MPH vs Postbac for ultimate goal of getting into Med school

[PikminOC]

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My friend has a 30 MCAT but did not get into medical school this year. Too many B's in sophomore year. Mcat is only 8 Verbal also.
I think a Postbac is the best way to go, but if he does this, will he be able to use a postbac for jobs in case he doesn't get into med school?
To get into med school which is his ultimate goal, is an MPH or PostBac the best route for the time in between? Or something else completely?

Thanks.

 

[crossstr]

My friend has a 30 MCAT but did not get into medical school this year. Too many B's in sophomore year. Mcat is only 8 Verbal also.
I think a Postbac is the best way to go, but if he does this, will he be able to use a postbac for jobs in case he doesn't get into med school?
To get into med school which is his ultimate goal, is an MPH or PostBac the best route for the time in between? Or something else completely?

Thanks.

MPH will be more useful for a job vs. a post-bacc which is really only aimed at making your application better for going into medical school. As for why he didn't get into medical school this cycle it could be due to a lot of things. B's in sophomore year of college seem an unlikely reason to be rejected-even by top tier school standards. He may have just applied top heavy, too late in the cycle, didn't have enough EC's, or not strong enough LORs, or all the above. But if his aim is to go to medical school and he thinks a master's program will benefit him versus doing more volunteering/research/shadowing, then a post-bacc would be the way to go, although an MPH won't hurt his portfolio.

 

[DrMidlife]

An MPH does NOT stand up as a demonstration of academic capability in the eyes of med school adcoms. With GPA damage you need to do hard bioscience such as biochem, micro, neuro etc.

See the reapplicant forum for mistakes to fix/avoid. One of those mistakes is building up a good plan B that weakens plan A.

Best of luck to you.

 

[PikminOC]

Thanks I did not know there was a reapplicant forum. I will look. It's not for me. I am an attending. 🙂

 

[deleted480308]

it's probably cheaper to just apply DO, or is their gpa too low for DO?

MPH is simply not an academic degree on the same level as the harder sciences, the risk of a formal postbac program is that if they don't hit it out of the park they are dead in the water since they just "proved" they can't hang. I suggest consider DO grade repair while applying DO

 

[DrMidlife]

Thanks I did not know there was a reapplicant forum. I will look. It's not for me. I am an attending. 🙂

Then this is an intervention: stop doing things for your "friend". It's part of the problem when kids don't have to struggle and get uncomfortable to figure out what they need to do to reach a goal. Seriously. Tell the kid to get serious and get to work.

 

[PikminOC]

It's not my kid either.
Just trying to figure out a way to guide.
I will tell him to go to the reapplicant thread as these are resources we didn't know about.
Time is running out for this year too...