Are Grad Schools baised against older students?

[ponderingturtle]

At dinner recently we had a group of people talking about the difficulties they had getting into graduate school being 30 instead of moving from high school to college to graduate school.

Now as two of the people who had been having difficulty were applying to writing programs, it might be different for different programs.

Just wondering what the various people here though, is there a bias? Is it in certain programs more than others? Does it effect some schools more than others?

 

[quixotecoyote]

At dinner recently we had a group of people talking about the difficulties they had getting into graduate school being 30 instead of moving from high school to college to graduate school.

Now as two of the people who had been having difficulty were applying to writing programs, it might be different for different programs.

Just wondering what the various people here though, is there a bias? Is it in certain programs more than others? Does it effect some schools more than others?

How would we know?

There's a few older students in my grad program, but that doesn't tell me anything without knowing the total number and qualifications of those that applied.

 

[drkitten]

Just wondering what the various people here though, is there a bias? Is it in certain programs more than others? Does it effect some schools more than others?

Speaking as someone who has just sat on the department grad admission committee ---

yes, it's probably harder to get into (my) graduate school as a "non-trad" student. You're less likely to have an up-to-date background (if your course in computer programming was twenty years ago and used Pascal, that won't help you much; similarly; other fields also change, although perhaps not as dramatically), and will probably have a harder time getting good letters of recommendation that address your scholastic abilities. (We specify at least one academic reference for admission.)

I suspect that it's also harder just to jump through the hoops; if you have a job and a family and a life, you may not want to run around collecting GRE scores and transcripts and whatnot, especially for the opportunity to take a substantial cut in pay for the next two to ten years. And, of course, if your last standardized test was twenty years ago, you may not do as well as you would have liked -- or would have done when you were in practice.

 

[Chris Haynes]

Nooo! I am about to take the GRE and apply to grad school. Though knowing my computer programming skills are out of date (FORTRAN!), I am taking computer science classes at the local community college (where I picked up some classes to refresh my skills, and some classes I missed the first time around like biology and the last quarter of physics). By the way, despite my first class being JAVA, I am getting a straight 4.0, just because I am not confused by arrays (though starting of a matrix subscript at zero is a bit off-putting), nor boolean algebra... and not by the several versions of loop structure.

 

[firecoins]

Some programs are designed for non-trad students. On line programs cater to older studnets. If one truly wants a certain education, they will get it.

 

[malbui]

Anecdote here, not data.

I'm 40 and doing a part-time PhD, and had no trouble getting accepted into the doctoral school. A lot of that was due to the context, though: I've been working in industry for the last 16 years and I can leverage a lot of that experience and knowledge directly for my ongoing research. My MSc was viewed as evidence that I'm academically quite bright but it's so old that it has little bearing on what I'm looking at now.

 

[drkitten]

Nooo! I am about to take the GRE and apply to grad school. Though knowing my computer programming skills are out of date (FORTRAN!), I am taking computer science classes at the local community college (where I picked up some classes to refresh my skills, and some classes I missed the first time around like biology and the last quarter of physics).

I think you're supporting me, actually. You recognize that the FORTRAN class may not be as useful today as it was back in the mid-Paleolithic,, and you're "refreshing your skills" that have gotten a bit rusty. And any of the people from whom you're taking a class now could provide the needed reference letter our program demands.

But it's an extra set of hoops you have to jump through that a 21 year old might not need.

The flip side, as malbui points out, is that non-trad students tend to be much more successful once they are accepted. They're more motivated and have better general backgrounds.

 

[ponderingturtle]

I think you're supporting me, actually. You recognize that the FORTRAN class may not be as useful today as it was back in the mid-Paleolithic,, and you're "refreshing your skills" that have gotten a bit rusty. And any of the people from whom you're taking a class now could provide the needed reference letter our program demands.

But it's an extra set of hoops you have to jump through that a 21 year old might not need.

The flip side, as malbui points out, is that non-trad students tend to be much more successful once they are accepted. They're more motivated and have better general backgrounds.

I should note that some of the ones being talked about were MFA's and specificaly Ph.D's in creative writing. In such artistic areas it might be more biased than science or engineering programs. I have specificaly seen a number of engineering programs aimed at people who are employed.

As for Fortran, I have no idea why I learned it 10 years ago, it just shows how they don't want to update their courses much. But the Labview course should ballance that.

 

[rwguinn]

more anecdote:
in 1991 during the big lay-offs, I decided that Grad school might be a "safe haven" and helpful to me.
I could not get any interest at all (too long since I graduated, attended classes- the basic "you're an OLD dude!", etc) even with 17 years industry experience. So I took the GRE...
When the results were reported to the schools, DU and CU both indicated that they might be able to find me a place--but by then, I was back to full-time engineering, and concentrated on getting my PE instead..

 

[Edges]

I should note that some of the ones being talked about were MFA's and specificaly Ph.D's in creative writing.

As a creative writing major looking at grad school, I think this might be the problem more than their age. I'm kinda leery about my own chances of getting into a creative writing program (as opposed to an English program that includes creative writing) and I'm only planning to take off a year between college and grad school. Few schools seem to offer this program and the ones that do seem to accept a very limited number of students each year.

 

[joobz]

Anecdote continuum:

My first grad student is a non-traditional and is older than me. It's been great as he helps set a high standard for my other students.

 

[LightinDarkness]

I've been on the admissions committee for a masters and doctoral program, both times while a student. Both times I had a vote and was involved in all the decision making - I am not sure if this is the usual process because I have no experience on admissions committees besides those two. I think some programs don't have any student involvement though when it comes to admissions, others have some but don't give them a vote.

Although an admissions interview was required, it could be done by phone for people who lived out of state or had other obligations. In that case we had nothing to go on to determine age at all, since all identifying information was removed from the admissions materials we reviewed. It was impossible in that case to discriminate.

For people who actually came to the interview I think older applicants were more likely to get it because they could relate to the faculty more, who were generally older (although we had a few young faculty, they were in the minority). I am in a social science field, I *have* heard stories from a friend in medical school that there was some concern over older applicants and whether or not they would be able to handle residency. I guess it depends on the field.

 

[ponderingturtle]

I've been on the admissions committee for a masters and doctoral program, both times while a student. Both times I had a vote and was involved in all the decision making - I am not sure if this is the usual process because I have no experience on admissions committees besides those two. I think some programs don't have any student involvement though when it comes to admissions, others have some but don't give them a vote.

Although an admissions interview was required, it could be done by phone for people who lived out of state or had other obligations. In that case we had nothing to go on to determine age at all, since all identifying information was removed from the admissions materials we reviewed. It was impossible in that case to discriminate.

For people who actually came to the interview I think older applicants were more likely to get it because they could relate to the faculty more, who were generally older (although we had a few young faculty, they were in the minority). I am in a social science field, I *have* heard stories from a friend in medical school that there was some concern over older applicants and whether or not they would be able to handle residency. I guess it depends on the field.

They removed all dates from transcripts?

 

[LightinDarkness]

They removed all dates from transcripts?

Obvious dates, yes. Copies passed over from the graduate school were were whited out by the support staff where any years occurred. Of course, anyone could go to a school's website and lookup courses and determine general age based on course numbers since those change every so often. Of course, as more and more people go back to school at a later age it would be harder to figure out.

Anyone on the committee could also call the graduate school, which gets the general application with dates all over it, and ask for a copy. There would be infinite ways to figure out someones age. Impossible was the wrong word to use. It would certainly be possible to discriminate on age if someone wanted to do the little bit of leg work.

But I don't think in my case anyone did because age - in my field - isn't a salient issue. At the masters level the concerns were GPA (>3.75, except in usual circumstances), GRE (>1350, except in usual circumstances), and whether the person had demonstrated leadership/research potential. At the doctoral level it was first whether the person's performance in their masters program demonstrated they could perform good research. I suppose age could factor into some of these things by proxy, particularly on the research end.