To think I can go to Uni to become a Vet

[Lilt1992]

Im mid twenties in a dead end job. I was brought up on a council estate with nothing, never had anyone to look up to, never took school seriously but I had potential, all my teachers kept telling me. I left with fairly ok GCSE's. Signed onto benefits by 18 years old and then went into full time work. Now that I have money behind me and I'm older, I'm regretting not going to Uni and getting a career. My dream would be to be a vet and I'm considering studying Veterinary medicine, a 6 year course. I've been doing a bunch of research but my next step is to speak to a Uni or vet surgery to get an idea of how I'll get accepted. However, part of me feels stupid to even consider myself good enough to do it. I'm having these constant doubts. Family have told me that anything is possible. Has anyone else got any experience with something similar?

Any careers advisor advising OP would give her a range of related careers and she would decide which ones were realistic for her qualifications and personality.

You may be able to find an Access course which is better for older people that A-Levels, but first of all, I'd decide which Uni you would like to go to and see if they'll have a chat with you. They'll be able to give you the options and possibilities.

Trouble with doing a degree first is that no 2nd degrees are funded. So you'd get limited loans and have to find all the fees yourself. You need to be pretty rich to go that route.
Gateway courses were made just for you.

We're you one of the brightest in your year at school OP? Were you particularly interested in and good at science? Was there a big reason that you underperformed in your gcses?
If not, it's going to be exceptionally challenging to get the grades needed at GCSE and A level. But that doesn't mean you can't get another related job working with animals OP.
Contact the National Careers service. The Prospects website is also a good resource.

Arrietty
“She has already said that all her teachers thought her able but she didn’t take school seriously or apply herself.

Why are you (and some others on this thread) so keen to hold her down to the level of her teenage underachievement?”

Because I’ve been there, and I know that A-levels are nothing compared to the vet course. And because every other person we speak to say that they wanted to be a vet. If the OP was more serious about it than other applicants then she would already know how to get on the course and she would already have practical experience.

Don't worry OP, you can always settle as a VN in your plan B option because you were not able to be a vet with your significantly worse qualifications.
Unbelievable

Barking mad assumptions about vet nurses! It's a completely different job, different focus, different skills and certainly requires a decent level of education!

I have a few close friends who are vets, as such I see the darker side of the job - stress, depression, anxiety. They tell me mental health issues are rife in the profession.

One friend said she would never advise anybody to follow this career path. The job is insanely hard, poorly paid and very stressful. The degree is nails too.

@ArriettyJones

Be realistic with yourself -you say your gcse grades were ok, but were you regularly top of the class, or were you middle-of-the road

She has already said that all her teachers thought her able but she didn’t take school seriously or apply herself.

Why are you (and some others on this thread) so keen to hold her down to the level of her teenage underachievement?

Because there's a big difference between teachers saying someone has potential and meaning they are academically able enough to do VetMed. OP could be massively academically able and just have performed poorly (for her own ability level) at 16 - it's possible. However, I would expect anyone who is strong enough in the sciences for this type of course to pretty much walk GCSE maths.

OP this is not in anyway a reflection on you - you might be brilliant academically and it just didn't work out at 16. Even if not, academic intelligence is certainly not everything! From what everyone has set Vet Nursing might actually be a better fit for the job you want anyway.

I know limited amounts about the detail of VetMed (except seeing that the people who got onto the course that I know where top academically). I have experience of another career course that people went into without being academically strong enough - either for the course or for the eventual job. The majority in this situation had been misled on likely outcomes and were just wasting their money on a dream that wasn't ever going to happen. Some knew it was a long shot and wanted to try any but for many no one had sat them down and said 'honestly, if you're struggling with X you're very unlikely to find a job in y'.

A levels are not necessary to get into University to study to be a vet. A friend of mine was entirely home schooled, did Maths and English GCSE and then trained as a vet nurse. A few years later she did an access course in London and got a place at Bristol Uni to study veterinary. She was 29 when she started at Bristol and has just competed her 5 year course. She met other mature students and did very well academically. I'd say go for it!

(before I get crushed, I'm assuming that OP would be academically able to do Vet Nursing if she applies herself because she was described at school as having a lot of potential. I am not meaning to say that Vet Nursing is something anyone could do!)

@Lilt1992 I'd strongly advise some work experience or at least making sure you're fully aware of what being a vet can entail:

Powerful farm animals in freezing muddy conditions, abattoirs, euthanising animals that you'd rather give a chance to, welfare cases, treatment of reactive animals is just a start. It's a really wonderful regarding job but also extremely tough.

That’s great for your friend Snowy, but the OP isn’t a vet nurse.

TBH, OP, try and get some work experience in a surgery first and see the kind of shit the general public throw at you, before you try and persue being a vet. I was quite shocked by some of the stories my daughter came home with, from someone lunging at her and making physical threats because the vet treated a very sick and anemic cat for fleas, to another owner who insisted a young and healthy cat be put down as they were moving and refused to listen to the vet's pleas to give her up for re-homing, to the appalling cruelty cases that pass their threshold. She came home crying quite a lot. The animals are wonderful, the owners, not so much. Every day there was a case that broke her heart. There are an awful lot of mistreated animals out there, not always because people are cruel but just thick and misguided and vets are limited in what they can do to help animals that are private property if the owners will not co-operate. A friend of mine is an ex-vet and she couldn't take the stress anymore.

There's no harm in being ambitious and going for it, but getting into vet school is very competitive even if you get good A-levels. My sister got all As and A*s at GCSE, and 3 As at A-level. Despite this she was rejected from all six vet schools (that was how many there were at the time). She re-applied the next year (a gap year spent working at a local vet) and got into two.

Twooter, I'm not saying she is a vet nurse. The students who did the access course were not all vet nurses and a number of them were accepted to go on to study veterinary at university.

There are other routes into study at university apart from traditional A levels and many Universities are increasingly aware of giving those students who haven't followed a typical academic path opportunities to study at university.

But thats the thing, you need to be incredibly dedicated to study vet nursing as an entrance to vet medicine, same as any degree to help you get accepted to vet medicine, thats years before getting on to vet medicine.
Definitely get a volunteer job in a practice before you know if you want to go ahead. And see RCVS and BVA websites.

@snowycat for the last 15 years the entry for FE ( non-degree) veterinary nursing has been 5 GCSEs at C grade including Maths, English and a science so your friend must have had more than Maths and English GCSE. The vast majority of FE candidates have much higher qualifications - the FE route competition is much, much higher than the HE route I get around 30 CVs per year when we actually only take one FE nurse every 3 years. FE veterinary nursing students have to complete everything that foundation degree students have to do and hold down a full time job - it is an incredibly tough route. An access course would be a much more straight forward route.

Would I need to do an Access course at a Uni or could I do this online? Like Open University?
TIA

Also, there is a one year Access to Higher Education Health and Health Sciences Diploma level 3 at my local college.
Is that something I should be looking at?
TIA

You need to look at the entry requirements for your preferred vet school(s) - are you in a position to move anywhere in the UK or are you restricted to a particular area?

When I was applying you needed AAA at A-level including chemistry and biology plus extensive and varied work experience. It was intensely competitive and outstanding applicants vastly outnumbered the places available. There are more options now in terms of universities offering the course, but from what I gathered from various work experience school pupils and seeing practice vet students before I left the UK 18 months ago (I now live and work in Canada), it is still extremely demanding and competitive.

I think as a first port of call you need to find out what qualifications you need and realistically evaluate if you're going to be able to get them and how to go about it. As an example the minimum academic requirements for the RVC Gateway course is CCC at A-level including chemistry and biology, or a level 3 extended diploma in applied science or animal management plus 5 C-grade GCSEs including DA science or all 3 individual sciences. You also have to meet all of the Widening Participation criteria. Other unis may have varying requirements but having 5 GCSEs at grade C (or whatever the equivalent numerical grade is now) including English, maths, chemistry and biology or double award science is likely to be the minimum starting point for most if not all of the veterinary access courses.

The actual veterinary degree course is extremely academically demanding, and the job itself is extremely emotionally, physically and mentally demanding. It's not really about looking after animals in the literal sense. If that's what you're interested in then you really might want to seriously consider vet nursing - the nurses spend far more time actually hands-on looking after the animals than I do. You should get some experience in a practice as soon as you can, although Covid is obviously going to make that difficult at the moment. I love what I do, I've never wanted to do anything else, but the reality of the job is really quite far removed from most people's perception of it.

@Lilt1992
You need to speak to the individual vet schools and not rely on randoms on the internet for veterinary career advice

I have to agree with a pp and suggest that your lack of experience and initiative don't bode well for accessing a vet course. I'm not entirely sure that the job is what you think it is.

Please go for it. You are young and have so many opportunities. Don't worry about what gscef grades you had. They will give you basic testing any course you go for as a mature student, and then advise you on whatever you need to get into the course. You may have a long road ahead, but WOW a dream come true. Anything IS possible, it really is, if you want it enough.

Ruby, that’s really not true though.

Also a vet here. Initiative is the key here OP - you’re asking questions on MN that have answers available quite easily online if you look at the university web pages, RCVS career pages etc. Even getting work experience placements to get into vet school can be competitive - I take students for 1 week placements, and will offer further experience to those that impress me, but even to get that first week I expect a good application letter and CV and only have limited spaces available, and nothing at the moment due to covid, I don’t know when I’ll be offering work experience placements again right now. But I would expect even the 15
-16 year olds to already know which universities offer courses, what grades they need etc. I’ve had some fab students from a specific access to HE course that is accepted by RVC, they knew more than me about current entrance requirements and I’ve given them glowing references as they excelled at their WE placements, but they found out all of the information themselves. If I have students asking me what they need to do to get into uni my response will be to research it themselves, the information is all freely available online.
Re academic requirements - I think they are set high for good reason - you need to be pretty intellectually nimble to cope with this job, it is mentally and emotionally exhausting, and you need to be able to have a life outside work as well in the hour or so between finishing your shift and collapsing into bed at the end of the day which I think the students who manage A* grades alongside all the extra curriculars are well prepared for.