Work experience (or lack of) always seems to throw up a lot of angst amongst prospective students, but my daughter (city living, going through the process) has had offers and interviews to come, with pretty much the minimum amount of work experience to satisfy the requirement of each university applied to. No abattoir, no lambing, but a good mixture of learning experiences, plus a strong cv in terms of other activities/learning experiences undertaken within and outside school, largely non directly vet related.
She didn’t apply to Bristol, Glasgow or RVC who maybe require more work experience than the others, (we can’t really remember now) but she feels that she is living proof that wex minimum requirements as stated in the literature, can be just that, in a similar way that someone will be offered a place on an AAB/AAA prediction alongside someone with four A*. Obviously a diverse and lengthy WEx can help, but it’s only part of the overall package.
In terms of placements, she found most places she contacted were really helpful, and others mainly declined due to age restrictions/policy. She was lucky, pretty flexible, persistent and travelled considerably for three of them - I guess showing dedication. Also beware- most of the Unis want fairly recent WEx, not from years ago - read carefully to check, and in the case of Nottingham, I think they said they wouldn’t except as WEx people working on their own family farm. (But please don’t take my word for that one).
In my opinion, it’s a horrible application process - with much hoop jumping and a lack of transparency from the Universities making it even more stressful (not to mention time consuming when they need to focus on their studies, plus expensive). Heartfelt Good Luck to all!