Friday, June 27, 2014

Vet School Application: Getting Started

I thought that I would put up a couple of posts about the process of applying to vet school. It is far more complex and time-consuming than applying for a typical graduate program, even one at a top tier school. 

Almost all AAVMC-accredited vet schools use the same online application. This includes 28 US schools, 5 Canadian schools, and a variety of other international schools (UK, Australia, Mexico, etc.). The application is managed by a clearing house called the Veterinary Medical College Application Service (VMCAS). (Most of the schools also have supplemental applications that you have to obtain from and return directly to the schools. I'll try to address these in a future post.)

If you clicked through on that VMCAS link, you might have noticed that the VMCAS site is rather thorough. One might even say that it verges on the overly wordy. There is also a 64-page instruction manual to help with filling out the various parts of the application. After looking through it all, a common theme quickly emerges. 

There are deadlines, and they are firm. I don't think this is surprising or unrealistic: we are dealing with the administrations of more than 50 universities. You can't stop the grinding of those gears for one person.

But apparently there are plenty of people who try to do just that. The website is full of bold, red, boxed text reminding applicants of deadlines. The instruction manual has reminders in almost every section. The most critical, rate-limiting step is the VMCAS verification of your transcripts.

Even though you have the transcripts sent directly from the schools you attended to VMCAS, i.e., official transcripts that you don't touch, they check every single course. You, the applicant, have to physically create an entry in the application then type in the school, term, year, your status (freshman, senior, etc.), course number, course title, type of course (selected from two lists provided by VMCAS), grade, and credit hours for every single college course you ever took, regardless of its relevance to your vet school application. VMCAS then checks what you typed against the official transcripts they receive. Not only does the entry of these data take a lot of your time, it takes a human employed by VMCAS some time at the other end to compare the two. If you cut things too close, your application may not be approved for release.

Even more alarming, there are people who cut it so close that the VMCAS website has warnings that it can take several minutes for the final credit card payment to be processed. This means that there are people who are literally clicking the "submit" button one or two minutes before the September 2 midnight deadline.

I am not sure that I would risk something I have worked so hard for on poor time management. That just doesn't look very professional, does it.

I have already started my application. I filled out some of the easy bits first then realized that the second rate-limiting step is the references. They need time to prepare their evaluation--and if they don't meet their deadline, it can't be because I didn't give them enough time. So I spent a few days getting my four references set up. To my great pleasure, all four have confirmed that they received the VMCAS email. That part is now in motion. I can't really influence it too much after this point, although if they haven't submitted their letters, a gentle reminder near the end of July isn't out of line.

Another section of the application asked me to list the schools that I want to send my final, completed, approved application to. There is of course a fee for each school you select. I didn't want to be stupid with my money but a second and a third honest evaluation of my spreadsheet kept turning up the same schools. In no order, they are: Oregon State, University of Wisconsin-Madison, University of Illinois-Urbana, NC State, Cornell, and University of Guelph-Ontario. (I wanted to add Tufts to that list but they do not use VMCAS; to apply there I would have to fill out a completely separate application and get my references to write more letters; this may not be reasonable.) I will get an excellent education at any of these schools. And only if, hamdallilah, I get an offer from more than one of them, will I worry about ranking them. To be honest, financial aid might be a deciding factor in the final decision.

What I didn't realize was that by adding these schools to my VMCAS application, the system generated an email alerting them that I was applying. I've already received emails from two of the schools. Generic emails, of course. They don't know me, they can't see my application yet. They only know that I expressed interest in their programs. On the one hand, it is flattering to be contacted by a person with a name and an email and phone number--I can get back to them with questions. On the other hand, I am keeping my eye on the end game: an email is nice but I want an offer of admission. With some financial aid attached.

Having been through graduate school once, and going through it again now, I am perfectly aware that a lot of the requirements are hoop-jumping: can you follow instructions? Can you meet deadlines? Grad school of course brings more to the table than just that. Particularly for the PhD, you are tested on your ability to conceive, propose, execute, analyze, and communicate a research project. I've passed all those tests, I know what how the game is played. Even though the vet school application will take weeks to complete, I think I am up to the challenge.

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