In my previous life (before motherhood) my job was at a medical school and part of the work I did was with the admissions department. While age wasn't looked at too closely, I will admit that we did notice if a kid was anything other than the typical 21 or 22 year old.
If someone was in their 30s (rare) we knew they were probably trying for a new career and/or had a story. Having a few older/non traditional students in the mix - so long as they are highly qualified - can sometimes round out a good mix for a class.
If they applicants were younger than typical - say 20 or 19 - we knew they were probably extremely bright. Sometimes the young ones needed some extra hand holding while in school just due to maturity issues, but often they did not. Sometimes their parents were a bit overly involved - sometimes they were not.
If applicants were a bit older than expected... well, to be honest that was a bit of a red flag. Red flag - not meaning we immediately tossed their application aside, but red flag meaning we looked closer to see "what went wrong?" Were they not able to complete college in 4 years? Were they held back in grade school? Sometimes there were explanations in the essays, sometimes not. It did indeed make us pause and wonder what happened. Was there some problem that we couldn't see on the application or with the test scores?
Sorry to sound judgmental but when you have nearly 7,000 outstanding applicants for 125 spots in a class, you look for any reason to dismiss an applicant. When you are talking about an ultra competitive area like medical school, seeing a kid that was 24 or 25 before graduating from college is an unwritten (and sometimes unspoken) red flag.
Again, this was for medical school admissions. I'm sure undergraduate admissions would have their own take on things. They would have a better view, perhaps, of what happened earlier in their education to put them a year behind. They would at least have the high school transcripts - our applicants only provided undergrad and previous grad school transcripts. Also, admissions philosophy going to vary a lot school-by-school.
When all things are equal in terms of MCATS, GPA, volunteer experiences, interviews, and quality of undergraduate institutions, I know we would most likely take the 22 year old over a 24 year old. This isn't a written admissions rule - just a gut instinct on the level of administrators and committee members who vote on which students get an offer.
Last edited by sweetpeas; 03/11/12 07:47 AM.
