Work experience and applying for a university place

[IrianOfW]

Can anyone tell me what constitutes acceptable work experience for university application please?

DD has done formal 'work experience' over the summer hols which she arranged with the business owner with an eye to her application, but that bulk of her experience has been done in an informal setting - ie. helping out at a stables every Saturday for the last 8 years or so. Will that count? What evidence does she need to prove her experience?

DD beginning to panic now. Hence so am I ....

Why does she need work experience? Is this subject-specific (eg. medicine)?

If she is applying for most degrees, she doesn't need work experience and certainly doesn't need to 'prove' it in any formal way - she'd mention it (if at all) to demonstrate her interests and maybe give her something to talk about in an interview, but it shouldn't need to be a big part of her application unless there's a subject-specific reason.

Yes it is subject-specific - she wants to do vet physiotherapy and the application calls for at least 4 weeks in the last 18 month with horse and dogs. She spent three weeks at a kennels over the holidays and got signed form showing what she did. But the bulk of her time has been at the stables and that is what she is worried about.

It's a very small intake and there are only about 3 places in the UK that do a course of ths nature, so presumably very competitive.

Can she not ask the universities she's applying to? If there are only three places with a small intake, it seems fair enough.

She has tried but had no reply as yet.

Harper Adams runs this course and is VERY explicit about what they want to see. I am amazed you have not already looked this up! I found it in an instant on their details about this course. I am not surprised they have not replied when it is clearly on the web site! The web site says work with horses and dogs is what they want. Just tell her to read it.

She had read it. It says 4 weeks work experience. She just wants to know what evidence she needs to show it.

Thanks for your help

On the assumption that helping at the stables every Saturday involves working with the horses and not working in the cafe, then yes of course that counts as acceptable - I understand your overall nervousness, but when they say 'working with horses' and she works with horses, it's pretty obvious that's fine!

Evidence-wise - she doesn't need to provide anything. As long as she talks about it in her PS and what she has learnt as a result that is all that's needed. The UCAS process doesn't allow extra bits of paper to be included.

Thanks titchy. Yes she wasn't working in the cafe! Plenty of horse-related graft - there wasn't really anything she wasn't involved with but the current stables is a stud for American Minatures so she is concerned it might not count. She has just found a local riding stables where she will work (with proper sized horss) for the next few weeks after college and over half-term.

When she does her personal statement, it is what she has learnt from the work experience that is relevant to the course. So read the prospectus carefully and relate the work experience to that. Is a horse cold backed? What has been done to alleviate that? Have any of the horses had a physitherapist attend to them? What was wrong with them? Can she get in touch with them and accompany them for some visits?

She could maybe ask to visit a racing stables (or others with competiton horses) to learn more about the physiotherapy given to expensive thoroughbreds. I certainly know racing yards that have equine swimming pools, water baths and heat treatment rooms for the horses. Valuable horses get first class treatment, so it is worth asking if she can visit. It is usually better to have some detailed knowledge of the job before you apply to study for it.