MPH vs SMP

[combatwombat]

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I graduated in 2005 w/ a B.S. in neuroscience and a ~2.8 gpa. As an undergrad I halfheartedly took some of the premed courses (not entirely sure if medicine was what I wanted to do), and got C's and B's. I went on to do neuroscience research for two years after school, but realized it wasn't what I really wanted and set my sights back on medical school with renewed determination.

With my GPA I knew that I had to get straight A's. Even one A- would mean game over. I've been taking classes half-time for the past year and a half, and have not so far scored lower than an A. I plan to finish taking undergrad classes by the end of spring '09, but still don't expect to be a very good med school candidate by then.

My question is which would be better to do after finishing undergrad classes: go to a MPH program, or one of the other SMPs? I've heard that public health was a "traditional" non-traditional pathway, if you will, to get to med school after a lackluster undergrad career. I also think it could be a good alternative career should I decide medicine isn't for me. On the other hand, people on this board seem to be all about the SMP's. Which would be better?

Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

 

[gman33]

An MPH will do virtually nothing to help someone in your position.
You can either take postbacc classes or do an SMP.

 

[DrMidlife]

Gman is right. An MPH doesn't demonstrate performance in hard sciences and isn't considered a predictor of medical school performance. (Not to say that what you learn in an MPH isn't handy as a doc - it can open doors, just not that first one. And all the MPH coursework in statistics is very healthy.)

An SMP, on the other hand, is where you effectively do the first year of med school to prove you can do med school. They're fairly expensive, and if you do poorly you're rather doomed, and everybody in an SMP is gunning for A's, but it WILL get the job done for you in just a year.

There are over 30 SMPs now, and you can find tons of info in the postbac forum.

Best of luck to you.

 

[njbmd]

I graduated in 2005 w/ a B.S. in neuroscience and a ~2.8 gpa. As an undergrad I halfheartedly took some of the premed courses (not entirely sure if medicine was what I wanted to do), and got C's and B's. I went on to do neuroscience research for two years after school, but realized it wasn't what I really wanted and set my sights back on medical school with renewed determination.

With my GPA I knew that I had to get straight A's. Even one A- would mean game over. I've been taking classes half-time for the past year and a half, and have not so far scored lower than an A. I plan to finish taking undergrad classes by the end of spring '09, but still don't expect to be a very good med school candidate by then.

My question is which would be better to do after finishing undergrad classes: go to a MPH program, or one of the other SMPs? I've heard that public health was a "traditional" non-traditional pathway, if you will, to get to med school after a lackluster undergrad career. I also think it could be a good alternative career should I decide medicine isn't for me. On the other hand, people on this board seem to be all about the SMP's. Which would be better?

Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

A Masters in Public Health isn't going to overcome a poor undergraduate GPA in terms of medical school admission. If you are at 2.8, you are likely going to have to do some post bacc work to get your GPA up to get into a SMP. The other thing that you have to realize is that SMPs only work if you do very, very well. Get your life in order and be prepared to work at a very high level because a poor performance in an SMP can be a "death blow" to your application.

 

[combatwombat]

thx for the responses... guess I will have to rethink my game plan

I should add the my GPA should be somewhere around a 3.0 now. I have a 2.77 from my undergrad school plus about 6.75 credits of 4.0 now. (on a related note, does anyone know of any good programs to calculate GPA? Doing them by hand is getting tedious)

 

[DrMidlife]

does anyone know of any good programs to calculate GPA? Doing them by hand is getting tedious)

Oh cry me a river. I have 20+ years of college coursework to calculate, and I applied to all 3 app services, which categorize differently. If you make a spreadsheet and keep up with it, you'll be able to use that data in myriad ways. I keep mine in a Google sheet that I can access anywhere.

The app services DO make mistakes, so if you've got your numbers in a spreadsheet you can figure out what happened when things don't add up.

 

[combatwombat]

Heh, yeah I know. Just bit the bullet and did it all in excel. I may have to recheck my numbers but the way I calculated it, I graduated with a 2.82 and now have a 3.009422 🙂

The way I calculated it may differ slightly from my actual GPA (due to use of more decimal places & different credit systems from different schools), but by the time I finish prereq's I should be well over the 3.0 mark. Assuming I keep getting A's.

Looking over my undergrad record made me want to slap myself, so much time+effort+$ down the drain. I wish someone could have warned me how badly I was blowing my opportunities when I nonchalantly scored in the 70's on my calculus exams...

 

[pdlaw2000]

"it can open doors, just not that first one."

That is good.. I'm gonna steel that, sorry..

pd

 

[kami333]

Little late but...

http://medschool.ucsf.edu/postbac/pdf/AMCAS GPA_Calculator Version 4 Final.xls

Haven't seen anything for AACOMAS or Texas.

Personally, if you have above a 3.0 for BCMP, OA, and other after postbacc and a good postbacc GPA I would try an application cycle before looking at SMPs (several SMPs require you to have unsuccessfuly applied).

Meh, life is full of coulda/shouldas. The way I figure, if I had a better GPA after graduating I probably wouldn't have even given med schools a second thought.