Novakaine

I was always under the impression that most students went right from college to medical school (just a regular MD program). I'm now learning about 'non traditionals' who don't apply until their 30's.

I keep reading that most people find the average age of students entering is about 24/ 25. Why is that? What do they in the years between college and med school? Remember I''m NOT talking about MD/ PhD or PhD. Thank you!

ginnyvere

At some places, the average is a little bumped up by outliers (i.e., the two >40-year-olds in my first-year class made our average higher than it would've been otherwise). But approximately 50% of medical students take at least one year off between undergrad and medical school.

Some people have really good reasons for taking time out. Others need a year for whatever reason and they scramble something together so that they have something they can tell medical school adcoms.

Lots of those students do research or some type of humanitarian job/volunteering (I had classmates who did AmeriCorps, Teach for America, and the Peace Corps). For others it's just a matter of logistics because applying to medical school is time consuming or because they want their last year to count in their application. Some people take a year out because they decided late that they wanted to go to medical school, so they can't take the MCAT until they've taken the pre-reqs, which doesn't happen until it's too late to apply for the next year. Some people have a less-than-great GPA and want to do really well during their senior year to bring it up before they apply. Others plan to (or need to) apply to 30 schools and don't feel like they can miss the time they'll need for interviews if they're in school.

WayOutWestMom

The average age of a MS1 is now around 25 years old. (24.8 years last time I checked the data.)

I'd say about half of D1's class was in the 24-26 age range, 1/3 were straight out of undergrad (21-22 yo) and the rest were in their late 20's-early 30's.

A recent interview with the director of admissions at Duke's med school said that they encourage their students to take a year or two off after college to "mature" and gain a more diverse range of life experiences.

And some students just want a break from academics. (The reason my D2 gave for not applying to med school before graduation, even though she has everthing else in place. She just wanted some time off from being in school.)

Novakaine

So how difficult is it to right from under grad to MS1?

WayOutWestMom

It's competitive, but not impossible.

As always the onus is on the applicant to prove he/she has the maturity, skills, wisdom and dedication to medicine needed to be successful in medical school.

Novakaine

Ok, thank you very much! Both of your responses have more than answered my question. Thank you!

i_wanna_be_Brown

As someone pointed out, there is a skew to the right for age since under 21 is much, much, much rarer than someone super old. Here is more detailed age data: https://www.aamc.org/download/159350/data/table6.pdf