Thoughts on Post-Bac -> MPH -> med school?

[10thousandhours]

I have a 3.4 overall GPA and am about to graduate undergrad. I plan to participate in a post-bac program this upcoming school year to enhance my GPA. I really want to attend a top medical school and was wondering if I would have a better chance if I get an MPH after my post-bac then apply to med school? Or is this path to medical school a little too windy? Do people ever do this?
I have yet to take the MCAT. I have research, volunteering, good EC's. I would appreciate your advice so much. Thanks in advance

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[CQREZ]

Either or will work. I think it depends if you want to enter in having that MPH title or not. One plus side to post-bacs is that a lot of them are designed for students to help boost up their undergrad GPA to enter med school whereas an MPH is just to get another degree. But of course you can probably also boost your GPA through an MPH program as well. I have friends who have chosen one route and others who have done the other. As for getting into a top medical school I don't say you have to worry too much about that. Just get in! All the doctors and physicians I worked with say ranking of medical schools don't matter so much. Get in to medical school first, kill it, then get into a TOP residency program because that is what will matter in the long run.

 

[Gibbward]

I would say that if the ultimate goal is to just get into med school, getting the MPH by itself won’t really help much. Won’t really help with boosting your cGPA either just coz it’s not an SMP and your grades will just go under your grad school GPA (which doesn’t factor into the cGPA that admins really look at). It’ll be good for getting a job for a year or two tho that’ll give you a bunch of cool public health experiences that you can include in your application, but if that’s not something you want to do, just rock your post bac and the MCAT, get a bunch of clinical and non-clinical volunteering done and you’ll be set!