Robert C. Bowman, M.D.
Medical students over 29 years of age are considered older or nontraditional. They tend to have rural, lower income, middle income, and diverse origins. Their delays in entry are often the result of barriers of income, education, or other areas that they have overcome.
Older Graduates and Rural Choice
Older graduates have significant advantages in distribution and are highly regarded by medical experts.
Older graduates are more likely to choose family medicine, choose and stay in primary care, and be found serving in rural or underserved locations. Those in the most complex primary care settings are a combination of similar origin, older age, lower income, and choice of family medicine. Younger graduates have the lowest choice of family medicine, primary care, and distributional careers. Divisions in Physician Career and Location Choice Related to Age at Graduation
Front Line Medical Care is often in the hands of older grads, from rural primary care to urban ER and all forms of mental health.
Summary - Older medical students have a better chance of admission when the applicant pool declines and when medical schools expand. They appear to have been regarded over this time as a lower priority choice although recently advisors have observed increases in older admissions. The data agrees with admissions of those older than 32 at admission and various schools have increased admissions of older students, particularly those with more diverse admissions such as the historically black colleges, San Antonio, UC Davis, UC Irvine, UCLA, and the U of Washington. They have long been respected for their maturity and contributions to medicine and medical education, but this has not been translated to widespread acceptance or development of special tracks. Osteopathic schools and the U of New Mexico have long admitted over 40% who are older graduates. For recent admissions trends by age see Older Graduate Career Probabilities
For information on admissions as an Older Premed
Age, Applicant Pools, and Expansion
The nation has had basically one major period of medical school expansion. Between the 1970 and 1982 classes the national allopathic class size doubled from 8000 to 16000 graduates a year. During medical school expansion there was increased admissions of older students. When the applicant pool declined, older students were admitted in greater percentage. With increases in the applicant pool there were declines in the percentage of older students admitted. Older students are not the preferred group for admission. Such students may be more difficult to assess and they do tend to have lower scores. However the schools willing to take the risks are the ones that are distributing physicians where they are most needed.
The decreases in older medical students would be even more marked without declines in the applicant pool and the newer allopathic schools. The medical schools created since 1971 that integrated family medicine and primary care more thoroughly have admitted higher percentages of older medical students (25.5 % over 29 years) compared to older medical schools (21.6 %). Such schools have higher distributional choices (Mercer, Duluth, Morehouse, East Carolina, East Tennessee, South Alabama, U of South Carolina, Marshall, Mercer, Northeast Ohio, Wright State, Eastern Virginia, Texas A & M). Nationwide the osteopathic schools continue to contribute even greater numbers to family medicine and rural practice with older classes (38.5 % average over 29 years) that approach 50 % in some schools and some years.
Footnote: Although admission of more older students during medical school expansion tends to improve physician distribution and choice of family medicine and primary care, those admitted in the greatest numbers have been the most urban students. Urban and foreign born students have always been the least likely to choose family medicine, primary care, and office-based primary care poverty locations. The medical school expansion basically doubled admissions of those from metropolitan areas and did not increase medical school admissions of underrepresented minority or rural born students (Cost, Quality, Access, and Physician Workforce Expansion).
Divisions in Physician Career and Location Choice Related to Age at Graduation
Age at Graduation and Physician Specialty