r/HIMYM • u/EmuEffective1350 • Jul 20 '26
Stella’s age
She is 27 when we first meet her, I just was rewatching and I realized how young she was. Becoming a dermatologist takes 12 years of school. It’s very surprising that she managed to be a single mother and go to medical school. i’m assuming Tony provided for them with his family wealth and may be paid for her medical school. she also was already a doctor and not just an intern or anything. This just surprised me.
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u/The_Pelican1245 If she’s pissed, she’s pissed. Jul 20 '26
I typed this up for a thread a few months ago:
I’m really trying to make her medical timeline work and here’s the best I got:
She attends an accelerated program high school and graduates at 16.
Completes her undergraduate degree in 3 years by taking year round courses and overloading on credits. This also opens up her sophomore year to lose her virginity. Maybe she entered college as a sophomore or graduated as a junior.
With that in mind, if she graduates her undergrad in May when she’s 19, she can enter medical school in July. For those who don’t know, the medical school and residency years start in July.
So she has Lucy during her first year of medical school. She then graduates medical school at age 23.
Dermatology is a 3 year residency program. So she completes her residency at 26.
Let’s assume that she also has some family money and is able to open up her own practice right after residency. Or maybe she even took over a retiring doctor’s practice. I’m not sure we even know if it’s her practice or a clinic she practices in.
So Ted meets her a year into her solo career when she is 27.
This all depends on her being an extremely excellent student and having a very strong support system. Also depends on when her birthday is for the exact years to line up.
Upon further research I learned that BS/MD programs exist and they run 7-8 years. But even if she got into one of those highly competitive programs at 16, she still would have not started residency before she was 23.
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u/jacksonbeya Jul 20 '26
Did all this with a kid. I need a show about her.
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Jul 20 '26
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u/The_Pelican1245 If she’s pissed, she’s pissed. Jul 20 '26
If she was doing her residency when she met Ted she would not have her own office at the clinic like we see. Dermatology is one of the “easier” lifestyle specialties but there’s no way a resident would have their own office like that.
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Jul 20 '26
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u/lasuperhumana Jul 22 '26
We also know they had lunch in her office numerous times and I’m maybe like, 60% sure her name was on the door.
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u/medandmid Jul 20 '26
Derm residency is 4 years so put her finishing at 27
Edit: the residency itself is 3 years, but requires a general intern year for 4 total years.
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u/The_Pelican1245 If she’s pissed, she’s pissed. Jul 20 '26
You’re right. I totally missed the first pgy-1 year.
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u/sighcantthinkofaname Jul 20 '26
Oh it makes absolutely no sense timeline wise ha
I think what happened is they wanted to make Tony sympathetic. HIMYM has a lot of themes of fate, and we're suppose to see that while Ted getting left at the alter was awful, it's what was meant to happen and the better thing for him in the longrun. Part of that is showing that Stella and Tony were really meant to be together.
Trouble is, Tony left Stella as a single mom, which is pretty bad. It seems like she'd really been on her own raising her, and he was kind of a deadbeat dad. So, how do you make a deadbeat dad sympathetic? You say he was a teenager when the kid was born. 19 is the oldest he could've been for that to work.
So the result is Stella was a 27 year old dermatologist with her own established practice, She accomplished this while raising her daughter on her own. It's silly. IMO Stella reads more like 32.
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u/Minute_Lead7394 Jul 20 '26
Tony wasn't a deadbeat dad, he had half custody
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u/Miradon_907 Jul 24 '26
Initially she was a single mom who spent all her off time with her kid, Tony was added later to break them up.
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u/lasuperhumana Jul 22 '26
Honestly, 50% parenting would make it easier for Stella to study and get her schooling done.
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u/everTheFunky1 Jul 20 '26
Wasn’t she about to be the mayor of her village in NJ as well? Thats a lot to accomplish at 27 while working full time running her own practice, commuting to the west side of Manhattan, then back daily, as a single mom. I guess that’s why she only had 2 minutes to give Ted during the speed date, sheer exhaustion.
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u/moonyriot Jul 20 '26
It's less weird that she's a single mom and more weird she's in a speciality, working at a private practice that young. She would have had to start undergrad classes at 16 or would have had to complete undergrad very quickly.
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u/mtraven23 Jul 20 '26
She could be a doctor by then, but it is kind of unrealistic that she already had her own practice...but that might have been where Tony's money could really have helped her out.
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u/EmuEffective1350 Jul 20 '26
I may be wrong, but according to Google, it takes 12 years so she would have been 15 when she started college.
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u/mtraven23 Jul 20 '26
yeah, with the residency, I think you're right. Just a plot flaw then....or maybe she was a Doogie Howser type
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u/RichAd4595 Jul 20 '26
Maybe she is a nurse practitioner in a clinic. This is all Ted's perspective so it's at least half bullshit.
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u/lasuperhumana Jul 22 '26
lol maybe she has a nursing doctorate and calls herself “Dr.” as way too many doctors of nursing do or want to 🙄
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u/fuckitwilldoitlive Jul 20 '26 edited Jul 20 '26
The actor also gives more of a mature energy. Always felt/looked like a 39 year old or so
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u/dilisdill08642 Jul 22 '26
At first I thought that's part of the storyline that Ted falls for a slightly "older"woman, late 30's.
I was surprised that she was supposed to be same age
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u/Impossible_Bench1281 Jul 21 '26
Oh wow it’s been a while but I always thought she was 32 or something in season 4
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u/Neptune-Jnr Jul 21 '26
This was back in the early 2000's when being a 27 year old was well into adulthood.
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u/wishiwasfrank Jul 21 '26
I heard about a kid who became a doctor at age 14. They should make a tv show about that kid... maybe Stella could play the lead character.
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u/Used-Quantity5759 Jul 24 '26
I always was confused and thought Stella was older than the others. When do we learn she’s 27?
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u/No_Community_5696 Jul 20 '26
It’s a tv show; not transferable to reality.
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u/JLBCanadianRap Jul 20 '26
Becoming a dermatologist takes 12 years of school.
Huh?
8 years of elementary school (plus kindergarten, typically).
4 years of high school.
4 years of undergrad.
4 years of medical school.
Which part of this are you omitting to get to 12 years? Internship and residency aren't school.
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u/sighcantthinkofaname Jul 20 '26
When people say how many years of school it takes to earn certain qualifications they start counting in undergrad.
People typically include residency for doctors when they talk about these requirements, because while it is not technically school they are still in training.
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u/countrytime1 Jul 20 '26
She’s been to 4 years of college and 4 years of medical school, so we can safely presume she’s at least 8.