t00rd3rr

I have been sick for the last 4 years.. government benefits etc, thus am now 28 and looking for start an undergraduate degree in a STEM field. I am obviously getting ahead of myself, but if when I graduate at 32 years old is this going to negatively impact on my ability to get MSc or PhD offers at top US schools?

I get the impression that top schools would rather take someone younger if both candidates GRE, GPA and references were similar.

scaleupchem

At 28 you are going to be older than your fellow freshmen, but that shouldn't deter you. 32 is not really old for grad school. I am 28, and another lady in my cohort is 30. We both went into the work force after graduating, but that is our situation.

Remember you are never too old. You will have some in your cohort in grad school who are your same age. The only thing you need to worry about is doing your best in undergrad. Nobody cares how old you are when you graduate, they only care about what you did in route to your undergrad degree. Did you do undergrad research? Did it result in a paper/poster? Did you do summer research? How are your grades? Your story will be even more compelling because you would have overcome a number of hardships to get your degree, and that will make for good grad school essays. Good luck with everything.

apathy

No it's not too old. The pool of people that interviewed with me/toured with me for PhD programs at all my schools had people ranging from 22 and fresh out of college to 30s and had been in industry for at least 6 years.

cosmicfish

I was 33 when I started my engineering PhD at a top-5 program, and there is another in my research group who was 35. Grad admissions are very individual, with relatively few admissions made by the department and most made by individual advisors. It is quite probable that some advisors will shy away from older students... but only some, and it is not possible to avoid all prejudices. There are some professors who will avoid or prefer women, or asians, or grads from certain schools, and yet that does not stop people from getting accepted in general.

Concentrate on getting the undergrad. If and when you finish you can worry about your MS or PhD chances.