you're missing my point. if you don't enter medical school right after college (even 1 year off) then you're a nontrad. I know the average age of a matriculant is about 25. don't tell me that a 25-year-old is still a trad.
so if you have 95 21-year-olds and 5 40-year-olds, will the average be 25? no, it's about 22. that's not significant. i dunno why you said "10 people who enter between the age of 25-40" since we were talking about the whole 5 nontrads per year thing. actually I do know why, but that's irrelevant.
my point was that there are more than 5 nontrads per school per year.
Most people would not consider someone who takes one year off after college to be a non-trad, T, including the medical schools. Many people say that non-trads are students who are over age 25. Others set the age limit at 30. But I don't know of anyone besides you who sets the limit to age 23.
😉 I personally would use a more functional definition akin to Rok's. If you've had a prior career (ex. in research, allied health fields, law, business, sports, the armed forces, the arts, etc.) and you are now going back to school to become a physician, that makes you a non-trad. People who take off one or two years after college to do an internship, or do research, or travel, etc. would not be considered non-trads under my rubric either. But age is definitely a part of the equation too. I would also say that people who have been out of school for a significant amount of time (say, more than three years and are now over age 25) are non-trads even if they did not have careers. So, for example, a stay-at-home mom who took a few years off to raise her kids while they were young would also be a non-trad.
OP, the answer to your question is no. Non-trads are expected to compete on the same level playing field as trads are. If your grades and test scores are not high enough, you will probably get rejected, no matter how great your ECs are. No school accepts non-trads because they feel sorry for us or they want to fill up their non-trad quota. Medical schools, for all their talk about altruism, aren't in the charity business when it comes to selecting matriculants. They want to select people who will A) match their mission (primary care, research, state residents, etc.); B) contribute to society and reflect well on their school; and C) finish the program successfully. That's true for applicants of all ages.
So all those reapplicants are nontrads, hmm?
