This is where we disagree - or maybe I'm misunderstanding what you're saying. If an adcom receives an application from a 25 year old, and an 18 year old, you don't think that the adcom is going to be looking for more explicit reassurance as to the applicant's maturity in the case of the 18 year old? A 15 year old applying to college will have their emotional and social readiness questioned more closely than will an 18 year old. Are you saying the same is not true for medical schools?
Perhaps we are not meaning the same thing when we each say that something is a "red flag." I will explain what that phrase means to me.
When I read applications or interview applicants, I have a checklist of specific qualifications that I am trying to evaluate. For example, is there evidence that the applicant is academically prepared for a medical school curriculum? Does s/he show evidence of concern for the welfare of others (often shown by volunteer activities)? Have some knowledge of what a physician's job entails (often shown by shadowing, clinical volunteering, etc.)? Have the ability to acknowledge his/her weaknesses and take steps to correct them (for example, adjusting study habits after a poor first semester and getting good grades from then on)? Demonstrate an ability to work well with others in a team setting? Leadership ability? Coping ability for stressful situations? And so on.
Some applicants show ample evidence for having all these qualities, and those are the ones that we most want to matriculate at our school. Some applicants show evidence for some of these things, and give us nothing to go on either way for others. Those are people we try to learn more about. Some applicants have glaring evidence that they obviously lack one or more of these qualifications. *Those* are the people who have red flags. To relate this directly to the OP's example, being 17 years old is not a red flag. Being immature, however, *is* a red flag, regardless of the applicant's age.
At my school, we consider applicants over age 30 to be "nontraditional." However, we do not give these applicants bonus points for maturity simply because of their age. We still evaluate the maturity of nontrad candidates just as we would for traditional candidates. Conversely, we do not deduct maturity points from a younger candidate merely for being a teenager. Both candidates will be evaluated as to whether they are mature enough for medical school. Now, if you are arguing that, on average, a 17-year-old is not as mature as a 25-year-old, we are in agreement. If you are arguing that a 17-year-old is more likely to have a red flag for immaturity than a 25-year-old, then again, we are in agreement. But that tells us nothing about any specific applicant's maturity.
It is interesting that so many nontrads are convinced that teens would inherently be unfit for medical school because they are too immature. First, consider that in most countries (outside of the US and Canada), medical students normally matriculate as teens. Very few countries require a BS/BA before admission to med school like we do. Second, the vast majority of Americans do not finish their college degrees as teenagers. I think we can agree that the few who do are exceptional among their peers. This does not guarantee that they are necessarily mature enough for medical school, but they are certainly not the norm for their age. Finally, I think it is easy for nontrads to project a little. What I mean is, many of *us* were not mature enough at the OP's age to have gone to medical school. Some of us partied our way through high school/college and were academically underqualified. Some of us were too high strung and emotionally underqualified. (I would fall into that category.) Some of us just weren't interested in medicine or science at that age and lacked any clinical exposure. It's easy to assume that all teens must be like we were at their age.
I'll leave you with one parting thought. There are literally hundreds of threads in this forum populated with thousands of posts by nontrads wringing their hands at the thought that some albatross from 10+ years ago might prevent an adcom from giving them a chance. They want adcoms to evaluate them holistically, to give them credit for who they are today. All of us who are nontrads can identify with that feeling, that desire to get a fighting chance to make our case. How, then, can we justify denying the same opportunity we rightly demand for ourselves to a teen applicant, merely because s/he is a teenager?
