What schools are friendly/favor non traditional students?

[Engrailed]

Title is self explanatory🙂

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[Goro]

Any DO school
Dartmouth
Emory
Look in MSAR for the data on matriculants who have post-graduate degrees or post-bac credits. I forget the exact wording, and my MSAR access isn't working from home right now. You'll need to do this school-by-school

 

[gyngyn]

Non-trad is the new trad.

 

[Engrailed]

Thank you @Goro @gyngyn

 

[907914]

Depends what we are considering “non-trad.”

If a gap year or two is considered “non-trad” then most of them favor that as 2/3 of matriculants have a gap year or two.

If we are talking like legit career changers, vets, have kids, 3 or more ‘gap years’ then look on MSAR for any school with more than 40% of their class as >25.

 

[DNAJB6]

Are there any schools that notoriously disfavor non traditional students?

 

[Cornfed101]

Are there any schools that notoriously disfavor non traditional students?

Any school with sky-high stats since a lot of nontrads have a checkered past...

 

[Engrailed]

I have been working primarily with nontrads, atypical, and problem applicants for about 2 decades now and every time I hear this question, I kind of roll my eyes. Every school is nontrad friendly if you fit their stats, mission, and profile. I get students all the time saying one school or another isnt open to nontrads, I start rolling off who I know went there, from the very top schools all the way down the to bottom tier.

Many nontrads believe they can rely on their atypical background to make up for weaker stats, etc. this is false. Many nontrads also do not know how to express their story, often trying to fit in as a typical student or the opposite end where they just tell their atypical story.

Like all applicants, nontrads must have a coherent, concise and compelling narrative with solid EC evidence showing a strong pattern of motivation, commitment and achievement. Your application is evaluated within its own context and school’s profile, not in some comparison to other applicants.

My motivation for my question was not related to relying on an atypical background (if anything I think I probably made myself more typical staying in academia) but more to see which schools strongly favor students of a certain background/ one way or another. I have read that Dartmouth heavily favors non trads and schools like Case WEstern prefer undergrad-recent graduates. I may be wrong on that.

 

[Wolvvs]

For Dartmouth, 50% of people were 24+, whereas at Case, 40% of people were 24+ per MSAR. So maybe there's some difference but it's not huge.