older applicants

[Guest anatomist]

Hi.

I know this has been posted before, but I couldn't pull anything up by searching the archives.

Other than recent troll posts, I haven't seen alot on stats for admission of older students to 1st year meds. Does anyone have older students in their cohort? How old?

I'm 32, waiting for my spouse to finish law school. Hoping for a lab medicine career so the physical concerns of a tiring residency are less of an issue.

Did a phd in anatomy, will have taught for several years by the time I apply so I'm not overly concerned with content of the curriculum. I'm more concerned with the fact that by the time I'm finished residency I would be able to practice only about 20-22 years (unless they nix the mandatory retirement at age 65 rule).

 

Any anecdotes?

Thanks!

[Guest UWOMED2005]

This topic has been addressed a number of times. . . feel free to browse through

 

A couple of points:

 

- There does not seem to be any ACTUAL REAL bias against older applicants. . . yes, there are less 32 year olds in medical school classes but there are also less applying

 

- My class had one ?30? year old in first year and a few who were close. UWO also tends to have younger classes. . . and some of the other classes (ie not 2005) have more > 30 yo students.

 

- Is there really THAT much of a difference between a 20-22 year career and a 30 year career? (which is what I would have, and I'm the exact average age for my class)

 

- ignore the troll. Almost everyone else does.

[Guest wattyjl]

i'm not really sure that admissions can count on 'how many years of practice' they predict a given applicant will have. what is to stop anyone from having none, by leaving the country, quitting medicine, etc. etc. it just seems like to weak a leg to stand on in terms of admitting people.

 

i guess there's a difference if you look at someone around 50-55 (sorry if this is offending anyone), and reason that really, they cannot possibly practice for more than a few years.

 

i'll be 29 when i start next fall, which isn't too far off 32, and foresee 5yrs of residency. i will admit, one of my reasons for making my top choice UofC is the 3yr program - but that's my thing, not the schools'. i wouldn't think that at 32 you won't be faced with 'ageism' issues. but i guess a lot will depend on the interviewers...

[Guest satsumargirl]

I think some of the schools post the demographics of their classes. I know MAC does...breaks it down by age, gender, previous degree. It's been so long since I looked at them though I don't recall exactly where I found that info. I'm sure there must be a link on their website. They give you the latest 3 years?

 

There are quite a few people who chose medicine as a second career. I was told the story of someone who was in his 40s when he started med school at U of T.

[Guest FamilyMeds]

You can find the stats on the following page of the McMaster site:

 

www.fhs.mcmaster.ca/mdpro...ection.htm

 

If you want to "cheat" a little bit, you can get the class of 2003 and 2004 stats by substituting the obvious in the urls for each page of the stats.

 

FamilMeds

[Guest cutieyellow]

There's a man in his forties in my class. He does quite well. As for people in the thirties, there's a handful of them and they integrate pretty well (consider that the avg age for Laval is like 20!)...

CY

[Guest Nops]

There are at least 7 people in classof 2008 over 30 at Queen's. 4 of those are 34+. At the beginning of the year, 2 were parents. That number is now 3.

 

B :evil