<p>I'm currently 26 and will be attending SIPA this fall. I'm considering a PhD in economics or poli. sci afterwards, and I understand these degrees take about five years to complete.
So assuming I start the PhD program when I'm 28, is this considered "late" to begin a PhD program? I have friends who are 28 who are already about to receive their doctorates!</p>
<p>Look, you can always find somebody who is younger than you who has accomplished more things. Lawrence Bragg, for example, won the Nobel Prize in Physics when he was 25. </p>
<p>Look, I personally know people who started their PhD's while being (at youngest) in their 40's, possibly older. Age is really just a state of mind.</p>
<p>No, it's not too late.</p>
<p>It reminds me of a letter to Ann Landers many years ago:</p>
<p>Writer (paraphrased): I'm 48 and I was accepted to medical school. But I'll be 52 when I get out and start my internship and residency. Am I too old?</p>
<p>Ann: How old will you be in 4 years if you don't go to medical school?</p>
<p>ok, ok i get the point, and you guys are absolutely correct.
fine then, but it'd be nice (and certainly helpful for my social experience) if the people were around my age. what is the average age for a first year PhD student? Is it much younger than 28?</p>
<p>Probably depends on the field, but for what it's worth, I'm applying straight out of college (I'm 22) and I felt REALLY young when doing all my interviews because most of the students had taken 2-5 years off before applying, and a good number of grad students were engaged, married, or even had kids.</p>
<p>forestbrook,
wow, RESPECK for starting so early. however, i was under the impression that you had to get a master's before getting a pHd, though I guess it depends on the program?</p>
<p>in a lot of programs you can get the master's along the way to a PhD. for example, in computer science you do course work and a project the first 2 years or so, then they give you a masters and you continue working towards the PhD.</p>
<p>on the age issue: i am sure you will find people your age. i am turning 22 tomorrow and am in the midst of visiting top CS schools. i definitely feel younger because a lot of people have taken time off. as a side note, when i was in 2nd grade my mom started doing a PhD program. she was 38 at the time.</p>
<p>good luck to you, you should be proud of yourself for wanting to go back to school!!!</p>
<p>for social sciences, esp. econ and poli sci, i think the average starting age is around 26-30. some are younger, some are older. you're certainly not too old.</p>
<p>whatsupma - I'm in bio... most (though not all) go straight to PhD since that takes 5-6 years.</p>
<p>most people in my field (psych) take time off before grad school (sort of necessary to gain research and clinical experience before acceptance). therefore most people dont start until mid-late 20s. a lot of schools that i interviewed at had a lot of people around 30, who were married.
grad school is so different than undergrad, in that outside of the classroom everyone is so busy dealing with their own life schedule.
i know several people who have gone for advanced degrees well into their 40s and even 50s. those who find out what they love in their 20s are the lucky ones. for others, it takes time and life experience.</p>
<p>Last semester I was in a graduate statistics class where a good number of the students were in their 40s and 50s.</p>
<p>Being 36, I am beginning my MPhil in Literature at Cambridge next october. But I do confess that I feel embarrassed for going to have collegues 10 years younger than me...
I think that the only thing we can do, whatsupma, is keeping in mind that getting back to school even later would be worse anyway...</p>
<p>A lot of PhD programs prefer older students.</p>
<p>momfromme: Which are the PhD programs you have in mind? A lot of the current students of the PhD progams to which I applied told me that my age would be seen as negative factor in my application!!</p>
<p>I have a very good friend w/a PhD in political science who started at about your age and there was a spread in ages in his program. He studied American politics at a top 10 program and is now a tenured professor at a good LAC.</p>
<p>You are not too old to get started. For one thing, students toward the lower end of the age spectrum are often less focused and take longer to finish than do others. So you might end up completing the PhD at around the same age as someone years younger than you.</p>
<p>momfromme, thank you a lot for the answer. I hope that fields other than political science do not count age - at least not negatively. </p>
<p>In other forum on graduate admissions, an unseccessful applicant with very good credentials claimed to have being rejected because of his/her age. S/he did not declare it, but it seems s/he is in his/her 40s.</p>
<p>It seems s/he is right, for his/her GRE, GPA, and so on were very good, and even so he/she got a rejection even from lower-tier schools.
Unfortuanately, I have applied to the very same programs thar seem to have rejected him/her on those grounds, and my scores do not even get close to his/hers...</p>
<p>One thing to keep in mind is that letters of recommendation from one's professors are very important for grad admissions. If you've developed relationships with some who will write letters from you, that will help a lot. </p>
<p>Also, keep in mind that the grad essay is unlike the undergraduate one. The admissions committee will be made up of professors and maybe grad students in the dept, not admissions officers and they don't care about life changing events (summers doing volunteer work, the death of a family member, your grandmother's ethnic cooking, etc.). They will be looking for evidence of your academic interest, both in what you say and in projects/research papers you've done - and they should fit to some extent with the strengths of the department. </p>
<p>Make sure you have looked at the web site and checked out the research fields of faculty and any other information about research strengths and emphases in the department. When you finish and go looking for an academic job (and I'm assuming that's what you will be doing), faculty around the country will be aware of your dept's strengths and you should get a sense of that now, too. You can ask your current professors about grad departments' reputations and they should be able to advise you.</p>
<p>Best of luck!</p>
<p>if you want to graduate in a Ph.D faster, you can do one in 3 years in the UK if you have research training...or sometimes an appropriate masters....</p>
<p>Honestly, I wish I had waited a few more years before starting my MA. I'd be able to relate to my classmates more, and I'd have better developed career goals.</p>
<p>C'est la vie.</p>
<p>Yeah, I'm on the opposite end of the spectrum; I'll be starting my MA next year at the ripe old age of 21. Considering most of my friends in final year undergrad are 23-25, this is going to be extremely weird. But, to be honest, I feel like it's right for me because I just don't know what I'd be doing in my spare time that wouldn't make me feel as if I were wasting my time. I don't think 26 is too old at all and you will probably be in the majority of students. In any case, even if you were 50, it's not like going back to grade 8 at 21. The age difference sort of melts away at a certain time.</p>