Any 35+ year olds?

This forum made possible through the generous support of SDN members, donors, and sponsors. Thank you.
L

lvsseasand

New Member
10+ Year Member
15+ Year Member
Joined
Jan 10, 2007
Messages
9
Reaction score
0
Points
0
  1. Pre-Medical
Members do not see this ad.
I'm a 37 year old nontrad student hoping to one day be a D.O. Just wondering if there are any others on the forum around my age?😉
 
lvsseasand said:
I'm a 37 year old nontrad student hoping to one day be a D.O. Just wondering if there are any others on the forum around my age?😉
Click to expand...


I CLOSE to your age, but you are older😀 😀 . I'm 36 ~ and feel like I'm going to school with my children. Funny thing, I feel as young as they look, but then I look in the mirror and WOW ~ something happened. :scared:
 
You're not alone, but we are a small group. I just turned 37 in December.
In my org chem class last semester, there were 3 people in their 40's who are working toward med school.
Tim
 
Yup. I'm closer to 40 than all of you and starting this fall.
 
40, applying allo come June. How cool would it be if my MCAT score in April matched my age?
 
I'll be 37 in February. I don't feel old yet...waiting for it to catch up with me when I least expect it.
 
39 in 2 months... still feel 25.🙂
 
39 and an MSI. Quite frankly, I don't feel that old, so i only celebrate anniversaries of 29 on that date previously known as my birthday. 🙂
 
Knowing that there are some of you in the same age group is quite encouraging!....Esp.., Since some of my family members say I'm too old to think about going to Medical School🙄
 
Will be 40 in the fall (or summer) when I start an MD-PhD program. Your in good company here, so dont let age discourage ya at all!!!


Good Luck to ya!
 
35 when I entered medschool; will be 39 this coming spring when I get my MD. It's worth it. Physical challenge often > mental challenge. Good luck!
 
I stated medschool at 38 - am now med3 and 41. Having fun, but lots of balancing 😱 between kids, husband, house and life outside of school.
 
I started medical school at 32. Graduated in June with my DO. I am 38 now. I think about it being 20 years since high school. where did that time go?? Amazing. I still fee 25 too.
 
I'm 37 and going to take a year of prereq's then apply to med school when I'm 39! I am very happy to have found this board; it gives me hope.
 
I beat you all! Just turned 42 in December, and I hope that by my 45th I'll either be in med school or have my acceptance for the next year!
 
38, for another 2 months... will be deferring Med School start to 👍 40....
 
35 in April🙂
 
I'm 38 and applying for med school in the fall. Wife is a MD. She finished her MD at 26 but says she thinks older non-traditional students are better docs.
 
35 this month.
 
36....USF c/o 2011....It can be done! Good luck everyone!
 
40 here...hoping to get into c/o 2011
 
Im 27 now put wont be done with my pre-req's till 29 hoping to start med school by 30. In spite of everyone including my family telling me its too late, glad I found this thread
 
37 and just into NJMS 2011! Yippee! And "they" all said it couldn't be done...
 
well, i'm not premed---but if i may, as a dental student, chip in here. I'm 36 yo and myself and 2 others are the oldest in our class. i don't know why, but it seems that there are more nontraditional students in the med field over dental.

i'm curious for those of you who are in grad school, will this experience keep us young or accelerate our aging? 😕

g'luck to you all.
 
I'm 39 and will turn 40 in a few months. I am currently ranked as a junior undergrad and studying for May's MCAT.
 
47 and just got accepted - will be 48 by the time I start med school in the fall. It really can be done!
 
High side of 37! Of course, it's not the years it's the mileage. I am preparing to slog through a post-bac starting this summer. I will be applying at age 39 - hopefully matriculating at 40. My son will be 16 by the time I get to full practice.
Time to take some Geritol and a nap😴
 
Well, jumping in from the veterrinary medicine arena. I'm 36 and will be starting vet school in the fall. I find that there are actually a fair number of older students who go back to vet school. Don't get me wrong there are still plenty of kids, but I'm not the only "old lady". I went to an info session for a local vet school and I asked the kid who was running the tour what was the age of his oldest classmate.....65! It's never too later. Your going to be whatever age either way right? Might as well be that age achieving your dream. And because we look older future clients will tend to trust us even though we are at the same place our younger classmates are. ;-)
 
34 here, and got accepted to Drexel for the fall. It definitely can be done. You have such a different perspective on your studies when you are older, married, have children, balding... What, did I say that out loud!? Stick to your goals, that is what I am doing.
 
I am 36, will start med school this fall. It's really nice to see we have a big group here🙂
 
I'm 46. I started medical school at age 40. More than a dozen of my classmates in medical school started in their 30's, and 2 others were in their 40's.
 
ntmed said:
I'm 46. I started medical school at age 40. More than a dozen of my classmates in medical school started in their 30's, and 2 others were in their 40's.
Click to expand...

Which med school are you from? It sounds a very very non-trad friendly school. After going thru the application process, I am convinced some schools, esp the top private schools, don't like older applicants at all.
 
md2011 said:
Which med school are you from? It sounds a very very non-trad friendly school. After going thru the application process, I am convinced some schools, esp the top private schools, don't like older applicants at all.
Click to expand...
It's not that top school don't "like" older applicants. It's just that schools like Hopkins and Harvard have NEVER admitted ANYONE over age 35.😉 🙄
 
1Path said:
It's not that top school don't "like" older applicants. It's just that schools like Hopkins and Harvard have NEVER admitted ANYONE over age 35.😉 🙄
Click to expand...
This topic comes up a lot in here. As far as I know, there are no schools that could or would outright refuse to consider older students for their MD-only programs. (I'll grant you that MD/PhD programs are a whole 'nother story.) I think what you're seeing with top schools is largely due to the fact that non-trads tend to have significantly lower stats than trads do. For example, take a look at any year of the AAMC MCAT statistics: the highest scoring age group is people under age 20, while the lowest is people over age 30. The "generation gap" is enormous (about a 5-6 point difference in total score). Couple that with the fact that many non-trads are also trying to overcome poor UG records, and you wind up with a very limited pool of students over age 30 who have academic records that make them competitive applicants for those schools. There are people over age 30 at many if not most of these schools, but they are superstars. Even the trads who attend top schools are highly accomplished people with amazing ECs who also managed to pull great grades and ace the MCAT. You'd be amazed if you knew what some of those kids had done.
 
My reasoning for not accepting lots of older applicant by top private schools are a little different. I think these schools are very research oriented (or like applicants who can potentially become a government policy maker), less at teaching how to treat patients individually. Sometimes ago, I saw an article on a newspaper, talking about polling strangers on street about who would be a better doctor--a Harvard graduate or an osteopathic graduate, those people get polled thought it would be the osteopathic graduate. I have been to Harvard Vanguard Health System and seen several Harvard trained doctors and dentists before, I had to say they are bad, in term of skills, costs and attitude to patients. I think most older applicants want to be a doctor dealing with individual patients, and even we want to do research, we really don't have many years left to do the research, so that is at odds with those top schools' goal. I found public med schools have better attitudes to non-trad, probably that's because their goals are to train doctors who can care the patients.
 
42 here, matriculating in the fall. I can't really address the concerns about research schools and non-trads, as I applied as a PhD with years of experience in basic and applied research.
 
md2011 said:
My reasoning for not accepting lots of older applicant by top private schools are a little different. I think these schools are very research oriented (or like applicants who can potentially become a government policy maker), less at teaching how to treat patients individually. Sometimes ago, I saw an article on a newspaper, talking about polling strangers on street about who would be a better doctor--a Harvard graduate or an osteopathic graduate, those people get polled thought it would be the osteopathic graduate. I have been to Harvard Vanguard Health System and seen several Harvard trained doctors and dentists before, I had to say they are bad, in term of skills, costs and attitude to patients. I think most older applicants want to be a doctor dealing with individual patients, and even we want to do research, we really don't have many years left to do the research, so that is at odds with those top schools' goal. I found public med schools have better attitudes to non-trad, probably that's because their goals are to train doctors who can care the patients.
Click to expand...
I would say that the top schools do want to train people who will be leaders in their field. A lot of times, that is research, but it could also be people who do things like public health, bioethics, international medicine, etc. So yeah, if your goal is to become a community physician, that really wouldn't mesh well with their missions. But that doesn't mean they're not accepting you because of your age per se.

I think your judgment of Harvard grads is pretty unfair. Even though you've ostensibly met nothing but bad ones, can you really paint thousands of people you've never even laid eyes on with the same tarnished brush? As someone's excellent signature on this website put it: The plural of "anecdote" is not "fact."

I'm completely unimpressed by the poll of strangers on the street. Most people have no idea what kind of training is required to become a doctor, and I'm amazed that so many of the ones in that poll had even heard of osteopathy. My dad is a DO, and I can't tell you how many times I've had to explain to the uninitiated that he's a "real" doctor. But I'll grant you that patients definitely do know if their doctor treats them well, and they nearly always care about that more than they care about the name on the diploma on the wall. 🙂
 
There doesn't seem to have any DO confusion in my area. The DOs here enjoy the same privilege as MDs, and they all have loads of patients.

Q, how's your med school study loads comparing with PhD's? I thought you would disappear once you started med school, but you have remained very active in the forum. How lucky we are! Love your help forever.
 
md2011 said:
There doesn't seem to have any DO confusion in my area. The DOs here enjoy the same privilege as MDs, and they all have loads of patients.

Q, how's your med school study loads comparing with PhD's? I thought you would disappear once you started med school, but you have remained very active in the forum. How lucky we are! Love your help forever.
Click to expand...
Grad school is conceptually more difficult, but the pace is a lot more relaxed. You want to take ten years to get your PhD, you can do that. You have plenty of time to sit around and think about experiments or members of the opposite sex or where you're going to get your next free food from. Have you ever seen the comic "Piled Higher and Deeper?" It's written by an ex-grad student from CA, and it describes grad student life really well. Check it out at www.phdcomics.com if you have some spare time; it's humor that anyone who has spent even a day in grad school will totally appreciate. 😛

Med school, in contrast, is a trial by avalanche, and mostly I focus on not getting myself totally buried. There's so much coming at you so fast that it's impossible to get it all; I don't even try. But I do as much as I can until I reach a point of saturation where I just can't absorb any more, and then I stop and do something else for a while. Like post on SDN. 😉
 
What na inspirational thread. You're all amazing, and I wish you the best of luck! I hope more and more "wiser" non trads get in because I think medical school should be for those who really want it no matter how old they are.
It's amazing how this forum can make a 25 year old feel old.
 
I'm 35. we have a good number of students 30+, married, have children, etc., at NYCOM especially because of the emigre program.

:luck:

lvsseasand said:
I'm a 37 year old nontrad student hoping to one day be a D.O. Just wondering if there are any others on the forum around my age?😉
Click to expand...
 
omgrod said:
47 and just got accepted - will be 48 by the time I start med school in the fall. It really can be done!
Click to expand...

I love hearing this! I'll be 44 (I hope) when I will start med school.

Krisss17
 
48 and accepted to 3 DO schools for class of 2011. Go for it!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

M
Fifth Year Senior, Non-Trad, No Clinical Experience, No Non-Clinical Volunteering, No Research & Barely any Shadowing
Replies
3
Views
463
Mr.Smile12
Mr.Smile12
B
Do I have any chance at MD? 3.08 cBCPM
Replies
4
Views
1K
Med Ed
Med Ed
M
Applying a year after finishing SMP- seeking opinions
Replies
5
Views
1K
Mr.Smile12
Mr.Smile12
L
  • Question Question
Nontraditional Pre-med hoping to apply in 2026. Any red flags?
Replies
10
Views
2K
Mr.Smile12
Mr.Smile12
U
Non-Trad/Reinvention Help; Any Advice Greatly Appreciated
Replies
1
Views
1K
Faha
F
Top Bottom