Am I Really a Non-Trad? How it will affect EC requirements?

[Tsukiyo]

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I've heard non-trads are over 30 people, usually married, with children.

But in my case:
Age: 22 (probably 24 when I apply)
Gender: Female
Parental Support: None; barely know father, he has 2 kids with new wife and is on disability, mother is dead
Spouse: Age 26

I don't have kids, our only major "bill" is my husband's old student loan of $266 a month (he is going back to school but his dad still wants him to pay what he cosigned instead of deferring until he finishes this degree) and we don't have medical insurance.

Because of a bad economic situation, I don't have all of the clinical/shadowing/etc that I should have. We only had one car and he needed it to go to work the first two years, so I could only do leadership/club activities and a FWS tutoring job while I was stuck at school 8 hrs a day, 5 days a week. I have 4 clubs under me, which were the only 4 I qualified for.

I am a junior now at a new uni and still haven't found a research or clinical thing that works with my hours. I am still applying though, to find places that will let me do things on weekends. (I have 23 literal hours of class because of 3 labs, spaced rather akwardly).

Three questions:

1. Will I be considered a non-trad when applying to medical school?
2. How will this affect my medical/research EC's being so "late"?
3. Most importantly, when I -do- find a place to do medical volunteering, will I need to have a health plan? I can't afford one and haven't been to the doctor in years. One place mentioned doing titers (?) to see what I have had done? (Haven't gotten any vaccinations since the ones required in the 10th grade.)

Thanks to anyone who gets this far, all the premedical advisors at my college are blocked for advising for a while, so I can't ask them yet.

 

[ilovelanguages]

I believe I once read here that Penn State Med was touting a very high percentage of non-traditional applicants in their recent matriculating classes to interviewing applicants on tours - their definition 'non-traditional' eventually revealed to be anyone who didn't go straight from high school to college to medical school (so anyone with at least one gap year was conveniently labeled non-traditional for this purpose). I think what they like to say in the non-trad forum is that its not a black and white concept. People like you and I (both 24 at time of application - a tad older than the median age of application, you also being married) are in a grey area. As for how you will be treated compared to other applicants I am not the best to judge so I'll leave this to the rest of SDN

 

[Tsukiyo]

Thing is, I have some things that look odd and may look like excuses in the past. I'll go by age:

1:
Parents divorce. Stay with mother.
2-13:
As normal, very poor and on FS with mom. She has no useable college degree.
14-16:
-Get engaged online (I married the guy at 18)
-Get homeschooled (by mail) because I was nearly an illiterate in spanish. Cant get job for same reason
-Move to Puerto Rico because family says house will be $20K. We get trapped in PR because it was a lie and it was 80K.
-Mom gets disability for cancer, grandmother has severe arthritis, so I take care of both.
-Only volunteer exp was during Hurricane Charley with the red cross in the shelter i stayed in.
16-18:
-Future husband finds college, goes to get graphics degree. His parents didnt go to college so they had no idea his 30K AAS degree would never get him a job.
-Looking up info on college. All points to needing loans and I thought loans required collateral or high pay or epic abilities for scholarships. Mom had neither so I started to "postpone" graduation til I could find a way to pay for college. No idea about FAFSA. (I was sheltered. ._.)
18-20:
-Husband moves in with me and mom, we finally make it to Florida (without grandmother).
-He can't find job, loses crappy job so we have to live with his parents (at me being 18).
20-22:
-In new state, go to CC (at age 20) finally realizing I didn't need loans after all! I felt so stupid for postponing graduation! I start getting all the premed knowledge rather slowly and regret not shadowing with a distant family doctor that had an office at the END of my block in PR.
-Get into tons of clubs, get honors, one national award at CC, college president knows me by name!
-No way to get shadowing ours because of 1 car. No way to research in rural america with closest unis being 1+ hrs away.
-Get job as substitute cook at local school, then tutoring job.
-Graduate at 22 with AS and a 4.0 (Only chem 1+2 taken)
22 (now):
-Still looking for research and clinical ops. Hours are death, taking 12-15 credits in math/science a semester.
-No more 4.0, physics prereq is KILLING me.
-No cosigners available for me to sign for in med school.
-No money for MCAT, apps, anything because no jobs can take me with these hours and loans go straight to rent/food/car ins.
-Husband also in school, for Elem Ed degree.


I feel like they will think I'm lazy for waiting to start school. And I didn't get a job til 18-19. :\

 

[Law2Doc]

I've heard non-trads are over 30 people, usually married, with children.

But in my case:
Age: 22 (probably 24 when I apply)
Gender: Female
Parental Support: None; barely know father, he has 2 kids with new wife and is on disability, mother is dead
Spouse: Age 26

I don't have kids, our only major "bill" is my husband's old student loan of $266 a month (he is going back to school but his dad still wants him to pay what he cosigned instead of deferring until he finishes this degree) and we don't have medical insurance.

Because of a bad economic situation, I don't have all of the clinical/shadowing/etc that I should have. We only had one car and he needed it to go to work the first two years, so I could only do leadership/club activities and a FWS tutoring job while I was stuck at school 8 hrs a day, 5 days a week. I have 4 clubs under me, which were the only 4 I qualified for.

I am a junior now at a new uni and still haven't found a research or clinical thing that works with my hours. I am still applying though, to find places that will let me do things on weekends. (I have 23 literal hours of class because of 3 labs, spaced rather akwardly).

Three questions:

1. Will I be considered a non-trad when applying to medical school?
2. How will this affect my medical/research EC's being so "late"?
3. Most importantly, when I -do- find a place to do medical volunteering, will I need to have a health plan? I can't afford one and haven't been to the doctor in years. One place mentioned doing titers (?) to see what I have had done? (Haven't gotten any vaccinations since the ones required in the 10th grade.)

Thanks to anyone who gets this far, all the premedical advisors at my college are blocked for advising for a while, so I can't ask them yet.

A nontrad is technically someone who isn't doing the more traditional high school to college to med school route. So some will be older, some will be married, many won't be. In general, if you are applying to med school and you are not still in college, you are technically a nontrad. So that includes all the postbacs, all the folks who went off and did a year of peace corps, whatever. Doesn't have to be anyone old, and doesn't have to be anyone married. To the adcoms, these folks look about the same as the trads and the distinction is nonexistent -- nobody but you cares if you are 21 or 25 when you apply to med school. There isn't actually a disadvantage to being a nontrad, though, which I think was the inference of your post. There is no "late" -- you either have decent ECs when you apply or you don't. Nobody cares if they happened in school or in the years after. Med schools don't really care, unless we are talking about someone whose prereqs are a decade out of date, or someone who is so aged that their ability to practice is severely limited. Med schools like diversity, including age diversity, but someone who is 25 doesn't bring much compared to someone who is 21. Someone who is 35 might bring a lot of experiences to the table that med schools find interesting/valuable from a diversity point of view however, which is why virtually every med school has someone over 30 these days. Honestly, if your stats will be better applying to med school a year or two out of college, or after a postbac, then you absolutely WANT to be a nontrad. I think you are putting too much stake in a word that med schools don't really focus on.

So the phrase "nontrad" may be important to places like SDN, where we want to group folks who are similarly situated so they can get better advice (ie it doesn't really help a 35 year old mom with a PhD to get advice from an 18 year old premed in community college), but med schools don't break things out in this way The person with high stats and interesting experiences will get a look by med schools whether they are 20 or 30 and the phrase nontrad won't come up unless the med school finds it important to advertise diversity to prospective applicants over 30.