Medecine forum
What's the average age of a first year med student? |
falcon
07-08-2007 01:02
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Before I visited SDN, I really only thought that as a first year med school student, you'd be surrounded by people in their early twenties.. I never realized that so many non-trads actually apply to med school... I thought it was just the next step for only premeds during undergrad.
Wow.. so are there a lot of people of different ages? What's it like.. is it pretty interesting and cool to be surrounded by older people as well.. or can it be intimidating/weird? I've normally had friends around my age my whole life.. do you find yourself befriending people 10 years older than you?
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Re: What's the average age of a first year med student? |
gilman
07-08-2007 01:06
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It's school dependent so it's hard to generalize. At U Rochester, according to a current M2, the range is 21-35 with a mean of 24 but a median of like 22.
The older folk are married and you won't see them a lot, so it's not like you'll be joined at the hip with them, but older people are generally more polite and more mature Our generation was raised "manners-optional"
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Re: What's the average age of a first year med student? |
ivan
07-08-2007 01:26
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Most people in my class were in their early twenties; I think the class average at orientation was 23.5 years. And that's even at a state school where there tended to be more non-traditional students.
The older folks typically add a lot academically. Socially, OTOH, they tend to be married with families, which means you hardly ever seen them outside of school activities.
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Re: What's the average age of a first year med student? |
ivan
07-08-2007 01:51
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Most people in my class were in their early twenties; I think the class average at orientation was 23.5 years. And that's even at a state school where there tended to be more non-traditional students.
The older folks typically add a lot academically. Socially, OTOH, they tend to be married with families, which means you hardly ever seen them outside of school activities.
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Re: What's the average age of a first year med student? |
jedi
07-08-2007 01:54
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Those numbers are pretty consistent with the national average -- mean of about 24 in allo, 26-27 in DO; median a bit lower because the oldest students tend to be further from the mean than the youngest, and less plentiful. The majority of people will have come directly from college, with the second largest group coming from postbacs right after college, so yes, most med students will be in their early twenties. But if you watch the trends, the ages are actually creeping up, as more nontrads enter the mix, postbacs and graduate work before applying are becoming more popular, and more schools are even shying away from the youngest (esp under 20) applicants and phasing out BS/MD accellerated programs.
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Re: What's the average age of a first year med student? |
joyride
07-08-2007 01:59
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when i joined medical school in december of 2005 i was 19.people there range from 18 to 20 may be 21...so average age in my class was 19.ours is a MBBS programe that take students after high school and also its a graduate degree.people start postgraduation for any speciality after that or take usmle and go usa at age of 26 and start residency.......
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Re: What's the average age of a first year med student? |
keane
07-08-2007 02:06
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OMG, and I'm a CPA. See, it's the last week before classes start and I stayed up late and was sleeping in and some kid from across the street bangs on the door, screaming and crying about how his brother locked him out of the house and he couldn't get his contacts and he borrowed my cell phone and spent 30 minutes blubbering to someone (mommy?) while sitting on my front porch - while I am trying to hold my bathrobe closed because *my* contacts aren't in, either, and I can't find the robe tie - and I am also trying to make sure my German Shepherd doesn't manage to open the bedroom door to eat this stupid kid. I couldn't go back to sleep so I got on SDN.
LOL... you nailed me fair and square. I love my somewhat questionable, medical-student-affordable neighborhood. There's just no end to the drama!
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Re: What's the average age of a first year med student? |
ivan
07-08-2007 02:18
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Well, to me, the great thing about being a student again and being unemployed is that you can do whatever the heck you want. My mustache and VanDyke have a fair amount of grey in them but I don't dye my whiskers. Yet. On the other hand, blond hair looks gross with grey and white mixed in so I started coloring it sometime right after 40. Last Spring, I figured - what the heck - and went for a summertime suicide blond I haven't had since I was about five years old. I think I look like Anna Nicole with a beard, but I've gotten a lot of compliments. Boy, were they shocked in the office when I came back to work for the summer!
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Re: What's the average age of a first year med student? |
mike
07-08-2007 02:20
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Agreed with the bolded. I have known many nontrads to get in med school whom happened to have been in past classes of mine. Yeah so what if person A is 37 years old and married with a wife and daughter, person b is 28 and married, and person c is a 20 year old FTIC. The point is they are all people with a common goal.
At no point have I or most other students I've known found it weird to be classmates with older students.
At USF COM, there generally tend to be 2 or 3 if not 5 or 6 nontrads accepted each year that if they do choose to be different and talk with mostly nontrad people they can form their own clique and do so.
I've noticed with the last 3 or 4 USF med school graduating classes C/O 2008-2011, it seems there's always a small handful of older nontrads (i.e. career changers), another small handful of nontrads who are just a few years above the traditional age of 20-22 (these are the SMPers and Postbac people and tend to be 24-27 in age), and then there is everyone else.
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Re: What's the average age of a first year med student? |
hooligan
07-08-2007 02:43
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it wont be like Out of this world. Im in grad school now and the average age is about 24-25.. We all hit happy hour,etc and the age thing isnt and issue, unless they act <22 all the time. Otherwise, people quickly forget age..
ps. you've never had friends older than you??? hahaha...! you need to get out more
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Re: What's the average age of a first year med student? |
ciara
07-08-2007 03:22
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Everyone is welcome to participate. Just be aware that the majority of folks on the allo/osteo boards are US allo/US osteo, so I think most people are taking it for granted that when people (like the OP, who lists himself as hailing from Pheonix, Arizona) ask questions like the above, it is aimed at the US schools, unless otherwise indicated.
(The notion of nontrad (significantly older) medical students/career changers isn't very common in most countries.)
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