average age of a new nurse?

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I'm doing some research and am wondering what the average age is of graduating nurses these days. What is your experience?

When I graduated from nursing in the early 80s, most of us were in our early 20s, but I'm told that more and more nursing classes have more older students who are going back to school for a second career.

Thanks!

I graduated with my BSN at the age of 22 - in 2002. My mom went to nursing school and got her LPN around 22-23 in the 70's.

I always did think I did things different from most of the other new grads! I am glad that I went when I did - life gets more complicated as you move on!:monkeydance:

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Specializes in ICU.

I'll be 28 when I finish next year. The majority of my class are older than me.

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I'm 48 and graduated in May. This is a second career for me.

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Specializes in Surgical/MedSurg/Oncology/Hospice.

I am a 33 year old woman starting Nursing school this fall...there were 125 people accepted to my program and at least 1/2 of them seem to be my age or older. There are several that appear to be into their 50's. We even have 21 men in the program, which the nursing administrator says is the highest number in our program to date.

I expected to be one of the oldest at orientation, but there were very few students that looked like they were under 25!

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Specializes in Neuroscience ICU, CNRN, SCRN.

I was 48 when I graduated in 12/04 with my ADN. Most of my classmates were between mid 30s - mid 40s; although there were a handful of 20 somethings, as well a few older than me. I am working on my BSN now and hope to finish before I'm 53.

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When I graduate I will be 27. I dont think I could have done nursing school when I was younger,too immature and wanted to party.

Oh Lord, I'll be 39 when I'm done, and there is no way I could have done this when I was younger.

A friend of mine and I have a "pool" going to see who will make it vs not make it this Fall.

Our nursing Math class was our "guide", it was a very, very easy class...but only if you did all of the homework, if you didn't, I could see how someone would be easily lost. There was a girl sitting beside of me that got a "C" in nursing Math b/c she just copied her homework from the back of the book...and I'm not 100% sure she even got the C.

She was #2 on the alternate list and made it in shortly after first rounds. We don't think she has the work ethic to stay in.

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Thank you so much for your input folks.

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Hi. I am already nearing 40 years old and just graduated a year ago. Is it too late to start a nursing career in the US? :)

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Specializes in Med/Surg/Oncology.

Well I began nursing school back when I was 21, but we were military and had gotten sent away, then I had babies, etc. I went back in 2005 and I graduated at the age of 32.:nurse:

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Specializes in SICU, EMS, Home Health, School Nursing.

I was only 20 when I graduated with my BSN... I was the youngest in my class by far!! A good percentage of my class was people in their 30s-50s.

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Well, I started Nursing School back in the fall of last year. We started with around 60, but have dwindled down to about 36. I would say out of the 36 left, there may be 10 under the age of 25, myself included.

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Specializes in Telemetry.

I graduate in May and will be 29 in a few weeks. Our class has a wide range of ages, as young as 20, some in their 50s. I think the vast majority in our class are in their mid-late 20s and early-mid 30s.

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