Hey Guys,
Been reading about people’s journey’s, it’s been very inspiring, and will be writing updates on mine although I’m just starting it . . sort of. 
But I came across these stats on the AAMC site and was wondering what it meant, its a breakdown of applicants by age and race across the country for 2013 and 2014. If I’m interpreting it correctly, is this chart saying that not a SINGLE MD school across the entire country took a student over 34 for the last 2 years???
https://www.aamc.org/download/321468/data/factstable6.pdf
I’m a little confused because it says 34 under the matriculated column, but then it says 38 under the all column. Am I not interpreting these stats correctly?
Thanks!
You are misinterpreting
The table represents “Mean Age of Applicants at Anticipated Matriculation.” The “mean” is the “average” you’re used to, where you add up all the numbers and then divide by the number of numbers. So the “average” age of the 99%tile of projected matriculants entering in 2014-2015 is 35, while the mean average of applicants rejected applicants is 40. there were 20,343 matriculants in 2014 so about 230 are in the 99%tile. since we are at the far end of a non-bell curve distribution, we can’t even really guess what the upper age limit was. I know from past AAMC info, about a dozen people a year OVER 50 graduate MD school each year.
There is always a lot of concern that age discrimination goes on with older students. I am not so sure that is the case. What I need to do is run a statistical analysis controlling for GPA/MCAT and I speculate that acceptance rates will align with that as the most important factor instead of age. However, I need to write up a solid proposal for AAMC to get the data.
@gonnif wrote:
There is always a lot of concern that age discrimination goes on with older students. I am not so sure that is the case.
I’ve certainly dealt with age discrimination in the med school process, at least that’s how I’d characterized being told to my face that I’m too old to for medical school by a people at a few medical schools (hello , Hopkins??).
I guess I’m wondering, how many people does age discrimination have to happen to for it to be believable?
@MissyChrissy wrote:
If I’m interpreting it correctly, is this chart saying that not a SINGLE MD school across the entire country took a student over 34 for the last 2 years???
Definitely NOT true.
Thanks Guys!
That is still reassuring, albeit its a small window. When I went school by school to find demographic information, I saw that I was definitely misinterpreting. I did find some schools that took students over 40, not all school published the age ranges though, but here some for the ones I found for 2013 or 2014. I don’t know if this helps anybody, or at least if it helps in school selection but I was going to compile a list of age ranges for all US Medical schools for 2013 or 2014. I can post it once I’m done if anybody would find that interesting. In the meantime, here’s a and it looks like some schools did in fact take folks over 40 recently, that’s very encouraging!
School Range
University of Michigan 21 - 33
University of Alabama 22 - 43
University of South Alabama College of Medicine Couldn’t Find
University of Arkansas 20 - 42
Charles R. Drew University of Medicine and Science Couldn’t FInd
Keck School of Medicine Said they had 1 student over 30, but didn’t say how old
Loma Linda University School of Medicine Couldnt Find
http://www.med.wisc.edu/news/gennie-kocourek-a-new-md-at-age-53/898
And this one:
http://www.mommd.com/inquarta009.shtml
@MissyChrissy wrote:
Thanks Guys!
looks like some schools did in fact take folks over 40 recently, that’s very encouraging!
School Range
University of Michigan 21 - 33
University of Alabama 22 - 43
University of South Alabama College of Medicine Couldn’t Find
University of Arkansas 20 - 42
Charles R. Drew University of Medicine and Science Couldn’t FInd
Keck School of Medicine Said they had 1 student over 30, but didn’t say how old
Loma Linda University School of Medicine Couldnt Find
The past president of the Board of Trustees of the AMA, Dr. Rebecca Patchin, started Loma Linda at age 35. She will be speaking at this year’s OldPreMeds Conference in Los Angeles
@Doc201X wrote:
@gonnif wrote:There is always a lot of concern that age discrimination goes on with older students. I am not so sure that is the case.
I’ve certainly dealt with age discrimination in the med school process, at least that’s how I’d characterized being told to my face that I’m too old to for medical school by a people at a few medical schools (hello , Hopkins??).
I guess I’m wondering, how many people does age discrimination have to happen to for it to be believable?
The gross ratio data of applicant age to matriculant age remains relatively constant across both US MD and US DO programs. That is about 5%-6% of applicants are 30 years and older and 5%-6% of matriculants are 30 years and older. Within that upper 5% there is a 2-4 year gap between mean applicant age and mean matriculant age. Since this is the 95%tile of an age distribution, which is not standard distribution, I would like to see the data when controlled for MCAT and GPA scores. While the anecdotal evidence concerning specific institutions is alarming in some cases, I dont see evidence of a widespread general age discrimination against medical school applicants
My response to most statistical analysis is that there are lies, damned lies, and statistics. And I say this given my background in epidemiology and current study in data analysis. I also understand that Mr. Twain may not necessarily agree with that, LOL!!!
That said, about 15 or so years ago the “going excuse” for why applicants over a certain age weren’t admitted was because they presented with lower GPAs and MCAT scores than their younger counterparts. But as I’ve learned dealing with both gender and racial discrimination, a person looking for a reason to exclude you will usually dig as long, hard, and deep as necessary to come up with a “legitimate” reason to do so. And that’s why it’s so often very difficult to disprove.
I got 3 acceptances and a wait list before accepting one and withdrawing my application with 2 interviews waiting and 4 more secondary applications in that I was waiting to hear on. At that time I was 52. However, I did have a decent MCAT score and a fairly competitive application
Kate
Weill Cornell Medical College (where I’m headed this fall) is offering a “Nontraditional Student Mixer” as part of its revisit weekend in April. Revisit (or second look) weekend is the time students are given to check out schools again and get more information before making a final acceptance decision. The fact that Cornell set an activity aside for nontrads makes me think they have a pretty high percentage. Not only that, Cornell realizes that nontrads potentially have different needs, different experiences, etc., and that it is a benficial thing for nontrads to get to know each other early on to develop a support network. This is anecdotal of course, but I still find it impressive.