Vet Medicine 2020

[3catsandadog]

Hi a new thread with DC applying to Vet Med next year or for anyone with DC already studying who could pass on some words of wisdom!

My DD is looking to apply to Cambridge, Surrey, Nottingham and Bristol.
She has a fair amount of work experience arranged already and we will do the open day circuit next year.

Hi we have done all open days today, choices are In no order Surrey, Bristol, Cambridge and Nottingham. Feel exhausted. Would be great to have a choice but anyone will do!

Of course, order preference is only theoretical, as you say if DD gets one offer we will be delighted! She decided against Cambridge in the end, which I am secretly relieved about. Her older sister did her degree there and whilst the colleges are amazing and the city beautiful, I always feel she missed out on student experience. The stress is unbelievable throughout and it is a such a ‘bubble’. DD doesn’t regret going - there were many aspects she loved, but as a parent it is hard to see the immense pressure they have to cope with.

Same here. No more open days and currently her choices are Bristol, Liverpool, RVC and Nottingham. Went to Surrey today and I thought it was lovely but DD not so keen. Back to the mantra for my oldest with Medicine, just one offer will do. Here we go again 🤪

Just one early offer ;) even better!

If anyone is interested BBC Farming Today on radio 4 is about farm vets all next week. It’s on early in the morning (5.45 am I think!) but you can catch up on BBC Sounds if you don’t fancy the early start. My DD is off tomorrow doing her gold DofE expedition so we will catch up on it when she’s back 🙂

Dd is back to vetmed, she considered medicine for a very short while. In her words she had a bit of a wobble as it's a big decision and she didn't want to make a mistake and after enjoying all the surgery in the vet clinics it made her think about medicine and becoming a surgeon.
However after really thinking about it she has decided vetmed is definitely her.
She will be applying to Liverpool, Nottingham, RVC she is not sure about her 4 choice, we think it will either be Bristol or Harper Adams. She did consider Cambridge but decided not to.

Hi Bati

Welcome back to thread :) Its good your DD is 100 percent sure on what she is committing too.

I hope all four of our DC get offers quickly in the months ahead!

Is anyone going to Keele University open day tomorrow.
We thought we would go and have a look as dd still needs to decide on a 4th choice.
For 4th choice she is considering keele/Harper adams, Bristol and now considering Edinburgh.
We have looked at Bristol but it was raining and miserable and only got to see the Langford site so not sure what the veterinary department is like at clifton.
Never been to Edinburgh so no idea on that one at all.
I right in thinking Scottish universities allocate percentages from where people are from.
Any opinions on those 3 universities x

We did the Harper open day but because nothing was built yet it was very difficult to judge. It sounded great in theory but since visiting several established unis we realise how risky Harper Keele might be, particularly in the fists cohort. They did say that Keele had done a similar thing with their medicine course and had quickly become very well respected, and I have every confidence in Harper Adams as a University. I just wish they’d done this 6 years ago! We both really liked Bristol, which we also saw in awful wet weather. My dd liked the mix of city campus and vet campus. I visited Edinburgh with DD1 for a totally different course, she had it as her insurance in the end. It is a lovely city and we really liked the feel of the University but Dd2 doesn’t want to go so far away from home, although her 4th choice is going to be Surrey which will take almost as long to get to.

Dd had a great week at a local vets last week and is off to a cat rescue next week, then it will nearly be time to start the application. Good luck everyone.

We have similar worries about Harper Adams/Keele. We went to Harper last march but thought we would go and see the other half keele in the hope they have started to build and to find out more.
We are about the same distance from Bristol as we are from Edinburgh.
We have been looking at Edinburgh on you tube and it looks really good, just wish we could go and see it.
Dd has been chasing up one of her placements for a reference and today is asking the vets she goes to every Saturday for one.
Then she will have all her references ready, just need to decide that 4th choice x

My DD1 is going in to 3rd year Edinburgh vet med , happy to try and answer questions .
Have noticed that edi not really featuring on here as a choice for many.

My DD was initially going to chose Edinburgh as she absolutely loved it. Financially it would have been great as my husband is an EU national and she would not have to pay the fees normally charged to English students.

In the end she decided that she wanted to be closer to home (she also started seeing someone local). She is exceptionally happy with her choice, she lives away from home but only an hours drive.

She read recently about some sort of spat and allegations about bullying amongst academics in the vet dept at Edinburgh. Not great PR!

Good luck all with applications. My DC at Surrey so anyone interested ask away. As many posters have said in the end you just want them to get in but with odds of 6:1 on nearly all recent intakes on vet med courses (girls to boys), it is highly competitive!

How is everyone's dc personal statements coming along?
Dd is just going through her first draft looking to see where she can improve upon before getting school to go over it.
The problem she is having is picking her 4th choice. She is considering keele/Harper or Edinburgh. We have seen Keele and Harper but we can not make any open days for Edinburgh. After opinions on Edinburgh if anyone has been x

What are her other choices @Bati?

My DD loved Edinburgh but chose Surrey in the end (also offered Liverpool and RVC), because we're in London and she wanted to be nearer her support network.

She put the latter 2 on the list because she figured she fitted their profile - work experience for Liverpool and the entrance test (can't remember which) for RVC, so more likely to reach interview. She would have been happy with one offer, though she got all four.

Nineteen years qualified now. I absolutely loved college and still think veterinary medicine is one of the most fascinating fields in the world.

However the reality of a vet's working life with very moderate pay, relatively poor working conditions, no career structure and a real lack of respect from the general public, along with non-family-friendly hours, is genuinely depressing. This is going to intensify with a substantial oversupply in the jobs market as the numbers of starry-eyed graduates from all these new facilities increases.

I can think of very few of my classmates who would make the same choice again. But all teenagers reckon they'll be different, I guess. We did too.

With the mention of the Edinburgh allegations above I found the report and also got my DD to read it. Sad story . I can report that Edinburgh students ( as yet ) unaffected. Taking DD up to Edinburgh today to start Year 3. She wants to be there for freshers week. Good luck with all your applications in the end it is just about getting one offer. If you are lucky enough to get more than one interview my DD found she improved with each one. The wait for the interviews/offers is agonising so pace yourselves. Post by villainousbroodmare is sobering but some aspects of it apply to other professions including medicine. My DD is settled ,happy enjoying her course with a great set of friends and for that I am grateful, future employment ......... lets see.

Yes my DD is going into 4th at Surrey. She worked as a care assistant at one of the big chains we have in our area before Uni and was treated like sh*t and saw a lot of vets (mainly from EU countries) treated the same way. She has no illusions about the profession!

Article in the Times this morning. Paywall. States female vets are disadvantaged by some farmers and their own colleagues

Female vets held back at work by customer sexism

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/733a1132-d0ee-11e9-bfe0-b5ac4ce6ca95

@Wolfff I took part in that study and complained to the researchers as I felt it's questions were flawed. It failed to properly consider that more women vets tend to become part time and that in general in the corporate sector it is very rare for practices to have part time clinical directors. As the corporates are now the biggest sector I suspect this is more of the issue.
Where they do have part time CDs it is not a job share, so the CDs are just expected to do the same non-clinical work as their full time colleagues. This is regularly discussed in the vet mums world and many step back from being CD as they just can't do it all.
In 21 years of working practice (14 in mixed practice) I only encountered one sexist comment. Part time working is a much, much bigger role to play than sexism.

Thank you that makes perfect sense.

If you read the James Herriott books it was a nightmare when he qualified regarding getting a job and lack of pay.

Dd Is working on her personal statement, she has about 1000 characters to edit out! I thought at the open days the unis said they didn’t even read personal statements and only used them if they were deciding between two candidates. Not sure how true that is but I’m sure I heard it said.

There is so much information about stress and mental health issues now, it certainly isn’t being hidden away, so our children should all be aware of the problems. Living on a farm has certainly made dd used to stress and she’s quite used to dealing with farmers. She goes to an all girls school and has a wonderful belief in herself that she can do anything. I might be naive but it feels like the farming world is changing and is a lot more female friendly now.

Liverpool said they didn’t look at the personal statements at all but that was a few years ago. Even then most have forms to fill in about work experience, personality and so on.

TBH I would spend time on it and try and tick the boxes - team player, team sport (if she does it), responsible, mentors younger students that sort of thing. Don’t trust the school alone unless they get a lot of vet applicants through. DD’s didn’t have a clue.

At DD’s Uni at least, and I believe the others, the students are very supportive of each other and have peer support networks and activities.

I think one lecturer gave them the suicide and attempted suicide statistics early in a talk on and they try to build resilience into the learning.