional behavioral disorders in urban elementary schools, I mostly did data entry and comparison alongside writing portions of their first manuscript draft)



- 20 hours of entomology research (made a field research proposal [observational study] where I was going to be observing pathogenic microbial agents in amblyomma ticks infecting cane toads, would have completed the research on a study abroad that summer but it was canceled due to COVID)

- 12 hours of animal science research (the aforementioned research I dropped, it was a cattle social mixing experiment where I observed and notated animal behavior of the intermingled groups)



Non-Vet Work Experience:

Resident Advisor for a year/until I graduated (attended resident housing association meetings for the dorm and led multi-hall co-programming activities)

Awards:

President’s Service Award (two separate years)

Distinguished Student Certificate from my college in UG

Certificate of Achievement from ResLife



Extracurriculars:



College-

general member of service dog org. for 3 years (senior raiser, trained incoming members one-on-one and classes) and then Media Designer/Officer for 1 year. In retrospect, I really did just go all-in into this 😅

Pre-Vet Society for 3.5 years (general member, member of the meeting)

Band for 1 year

Big Event (like a one day a year thing so not a big deal) for 2 years



Highschool (does this even matter? I had a lot more time back in high school so I was more involved with a wide array of activities officially)-

Creative writing club member for 2 years

Anime club president for 3 years (arranged talks by local voice actors, involvement with cross-school activities [parade, open house, etc.], and a tour of Funimation studios)

Concert/marching band for 4 years

Youth orchestra for 1 year

Trombone choir for 3 years

Jazz band for 2 years

Competed in Texas French Symposium

Competed in VASE (Visual Arts Scholastic Event)

National Honor Society for 2 years

French Honor Society (Société Honoraire de Français) for 1 year

National Art Honor Society for 1 year



I still play music, draw/paint, and write but not through like a group.

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[max_wildlife]

hey @RazzJazz !
so i didn't apply to any of the same schools -- but definitely include your high school stuff. i was 10/11ish years out of high school when i applied/interviewed, and they still asked me about my experiences from there (eg ice hockey, theatre, newspaper etc.) i would keep it. i was also asked about my current hobbies, including playing music & other arts that didn't get categorized through a group, but seeing as i'm more of an artist than a scientist (despite experience) i was deadset on including them. i listed my friends or old teachers if they were still in touch as my reference, and if it's something i did truly on my own -- like surfing -- i straight up listed the board rental shop.

i'm not sure how conventional that is but it was well-received for me. i really, really wanted to show that i was and am a whole person outside of vet med. if you're concerned about it looking bad, you can always double check with admissions of your top few schools.

 

[cecetot]

hey @RazzJazz !
so i didn't apply to any of the same schools -- but definitely include your high school stuff. i was 10/11ish years out of high school when i applied/interviewed, and they still asked me about my experiences from there (eg ice hockey, theatre, newspaper etc.) i would keep it. i was also asked about my current hobbies, including playing music & other arts that didn't get categorized through a group, but seeing as i'm more of an artist than a scientist (despite experience) i was deadset on including them. i listed my friends or old teachers if they were still in touch as my reference, and if it's something i did truly on my own -- like surfing -- i straight up listed the board rental shop.

i'm not sure how conventional that is but it was well-received for me. i really, really wanted to show that i was and am a whole person outside of vet med. if you're concerned about it looking bad, you can always double check with admissions of your top few schools.

may I ask how you put down things like music? I put bass and guitar down in experiences and just mentioned how I was self taught and wouod play with other people. I would love to include all hobbies to again like you said, emphasis the holistic-ness as a candidate. Thanks for your input!

 

[max_wildlife]

may I ask how you put down things like music? I put bass and guitar down in experiences and just mentioned how I was self taught and wouod play with other people. I would love to include all hobbies to again like you said, emphasis the holistic-ness as a candidate. Thanks for your input!

sure; i think vmcas might've changed a bit -- i submitted my app in 2020.
but, looking at it now, i listed it as extra-curricular and put my friend that i played the most with as a reference. i am also largely self-taught; took a few lessons here and there but didn't list them. so, listed it as volunteer, and i just put down 'guitar'. i put the location as where we practiced - which was the coffee house we both worked at. i kept it to ~4hrs per week to round out for weeks we didn't play, even though there were many weeks i played more than that.

to illustrate other situations -
for when i played rec hockey not in a league, i just put my skating buddy even though she doesn't play. all she needed to say if they called was, yes, she plays. but i was clear that she also didn't play, just skated with me. and then for surfing, i didn't list anyone at all -- just the board shop's number. it didn't make me. i also broke up my league/not league experience.

if you have someone that's seen you draw/paint/perform and knows you do it, that should be enough. using your own address shouldn't be a problem, but again you can always call a preferred school to double-check in case their perspectives are different. my main schools of interest were tufts and ohio, and i got into both.