Average ages at schools

[fatmagi]

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Is there a centralized website that has average ages of entering first year allopathic medical students by school (other than the Princeton Review website)?

I know individual universities often have this data, but I am looking for a centralized source of average ages (for more than one entering year hopefully) with standard deviations.

Thanks!

 

[MollyMalone]

Hmm. That's a good question -- I don't know. I do know that it can fluctuate widely from year to year, so be sure to take any stat like that with a grain of salt.

 

[relentless11]

Its probably floating around at 24 these days. Thats what it looks like from California. However the range is quite diverse, and as MollyMalone says, it will vary from year to year. Last year, I think one school in CA ranged from 22-39, and the year before the max was 40 at that same school.

But for the most part, considering traditional students out number non-trads, and it taking on average 5-years to finish an undergrad degree, the mode would probably be 22, 23 year olds, and the non-trads probably bring that mean up to a 24, with the standard deviation probably sitting around +/- 1 or 2. Although thats just right out of my behind based on my observations, you can probably get a good feel by looking through a few websites (class profile).

 

[foofish]

Its probably floating around at 24 these days.

I have absolutely no idea where the average of 24 comes from, but I've heard that repeatedly as well. 🙂

When I interviewed at Dartmouth, during the Q&A the head of admissions said that because these days even so many "traditional" students take a year or two off between college and med school, they don't even bother to track the number of students under 25 anymore (and then they had a decent percent over 25). During the tours 2 separate students said they thought there were only 1 or 2 students who went directly from college to med school in their class. Mind you, it's one school...

 

[med_heidelberg]

Ive read that at the US top schools, the average age of entering students is 25. A few years off and the life experience you gain is definitely worth it. Some med students in my program start at 19 or 20, they are germanys top high school students, and a lot of them only chose medicine because they had the grades to get in. They end up miserable because they never looked at other options. If you choose medicine after experiencing other things, then in my opinion, you will be more resilient and dedicated to the program. Plus, a one track life is kind of boring ..

 

[RxnMan]

Here's one series of opinions, and here's the aamc's.