Discuss briefly the development of your interest in veterinary medicine. Discuss those activities and unique experiences that have contributed to your preparation for a professional program. Discuss your understanding of the veterinary medical profession, and discuss your career goals and objectives.
You are allotted a total of 5000 characters in which to cover these topics. Characters, not words. My current draft has 4894 characters, 865 words. It's not quite where I want it to be, but it might be close. I've made an appointment next week with someone at the Writing Center at the library on campus to review it (free service, why not use it). I need some other eyeballs too--if any of you want to be of help, email me at lilspotteddog at gmail. I could use critiques of both grammar and organization of thoughts and of how well the essay addresses the questions.
Entering in all of the college courses I have ever taken took quite a bit of time. But one of the other time-consuming sections of the application is the experience section. Fortunately, I heeded the warnings of other students about this and I had already collected a lot of the relevant information in a version of my CV, which I refer to as the "animal" CV.
You have to list at least one activity under each of these categories: Vet, Animal, Research, Employment, Honors and Awards, and Community Activities. It would not look good to click the box that says "I do not have any X experience." For each particular entry, you have a maximum of 480 characters to describe what you did. That was probably the hardest part, condensing each one of my activities down.
Employment, that was easy. Research, thankfully I could fill that section out with a great master's project in poultry nutrition. Animal, well, I can draw on a decade of animal-assisted therapy, flyball, agility, and conformation, and of course four years of classes that I taught while in Saudi Arabia. Honors and Awards, this stumped me for a bit. I briefly considered firing up an old PC I have stored in a back closet and dredging up an old CV that lists all the awards I got when I was an undergrad the first time around. Coming to my senses, I decided that was obsessive and annoying. I limited it to one award from that era, one from grad school the first time around, and the ones I've earned while I've been at OSU. I suppose I am taking it for granted that I have Honors and Awards to even go on about, but I'm in competition here. I am applying as an out-of-state candidate to all six of my short-list schools. I need to make sure I stand out in every single category, not just one or two.
Community Activities really stopped me for a couple of days. The instructions allow you to include hobbies and sports. But all my hobbies and sports were covered under the Animal category. I ended up going with French. I calculated that I took around 200 hours of French while I was in Saudi, plus another three terms here at OSU. I plan to complete three more terms (the third year) by next April even though not one of those credits will count towards my master's degree. French seems to be as close to a hobby as anything else I do.
When I arrived here in April of last year, I knew that the hardest task ahead of me was gaining enough vet-supervised experience to use on the application, and doing it in just a year or two. I have been pretty focused on that goal. And now, upon reviewing the list, I have to say it doesn't look too bad. I am a bit thin on large animal experience, but the poultry research helps me in this regard. Chickens aren't large animal but they most certainly aren't classified as companion animals!
Even when all the parts are done, I won't hit "submit" until the end of July. I will review everything once or twice and give it time to settle. In the meantime, I'll start working on the supplemental applications for each school.
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