<p>Curious if you guys know about this -- want to see if my fears of age discrimination are warranted.</p>
<p>I know that top business schools typically do not accept applicants over 30. Medical schools, on the other hand, seem to easily accept students up to the 50s! (Nontraditional</a> Students - Student Doctor Network Forums)</p>
<p>How are other schools with reference to age discrimination? What about top law schools (H/S/Y)? PhD programs?</p>
<p>I’ve known fairly old PhD students at both schools I’ve attended (Caltech and Carnegie Mellon), so I know there’s not some complete cutoff.</p>
<p>One dude was actually a Russian in his mid-40s or so.</p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/duke-university/713549-transfer-age-limit-duke.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/duke-university/713549-transfer-age-limit-duke.html</a></p>
<p>Read it.</p>
<p>I’ve have not only experienced this, I’ve done the research as well. Medical schools discriminate blatently and illegally based on age. The stats are published and easily available in AMCAS. If one applys at age 22 his or her chance of acceptance is greater than 50%, applicants at age 26 have approximately a 45% chance of acceptance. These are approximations as I don’t have my research in front of me, but as i said, this is easily verfiable. One’s chances of acceptance at age 30 drops to around 35%. Beyond that the slope of acceptance rates by age shows a linear digression to the last age catagory listed of 38 and above. At that point there is less than a 20% chance of acceptance. If one were to extrapolate beyond that point it becomes apparent that a 45 year old applicant may have a 10% chance of acceptance, if that.</p>
<p>I wouldn’t say that this kind of discrimination can’t be rationalized. After all, medical school and post-graduate training are very demanding, and let’s face it, most 24 year olds have more energy and endurance than most 45 year olds who will be at least 52 after the minimum training. Also, it is a very expensive program that tuition and fees don’t completely cover and schools don’t want to invest in someone who may not practice long. As most of us get older we become more encumbered with family and other financial obligations, and are more apt to develop health problems that may hinder the successful completion of the program. On the other hand, I believe that older students bring both diversity and breadth of experience to the table among other positive attributes. However, good or bad - right or wrong - one thing is certain; age discrimination is illegal. Nevertheless, this practice, will continue as long as it is accepted by the victims of discrimination. As I said, I have experienced this first hand. I was discriminated against in an obvious way based on my age and family status. I filed a complaint with Health and Human Services who found in my favor resulting in admission. I followed up with a civil suit which I settled in exchange for three years of free books, fees, and tuition. Since I was attending class during the civil case and didn’t want to be distracted by a protracted litigation, I let them off easy.</p>
<p>Sure, most med schools admit a couple non-traditional students, but this is nothing more than tokenism, pure and simple.</p>
<p>And how old are you?</p>
<p>“I know that top business schools typically do not accept applicants over 30.”</p>
<p>Can anyone else confirm if that’s really true?</p>
<p>Many business schools have MBA programs that are specifically designed for older students. Usually these are labeled “Weekend MBA” or “Executive MBA” or the like.</p>
<p>I started medical school at the age of 29 in the 1980’s. Not only was I sure I would be the only student close to 30, I was coming in as a special ed teacher with the minimum science requirements after deciding I was more interested in the medical problems of my students than teaching them to feed themselves. There were at least 11 or 12 students (about 10% of the class) my age and older, including a high school music teacher in his 40’s who didn’t get in to med school when he applied out of college. I think individual schools are very welcoming of non-traditional students – you just have to be interested in applying to one. My school told me that they accepted me (after I was there for a year) because they never had a special ed teacher apply before. Didn’t really care why – I’ve been practicing medicine now for 20 years.</p>
<p>I started osteopathic medical school at age 28 after a graduate degree in psychology. DO schools have a tradition of taking older students from disciplines such as nursing, pharmacy and some PhDs in the pre-clinical sciences. There are always exceptions at every institution, however, as a country I think we tend to discriminate a lot based on age.</p>
<p>Not just grad schools. It is rare that non tradiitional older students will get accepted by selective undergrad schools. This is not a diversity that the school wants.</p>
<p>Law schools accept older students all the time. When I was in law school, there were 6-7 members of my (small) class older than 40, and many over 30. This was at a tippy-top law school.</p>
<p>On the other hand, when my sister started medical school at 37, she was the oldest person in her class by 5-6 years. I agree, though, that given the length of training it takes to produce a doctor, any older than that and you really have to question whether the game is worth it. It might make a difference what a candidate’s background was, and why he or she wanted to go to medical school. I.e., the special ed teacher was a great rationale, and the background would really enhance one’s ability to treat that population.</p>
<p>With business schools, I think there is a subtle two-way effect. An MBA is really never a necessary credential. If you are 40 and doing well in your career, no one is going to care whether you have the degree or not. For some people coming up through the ranks and moving into management, a local night-school MBA would do the trick, and taking two years off to go to Wharton would be counter-productive. So I imagine that the number of really compelling older candidates top b-schools see is pretty limited. On the other hand, I’ll bet that b-schools do prefer students who will have a long time to build a dynamite career.</p>
<p>@cptofthehouse – In some selective undergrad schools though, they do want non-traditionally aged students. Smith has a program specifically for women who are over the age of 24 or have a child. Our oldest graduate of the program was in her 80s, she couldn’t finish college because of WWII and then life interupting her studies. I know some of the other women’s colleges have started similar programs.</p>
<p>Columbia told me that I was too old to apply to their undergrad school and sent my application to “general studies.”</p>
<p>I was 21 and a half and was finishing my sophomore year at a top residential LAC.</p>
<p>Nontraditional, my butt. Grrrr. I restrained the urge to call “general studies” and tell them I would do my best to make do at Harvard.</p>
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<p>I agree with this. I went to Kellogg in the evening program (paid for by my employer, a Fortune 50 company) beginning about age 25 or so, and quit at age 27 because I was having twins and a medically complicated pregnancy and had to pick 2 of 3 when it came to working, having twins, and finishing my MBA. At that point, it really was a punch-the-ticket type of thing for my employer. I personally went to Kellogg because it suited me best and was at the time #1 for marketing, but honestly, my coworkers split themselves up between Kellogg, U of Chicago (Booth - though I don’t think it was called Booth then), and even DePaul or Lake Forest as suited their personal situations and it didn’t make that much of a difference if they were staying with this employer. I didn’t finish it and now in my mid-forties, it hasn’t made a bit of difference career-wise. I have no need / desire to finish it (other than if I were to want to personally).</p>
<p>OTOH, a friend of mine who was also going to Kellogg with me had triplets (always outdoing me!) and stopped as well. She stayed home with her triplets for a few years and then went back full-time on the Evanston campus, at her expense, because it was a strong personal goal of hers to finish, and she now has a great job with Morgan Stanley, where that credential was really needed. Certain fields are just less critical than others when it comes to an MBA.</p>
<p>Hanna - that’s one thing I thought was really cool about the women’s LAC’s – I remember Smith and Wellesley in particular making a really big deal of their offerings for non-traditional-age students, and they seemed to really mean it.</p>
<p>Yes, there are such programs at some colleges, and the majority of US colleges are non selective and will take anybody. But most selective residential colleges do not want a 30 year old in their dorms or campus as an undergrad.</p>
<p>My daughter (at a selective residential college) had a classmate/dormmate in his mid 30s when she was a first year. I think almost everyone thought that was slightly weird and creepy on the older student’s part, though – not finally going to college (after a generally successful career as an autodidact), but insisting on living in a first-year dorm.</p>
<p>The McBride scholars (older, returning students at Bryn Mawr) do not live with the first-years. Most live off campus, and there are some dedicated spaces reserved for them.</p>
<p>I don’t have much information on this topic, but a family friend went to Harvard Law after gaining tenure at an excellent public university–so allow about 5 years post BA for the Ph.D. work and another 5-8 years to become tenured (no post-doc in this case, as far as I know).</p>
<p>Thank u for your post. I have recently been ignored by a college admissions department in spite of a current 4.0 on my general ed. courses. I believe it’s because of age discrimination.</p>