Vet / Work Experience

[autumnsky]

I've wanted to be a vet for ages, one of those childhood things you know, and now I'm getting closer to my A Levels I think it's okay to start thinking about it seriously right? But I've taken a[n extremely long] look and it appears to be verrry hard. Is there anyone out there who is a vet and can give me any advice?
Also, it says I need work experience in vets, stables, farms, kennels, anything. I have a week (or so) of work experience at my local vets lined up for later on, but is there anyone who'd be willing to take on a fifteen year old for a week at their farm/stable/kennel? In the North-West Cumbria area. Please let me know =)

[eml]

I am not vet but from the experience of people I know are now training you need to start work experience as soon as you can. Ideally get a holiday/weekend job with a local vet, spend a month lambing, a month milking, time in a kennels, stables etc.

As well as this you will normally need at least 3 Grade A's in strong science subjects at A2 and a genuine interest in all things veterinary.

[jowyles]

Go work on a farm somewhere might have you good place to start, horses u dont really need, get lots of other hobbies aswell and study HARD!

[martini55]

I was told that on top of all the other work experience you need, having experience in vet labs earns you brownie points. Maybe give Pink's Lady a PM as she'll be able to help you out :)

[Pink's lady]

I'm a final year vet so should (emphisis on should:o) know what I'm talking about.

First of all, you need the grade. No grade, no place. They have so many applicants for each place that they never offer to people who don't have the right grades. If you're unlikely to make the grades I would consider something else. Vet nursing would be a good alternative.

three A levels at AAB in Chemistry (at A grade), Biology and either Maths or Physics at A level required at one sitting.

four A levels at ABBB in Chemistry (at A grade), Biology, Maths and Physics required at one sitting.

No other subjects are considered.

If Physics has not been studied at 'A' level a good pass at GCSE is required.

Candidates wishing to undertake two A/S levels in place of 'A' level Physics and Mathematics may do so providing that both Chemistry and Biology are offered at full 'A' level. Normally two 'A' grades must be achieved at A/S level. (Due to pressure on places, at present, no combination of subjects other than those listed above are approved for entry onto the course).

Above grades must normally be passed in one sitting and at the first attempt

This is the Edinburgh Uni requirements and they're pretty standard for the other schools. (You can look them up through the univeristy web site - only Edinburgh, Glasgow, Bristol, Nottingham (started last year), Liverpool and two in London do Vet med)

You also also need as much work experience as possible

Practical Experience
How Much Practical Experience Should I Gain?
As much and as varied as possible which should include:

seeing veterinary practice, both large and small animal if possible.
spending time on livestock farms (dairying and lambing are particularly useful).
other animal establishments, for example, zoos, kennels, catteries, wildlife centres, pig farms, poultry farms & stables.
A day at an abattoir is recommended but not demanded.
Experience gained in veterinary or medical laboratories is also encouraged to help candidates to appreciate the scientific basis of veterinary medicine.
The amount of experience cannot be quantified in terms of days or weeks as it depends, to some extent, on the opportunities available to individual candidates. Obviously the broader the experience the better but applicants are reminded that experience should not be gained to the detriment of their academic studies.

Specific details on your practical experience (number of days/weeks spent and species worked with) should be clearly shown in the personal statement section of your UCAS form.

References from those responsible for supervising relevant work experience are of great assistance, and should be sent directly to the Admissions Officer in the School Office no later than 31st October.

They have loads of horsey applicants so aren't really interested in that - what they really want is farm experience and vet experience. Farmers are ALWAYS grateful of help during lambing (just go along to the farm and ask - lambing is roughly march time, so during your easter break) as are dairy farms for milking (most places milk twice daily so you could help after school). If you can say you've done a session lambing and a couple of weeks milking, the vet schools love it.

Also see if there is a veterinary diagnostic centre near you that you can spend a week at.

I would expect you to have done at least 6 weeks vet placements (during your holidays and work experience weeks) at vets. It would also look really good if you helped at a vets maybe once a week. Why not go along to a practise and ask if you could come and help after school maybe on day a week. It'll just be boring things like cleaning out kennel but looks good on your CV.

It's a lot of hard work to get in but well worth it!

[autumnsky]

Thank you, that was really helpful. I can see I am going to have to work very hard but in the end this is what I really want to do, so thank you very much for your help. =)

[Lucie]

If I am not mistaken, a degree (especially in a science related subject) is also considered acceptable.
A girl I was at university with didn't make the grade with A levels, but she did well enough to be accepted onto an Equine Science degree program. On completion of that she was accepted to vet school :).

[eventerbabe]

Can i just point out, even having the grades and experience does not guarentee you a place. Please do 'prepare yourself for failure' as it is very competitive. I had 5 YEARS of work experience and above the required grades plus 6 glowing references and was still not offered a place. I think it was the "So, what do your parents do" question that Edinburgh asked me that sealed my fate there..... they are well known for prioritising local and private school pupils, especially those with wealthy parents! :rolleyes:

You can go down the route of doing a degree than reapplying for vets school. It's something i looked into. But fees alone for the 5 years about to £27,000 or something stupid like that with no bursaries generally availible.

Your UCAS personal statement really needs to be written soley geared towards vet med, so bare that in mind then. I kept a log book (that i took to my vets school interviews) of all my work experience. You really must show dedication and i, personally, feel that 6 weeks experience really isn't enough. I spent 5 years gathering experience. I worked (for free) at catteries, kennels, spent every holiday and 2 mornings a week (by arrangement with my school) at a range of local vets practises. I worked at a veterinary hospital, did lambing, calving, worked on a pig farm, dairy farm, shadowed my vet on abatoir inspections, worked in the lab at the vet hospital, worked with a homeopathic vet...... managed to fill 5 or 6 log books at the end!

I was told by both schools i interviewed at that my chemistry was weak (despite having A's :rolleyes:). Thats why i now have 2 degrees and almost a PhD in chemistry.......... :p

[joosie]

Can i just point out, even having the grades and experience does not guarentee you a place. Please do 'prepare yourself for failure' as it is very competitive. I had 5 YEARS of work experience and above the required grades plus 6 glowing references and was still not offered a place. I think it was the "So, what do your parents do" question that Edinburgh asked me that sealed my fate there..... they are well known for prioritising local and private school pupils, especially those with wealthy parents! :rolleyes:

Eventerbabe that could easily have been written by my sister!! She had the same responses, despite 6 years of excellent work experience, excellent refs and excellent grades. And yes, she was asked about our parents at her interviews (working class Cornish family, mum's a cleaner, dad works in a Post Office - not a chance.) A friend of hers with half the experience managed to get herself an offer for the Cambridge vet school... I'm sure it had nothing to do with her father being an MP... :rolleyes:

[martini55]

You can go down the route of doing a degree than reapplying for vets school. It's something i looked into. But fees alone for the 5 years about to £27,000 or something stupid like that with no bursaries generally availible.


It's worse than that! This is from the D!ck vet website:

Category

Fee for 2007-08 entry
Standard full fee rate (per annum) £17,500
Lump sum paid at the outset of the programme (five years) £85,500
Lump sum paid at the outset of the programme (four years - for direct second year entrants) £68,500

I don't know how they justify that:eek:

I looked into it too but I decided against it, for obvious reasons!

[autumnsky]

Despite all that has been said I'm still not put off, not wanting to let myself be pessimistic just because not everyone's lucky, I mean, I could still be one of the lucky few, right? I started working at a kennels yesterday and today I was at the vets watching operations and helping out wherever possible. I saw a dental (a dog with THE most rotten teeth ever) and getting a lump removed out of a paw not to mention SIX castrations and I'm still not put off. I think just from watching I could probably castrate a cat now lol (not that I'm going to try!). Next time I go they're putting me on call with an actual vet which should be cool.
Anyway, my point is, some people do make it and I may be one of those people so I'll just have to work as hard as I can and keep my fingers crossed, right?
Couple more questions:
1. Can you apply to more than one university? and
2. What happens if you get turned down for the course you want to do, can you reapply for another course? Doesn't that mean all your past years of specific work were for nothing?

Thanks for your help everyone.

[martini55]

You need to show them that you are set on doing vet med so you should only apply for vet med and nothing else. Also use up all your choices- i.e. put down all the universities you can. I think it's around 6 choices you get. If you get rejected first time I think you can apply again one more time but I'm not 100% sure.

[eventerbabe]

Nobody is trying to put you off, but you must be prepared to be disappointed. I'm sure i was actually asked what i'd do if i did NOT get into vet med in 1 of my interviews.

You have 6 UCAS choices and you can only apply to FOUR vet schools (PL listed them in her post). The other two must be something else. I opted for science courses (chemistry and biomed science).

Just to put numbers into perspective for you, when i went to an edinburgh open day i was told they get 12,000 applicants for the vet med course and out of those 12,000 only 200 get interviewed. Then they have 70 places to offer, and remember a portion of these places go to mature and overseas students so UK intake is even smaller. Vet med is highly, highly competitive and there is no getting away from that i'm afraid.

To answer your second question, that is why vets schools stipulate you only use 4 UCAS choices for vet med, the other 2 are your fallback incase you are unsuccessful. Think how i felt, 5 years of work experience down the drain :rolleyes:;) You can take a gap year and reapply but i think you need to know where to draw the line. I spoke to one girl at the edinburgh open day who was on her 4th gap year, she'd been unsuccessful in her vet med application 4 times.

[autumnsky]

Wow. That's really something. I'm wondering if I should consider a different career path instead? It seems like I'm unlikely to get in even if I work my butt off. It's just I can't really imagine doing anything else. Hmm.
I was going to hopefully go on and become an equine vet, so what other equine-related jobs are there which are rewarding and pay decently? (I want to be able to afford my own horses). I mean I can look these up myself, I just wanted to get your input.

[eventerbabe]

i have to reply quick as i've an exam in 2 minutes! please don't give up!! get some work experience under your belt and give it a shot. Just make sure you pick some decent back up choices ;) do be aware vets schools look unfavourably on horse owning female applicants as they think they just want to work with horses.

[autumnsky]

Well, luckily (in this case but not many) I don't have a horse so that should be okay. I've decided I won't give up =) I'm so stupid thinking about this in so much detail when I still have three years of school to go but I think I would prefer to go to either Cambridge, Edinburgh, the RVC or Nottingham. Now I just have to buckle down and work verrrry hard =) I'm on call with a vet tomorrow! How exciting!
Thanks for the help and support everyone, particularly eventerbabe (good luck with your exam by the way), I think I will carry on working towards becoming a vet. And if I can't, there's always English to fall back on. :)
Oh and eventerbabe, thanks for the idea, I am going to also keep a log book of my work experience :) thanks.

[Pink's lady]

Specific equine vets are few and far between and the vet course is 80% other animals, so if you 'want to work with horses' then vet medicine isn't really for you. However seeing lots of pracitise will tell you if you want to do the job or not. Most vets work with small animals (where the money is) and keep horses as a hobby.


I'm so stupid thinking about this in so much detail when I still have three years of school to go

NO! Your very definintly not. If you left it till next year it's going to be too late!

Vet med is good thing to aim for. Even if you don't get in you'll have the grades to just about anything else you want.!

[eventerbabe]

Vet med is good thing to aim for. Even if you don't get in you'll have the grades to just about anything else you want.!

that is very true! i had my pick of any science-related course at most unis, with the vast majority offering me direct entry to second year.

Do keep a log book, you need it to show the interview panel :D

[autumnsky]

Vet med is good thing to aim for. Even if you don't get in you'll have the grades to just about anything else you want.!
Oh, cool. Well that's good then, I will try that.

I was out on call today and saw a vet doing fertility checks on some cows - niiiice. Can't wait to do that part.
I also watched several more operations. A cat came in that had been hit by a car and it was so saddening that it really makes me think I want to do this job and be able to help. So yeah.
I've started my log book too :D It will be useful, I think.
Oh and I think I'd enjoy treating all sorts of animals from the experience I've had of it so far, so I don't think I'll be a specific equine vet if that's how it is.
Thanks for all the help and ideas :)

[Mazpup]

I've just finished my first year at vet school (which is why I'm never on here anymore, I simply don't have the time!) and just want to say it is incredibly hard to get in but by no means impossible. Its never too early to be thinking about becoming a vet, ideally you need to get As and A*s at GCSEs as well as As at A levels and its certainly never too early to start work experience. Make sure you pay lots of attention to whats going on especially at the vets as it is the kind of thing they'll quiz you about at interview. For now just make sure you work hard and cram in as much work experience as possible. I haven't added much more to what anyone else has said but thought I'd mention its not possible to get in, I managed! (Just about)

[Seabiscuit]

Eventerbabe your history of trying to get in to vet school could have been written about me too!!!! And my mum is convinced it was due to my father's occupation - she wonders why on earth that is relevant on a UCAS form if not to use as a selection criterion!!! And I'm the same as you - I went on to try and prove myself and ended up with a first class science degree, am now writing a part time PhD and working as a research scientist!

Please try autumnsky, and if all else fails there are other degree programmes you can get on to which are also very interesting and related.

[Amanda22]

i'm 15 as well and am looking to be a vet when i am older!
i went on work experience at a vets and it was great! dunno what do now though :-| does any1 no what i need to take at college??

[horsey1992devon]

i'm 15 as well and am looking to be a vet when i am older!
i went on work experience at a vets and it was great! dunno what do now though :-| does any1 no what i need to take at college??

look on the previous page, somebody (can't remember who) copied over entry requirements ;)

[martini55]

i'm 15 as well and am looking to be a vet when i am older!
i went on work experience at a vets and it was great! dunno what do now though :-| does any1 no what i need to take at college??

Have a look at the entry requirements on university websites, It'll give you an idea of exactly what you need to aim for.

[Amanda22]

tarr!

[horsey1992devon]

I posted this on the other vet thread too, but thought you might be interested in this link:
http://www.connexions-direct.com/jobs4u/index.cfm?pid=49&catalogueContentID=263

has loadsa info about becoming a vet, what work experiance you need, qualifications etc. :)