AGE? Consensus

[MDee2B]

10 hours ago, Butterfly_ said:

Any successful person in any career will go through a grind—there are plenty of entrepreneurs and professionals still grinding in their 30s and 40s. People on average change their careers 3-6 times. Many people start fresh in their late 30s or 40s and do just fine.

So if any older applicants wants to do medical school, it’s their choice to decide whether it’s “great” or not for them. Finishing at 40 might be exactly what’s right. 

 

9 hours ago, offmychestplease said:

Thank you for clarifying that you are a medical student but no disrespect, and I don't want to make any assumptions, but I assume you got into medical school young. What many people who start medicine young and haven't worked "in the real word" before starting medical school they think that everyone their age is living life to the extreme and the average working professional is living life making 100K at age 22 or something silly while they are stuck in their room studying. I don't know about you...but I would much rather be in my room studying interesting things in medicine than go into an office looking at spreadsheets all day or try and make myself busy to impress my boss at meetings lol I'm going to list a few common careers and explain to you some of their "grind" and the time it takes them to get "A" full-time permanent job and not even to move up the ladder. 

Engineer: the market is saturated...after a 5 year engineering degree (Co-op), many fail to find a full-time job upon in engineering upon graduation and will jump around a few positions until something related opens up 1-2 years later...and/or do a 2 year master's to get an entry level junior role. That's at age 25-27.

Teachers: After doing 6 years of university (4 year undergrad + 2 year education degree) almost all will have to work part-time as a sub for at least 2-3 years (sometimes even longer) before getting a contract position. That's at age 27. 

Accountants: After doing a 4 or 5 year accounting degree many have to do a further 1-2 year master's to find a position or apply for 1-2 years before a related position opens up. That puts them at 24-25. 

Lawyers: The average law school entrance age in Canada is 25. Then 3 years of law school and 1 year of articling puts a brand new junior lawyer at 29. 

I even read that having post-secondary education and further work experience and volunteering before applying to the police force really helps get into the police academy. The average police officer starts at 26-27. 

These examples I posted are just to get a foot in the various jobs in late 20's to make the same as a resident who is about the same age and does not include an important factor like that those residents will get a nice 5-10x pay rise in a few years and sustain that for the rest of their lives.... I'm also assuming that everyone in the above examples finishes HS at 18 and does not take any years off, gap years, switches majors, works for a few years etc. Every job is more competitive out there than it was when attendings did their training. It's harder and longer for any occupation in the world. Being in medicine in Canada is literally winning the golden ticket, and that's not an exaggeration. Whether starting at 22 or 32 everyone should be grateful to make their dreams happen. And besides, if someone is 32, 35+ or whatever who is to say they didn't "live life" before medicine and one can safely assume they are ok with the long training...if not why did they apply? I personally know several people between 29-33 who would kill for a seat in medicine...who wouldn't give their age a second thought.

 

I would much rather be in my room studying interesting things in medicine than go into an office looking at spreadsheets all day or try and make myself busy to impress my boss at meetings
 

this. For those of us coming from a separate career, it gets to a point in life where you’re already very comfortable, have tenure, are set financially into retirement, etc. But you really don’t feel like you’re actualizing your full potential. And the thought of staying put in that situation for the next 30-40 years is discouraging, even frightening. I would rather be working hard, applying myself and pushing my limits.

This thread is about age and I can tell you: perhaps the reason why some older applicants reorient to medicine is actually in order to stay young! Personally, the prospect of dragging myself through the mud and challenging myself to the max gets me excited. The prospect of whittling away in a boring (yet comfortable) job for the next 35 years sounds more like getting old to me.

[IMislove]

9 minutes ago, MDee2B said:

The prospect of whittling away in a boring (yet comfortable) job for the next 35 years sounds more like getting old to me.

And that’s why I didn’t stay in my job either. Comfortable government job, close to home, but it would be mostly the same day. Felt like max potential was reached relatively early, but medicine, now this brings a smile to my face.

[HighAltitudeMedicine]

10 hours ago, PirouetteCacahuete said:

I will be entering medical school in the fall at 31 with a family and a very unique background. I’ve found this discussion frankly entertaining. The closer you get to 40, the more you realize... 40 really isn’t THAT old lol. I’m really excited to start this journey, and the prospect of having a generously remunerated job that I like by the age of 40 sounds amazing. I will still have 20, possibly 25 years in my career of choice, not counting residency. The fact that choosing a specialty that is less demanding on family life sounds limiting to you, doesn’t mean it is for others.

100% agreed.  I was also accepted in my 30s (and also have a small family) and although I did also do all of the typical premed stuff (research, publications, science degree, volunteering) I truly believe a big part of the reason I got accepted was that I had unique, meaningful and long-term life and work experience unrelated to medicine. These are experiences that I am so grateful for and never would have had if I had applied in my 20s. 

The reason the average age is so low is because people who are in established careers and older feel they have slim chances of getting in and therefore do not apply ( a self-fulfilling prophecy).  I know I also foolishly believed I was "too old" for far too long and that's what held me back from applying.  The beauty of entering med school later in life is presumably you will be less likely to have that yearning of doing other things or "missing out" because you've already experienced all the things and can focus on medicine for the foreseeable future.   I've already travelled the world, lived abroad and had a diversity of life/work experience so I will not be wishing I was doing something else.  Medicine is a whole new adventure and the idea of being a lifelong learner is for me personally super exciting.  As an older applicant you also have the advantage of having experienced different careers and now know yourself well enough to determine whether you can handle the demands and lifestyle of medicine.  There is also a certain amount of grit and resilience that has to exist to push someone to start a whole new career with a long road of training, traits that will be necessary in medicine.   Not to mention your diverse life experience will also help you connect with your diversity of patients, another huge advantage IMO.  

[Mike83]

19 hours ago, Lavarball said:

I think the conversation about whether a school should focus on grades or ECs are an important conversation and tbh I’m glad schools in Canada have different policies so a greater range of applicants can get in.

 

I really disagree with the notion that always gets thrown around that EC focused schools get a more diverse student population. In my experience, I find that EC like research and conferences and unique experiences in undergrad heavily depends on your SES and your connections. The majority of these clubs and research are not paid and only the rich and well connected students have access to these opportunities while other students like me had to work 20+ hrs every week at a regular job to make ends meet. In theory, job experience is “valued” the same as the other categories however my one job that takes up the majority of my time simply does not match up with the 10+ bs clubs and organizations that others take many years to curate.

 

medicine is already such a long journey often being 10 yrs long post undergrad, I don’t think we should be normalizing making schools so hard that people need masters  and long achievements to be able to get in at like 27 or 28. It’s the opposite of diversity and gives a much bigger advantage to the affluent students that can afford to be in a 15+ yr long career training path before making any real money as an attending.

Very well said

[ballsortahard]

On 1/31/2021 at 2:20 PM, offmychestplease said:

Median is different than mean age. Mean is usually 1 year older than median age due to some significantly older students bringing up the mean. 

Median ages across Canada

Ottawa/Mac - 22

Western/Queen's/Sask/Manitoba - 23

UofT/UBC/Dal/MUN - 24

NOSM/UofC/UofA - 25

There is a pretty big disparity across Canada (Mac graduates start residency on average at the same age as NOSM/UofC/UofA start medical school on average for example).  

Just out of curiosity where did you find that UofA stat? All I could find was a mean age of 25.5.

[offmychestplease]

1 hour ago, ballsortahard said:

Just out of curiosity where did you find that UofA stat? All I could find was a mean age of 25.5.

UofA 2024 IP mean = 25.50

UofA 2024 OOP mean = 27.11

85% of the class is IP and 15% is OOP so 0.85 * 25.50 + 0.15 * 27.11 = 25.74 mean age overall for the class.

And for simplicity sake -1 from the mean (from any school) to get the median due to several outliers who push the mean up.

So UofA's median age is 24.74....close enough to just say 25.

[shikimate]

On 2/1/2021 at 8:50 AM, IMislove said:

And that’s why I didn’t stay in my job either. Comfortable government job, close to home, but it would be mostly the same day. Felt like max potential was reached relatively early, but medicine, now this brings a smile to my face.

Um, when you go into the same clinic for the nth time, see the same complaint, ask the same question, order the same labs, prescribe the same rx, it gets pretty routine.  Like 95% of community practice is like that, yeah after 5 years into practice you'll know what I mean.

Unless you are in academia, even then a lot of your clinical work is gonna be the routine stuff.  

[IMislove]

38 minutes ago, shikimate said:

Um, when you go into the same clinic for the nth time, see the same complaint, ask the same question, order the same labs, prescribe the same rx, it gets pretty routine.  Like 95% of community practice is like that, yeah after 5 years into practice you'll know what I mean.

Unless you are in academia, even then a lot of your clinical work is gonna be the routine stuff.  

I agree and something I knew, but it's at least meaningful. I would say my previous work was not meaningful, so there is that major part. 

[Psych]

On 1/31/2021 at 4:20 PM, offmychestplease said:

Median is different than mean age. Mean is usually 1 year older than median age due to some significantly older students bringing up the mean. 

Median ages across Canada

Ottawa/Mac - 22

Western/Queen's/Sask/Manitoba - 23

UofT/UBC/Dal/MUN - 24

NOSM/UofC/UofA - 25

There is a pretty big disparity across Canada (Mac graduates start residency on average at the same age as NOSM/UofC/UofA start medical school on average for example).  

I'm just wondering why you lumped Ottawa in with Mac- Ottawa looks at ECs just the same as Queen's or similar schools and anecdotally at least half of people I know in my class are ~25 with some being older than that. There are young students for sure, but there are many many students that are not. They told us the admission stats at the start of the year (but they aren't publicly released) and while I don't remember the exact mean/median age I'm fairly certain we'd fall closer to the Western/Queen's category

[offmychestplease]

11 minutes ago, Psych said:

I'm just wondering why you lumped Ottawa in with Mac- Ottawa looks at ECs just the same as Queen's or similar schools and anecdotally at least half of people I know in my class are ~25 with some being older than that. There are young students for sure, but there are many many students that are not. They told us the admission stats at the start of the year (but they aren't publicly released) and while I don't remember the exact mean/median age I'm fairly certain we'd fall closer to the Western/Queen's category

median means middle 50th percentile. Ottawa has the most third year's out of any school in ON after Mac. About 20% of the class is 21 (out of third year). So it's likely that the 50th percentile is 22 (at least next 30% of class is 22 or out of 4th year UG). That's why their median is 22 like Mac. This does not have to do with what they look for, but who they accept. I heard of the class breakdown slide in the fall slideshow as well knowing several people in the class who told me about it. 

If you want to name schools that can actually say they have "many many students" 25+ (in fact 50% of the class is 25 or older) look out West at UofC/UofA for example where if you are under 25 you are below the median age...or even at NOSM. 

I said above that mean is higher than median for any school...but if someone wants to see where they fit in compared to the middle person/50th percentile that list is as close to accurate as possible Canada wide.

[Psych]

10 minutes ago, offmychestplease said:

median means middle 50th percentile. Ottawa has the most third year's out of any school in ON after Mac. About 20% of the class is 21 (out of third year). So it's likely that the 50th percentile is 22 (next 30% of class is 22 or out of 4th year UG). That's why their median is 22 like Mac. This does not have to do with what they look for, but who they accept. I saw the class breakdown in the fall slideshow as well knowing several people in the class.

If you want a school that actually has "many many students" 25+ look out West at UofC/UofA for example where if you are under 25 you are below the median age...or even at NOSM. 

I mean, you're assuming that everyone out of 3rd year is 21 and everyone out of 4th year is 22, which is likely not true because many people take gap years, internships, etc. Even if your numbers are right, if 20% are ~21 and 30% are ~22 the median would be right on the line between 22 and 23, with accounting for gap years pushing it up to the 23 range which is what I suggested. You may know some students in the class but I know at least 75% of the class and as I mentioned, about half of people I know are ~25. There's really no other way to prove anything without Ottawa actually posting the mean/median age but I'm still quite confident it would be ~23. We certainly have a much more mature class than mac based on their posted stats. It's fine if you disagree and like I said there's not much more to prove it one way or another, but that's my opinion as someone in the class

[offmychestplease]

16 minutes ago, Psych said:

I mean, you're assuming that everyone out of 3rd year is 21 and everyone out of 4th year is 22, which is likely not true because many people take gap years, internships, etc. Even if your numbers are right, if 20% are ~21 and 30% are ~22 the median would be right on the line between 22 and 23, with accounting for gap years pushing it up to the 23 range which is what I suggested. You may know some students in the class but I know at least 75% of the class and as I mentioned, about half of people I know are ~25. There's really no other way to prove anything without Ottawa actually posting the mean/median age but I'm still quite confident it would be ~23. We certainly  have a much more mature class than mac based on their posted stats. It's fine if you disagree and like I said there's not much more to prove it one way or another, but that's my opinion as someone in the class

Median means middle number.....if 20% of the class is 21 and 30% of the class is 22, and the other 50% of the class is 80 it does not matter...the middle number (median) is 22. 

Second of all, I'm confident that more than 30% of the class is 22...I just used that for argument's sake to show you even in conservative estimates median is 22. 

And finally Ottawa certainly does not look at EC's/life experiences like other schools (Queen's that you mentioned). To get an interview and acceptance every 0.01 in GPA matters (sometimes to the thousandth decimal) closer to 4.0 matters a lot at Ottawa. No other school in Canada values GPA as much as Ottawa...which other school has a waitlist thread that tracks GPA to the thousandth decimal...

At Queen's after the 3.70-3.75 cutoff GPA is irrelevant and you are way way more likely to get an Ottawa interview with a 4.0 and below average/ok ABS than Queen's with a 4.0 (meaningless after 3.75) with "ok ABS".  Just compare the invite threads. No one can even consider Ottawa without a 3.85 for the English stream (and likely 3.90+ to have a shot at interview) which is very limiting to perhaps older students with GPA's that aren't sky high which explains the age distribution of half the class (or more..) being students out of third/fourth year with high GPA's. 

[MaudeB]

On 2/1/2021 at 7:40 AM, MDee2B said:

 

 

I would much rather be in my room studying interesting things in medicine than go into an office looking at spreadsheets all day or try and make myself busy to impress my boss at meetings
 

this. For those of us coming from a separate career, it gets to a point in life where you’re already very comfortable, have tenure, are set financially into retirement, etc. But you really don’t feel like you’re actualizing your full potential. And the thought of staying put in that situation for the next 30-40 years is discouraging, even frightening. I would rather be working hard, applying myself and pushing my limits.

This thread is about age and I can tell you: perhaps the reason why some older applicants reorient to medicine is actually in order to stay young! Personally, the prospect of dragging myself through the mud and challenging myself to the max gets me excited. The prospect of whittling away in a boring (yet comfortable) job for the next 35 years sounds more like getting old to me.

I totally agree with you. I am in a dead end career with no prospect and the idea of med school is very exciting, even if there would be hardships on the way. I am in my 30s and so so bored by my job. I take challenging classes just for fun to have some intellectual stimulation. In the med school classes profiles I see, there always seems to be older students. Age is just a number in the end.

[Psych]

49 minutes ago, offmychestplease said:

Median means middle number.....if 20% of the class is 21 and 30% of the class is 22, and the other 50% of the class is 80 it does not matter...the middle number (median) is 22. 

Second of all, I'm confident that more than 30% of the class is 22...I just used that for argument's sake to show you even in conservative estimates median is 22. 

And finally Ottawa certainly does not look at EC's/life experiences like other schools (Queen's that you mentioned). To get an interview and acceptance every 0.01 in GPA matters (sometimes to the thousandth decimal) closer to 4.0 matters a lot at Ottawa. No other school in Canada values GPA as much as Ottawa...which other school has a waitlist thread that tracks GPA to the thousandth decimal...

At Queen's after the 3.70-3.75 cutoff GPA is irrelevant and you are way way more likely to get an Ottawa interview with a 4.0 and below average/ok ABS than Queen's with a 4.0 (meaningless after 3.75) with "ok ABS".  Just compare the invite threads. No one can even consider Ottawa without a 3.85 for the English stream (and likely 3.90+ to have a shot at interview) which is very limiting to perhaps older students with GPA's that aren't sky high which explains the age distribution of half the class (or more..) being students out of third/fourth year with high GPA's. 

Look, I don't want to argue anymore because I don't think we are ever going to agree with each other, but I'm not sure how you don't understand my point about the median- if we look at 10 people and they are (per your numbers) 21, 21, 22, 22, 22, 23, 23, 25, 26, 27 then the median is in the middle of 22 and 23, which is what I said. And also as I said, assuming some of the 3rd and 4th years are older than 21/22 due to things like gap years, then that could push the median towards 23. These numbers are moot anyways because neither of us knows the exact age of every single person in the class.

I also have no clue where you're getting that ABS is not as important at Ottawa- I completely disagree with that. Yes we have a high GPA cutoff, but I totally disagree that after the cutoff GPA is important. It's definitely less important than ABS. Just look in our interview invite thread to see how many people with 4.0s got rejected- one of my personal friends being one of them (rejected two years at Ottawa with a 4.0 and got a u of T interview this year)

As mentioned, just based off the number of people I know alone, I can tell you with 100% certainty that our class is significantly more mature than Mac based on the stats they posted. At least half of people I know here have a masters degree or are 24-25. I don't really have anything else to say other than that, because as I mentioned I don't think we're likely to agree with each other

[LostLamb]

On 2/5/2021 at 8:52 AM, offmychestplease said:

And finally Ottawa certainly does not look at EC's/life experiences like other schools (Queen's that you mentioned). To get an interview and acceptance every 0.01 in GPA matters (sometimes to the thousandth decimal) closer to 4.0 matters a lot at Ottawa. No other school in Canada values GPA as much as Ottawa...which other school has a waitlist thread that tracks GPA to the thousandth decimal...

At Queen's after the 3.70-3.75 cutoff GPA is irrelevant and you are way way more likely to get an Ottawa interview with a 4.0 and below average/ok ABS than Queen's with a 4.0 (meaningless after 3.75) with "ok ABS".  Just compare the invite threads. No one can even consider Ottawa without a 3.85 for the English stream (and likely 3.90+ to have a shot at interview) which is very limiting to perhaps older students with GPA's that aren't sky high which explains the age distribution of half the class (or more..) being students out of third/fourth year with high GPA's. 

Honestly, until you work on every adcom at every school you really don't know what is or is not important at each school.

Lots of inferences, hypotheses, it is all heresay. Especially since that is not your home school...not sure how you *know* what is or is not important for getting in.

Unless....you ARE on all the adcoms.... and are a mole planted to mess with premed minds. hehehe