Yah, I'm sure you're right, but my background and credit hours are mostly in business/finance and I'm trying to get accepted into year 3 of a similar program here in France. I'd probably have to start from year 1 in a new field and don't really want to do that.

Right now I'm in the process of sending off a couple applications and will hear back in May/June. My letters of motivation in French are probably hilaribad, but English competency seems to be highly valued here which can only help my cause.

So one of the programs I'm applying for is a French program called Banking, Finance, and Risk Control and I have to take an admissions test comprising culture, English proficiency, and statistics/logic. I haven't studied any math at all for over a decade and it looks like there a bunch of questions that are either the type "train A leaves going 100km/h and train B leaves going 120km/h..." or "there are 14 teams in a soccer league, if they all play each other twice, how many total matches will be played".

So it doesn't look like the math is too intensive and I could slowly figure out those types of problems with enough time, but is there a decent resource on the internet to brush on basic formulas or faster ways to tackle those problems so I don't waste time?

Well it looks like I'm actually doing this. 33 years old, I started studying at my hometown university in Omaha, Nebraska, but only completed 4 semesters and quit in 2004 to play online poker. I've traveled a lot and continued to play poker and am now living in France. I love Europe and want to stay here for good, so for now the student visa option seems easiest.

I was a bit surprised to be accepted into this program, which would have only 1 year to go for a degree. It's also one of the best rated finance/banking programs for a French public uni (probably not that impressive in the grand scheme). I wonder how much of that is the teachers liking the idea of an older American to change up the demos b/c I only completed a couple basic business courses and don't really have the credits or knowledge to be in a program like this.

I'm not quite fluent in French and it looks like there are about 32 hours of classroom hours per week in a few subjects that I don't even know the correct translations of! Luckily about 20% of the program is English language/culture, so it will be nice to have a bit of a break and some free solid grades.

Seems like it will be a ton of work and I will probably regret this 2-3 weeks in, but should be an interesting experience nonetheless and hopefully my love of Euro/French life will be enough of a motivation to carry me through.

No one's too old to go back to college. My aunt was 50 when she decided to go back.

Well age discrimination in the US at a public university is illegal, so wouldn't surprise me if the law is similar in France.

I meant more that my file seems quite weak. France is a bit different in that you can receive the equivalent of a bachelor's after 3 years, but they don't really do electives so it's 3 years packed with courses related to your major. I only completed 2 years of college in the USA, and most of that was electives. So to be accepted in the 3rd year of a finance program in France was surprising. I've taken probably 1/8th of the coursework the average student in this class will have completed. On top of that, it was ~12 years ago and I remember basically none of it.

I'm trying to use the 2.5 months until we get started to catch up a little bit, but it would be a difficult task even in English, much less in a 2nd language I'm not quite fluent in.

+1

I have a lot of students who are 50+. I just hooded a PhD who is 72.

I'm 32 and just got accepted to a postgrad program. Mature students are not a new thing.

go for it, you are not by any means old, and you will be surprised by how many students your age you will find. best of luck!

Yup. The average age of a graduate student is 33. You're a virtual young'un!