How to Calculate the ROI of Med School Admissions Consulting
The medical school admissions process is one of the highest application journeys in higher education. By 2024, only 44.58% of applicants will receive an acceptance letter to at least one MD program in the US, according to the AAMC. Others face another year of studying, rewriting essays, retaking the MCAT, and delaying entering a job that can pay more than $400,000 a year once fully licensed.
Many students turn to medical school admissions counselors because they save them thousands of dollars. The question is how much can they save?
This post breaks down a step-by-step approach to measuring the return on investment (ROI) of medical school admissions counseling. Finally, you will know how to use this framework to get the highest ROI med consultants in 2026.
Defining and Understanding the ROI in Medical School Admissions Consulting
In finance, ROI is calculated using this formula:
ROI = (Net Return on Investment ÷ Cost of Investment) × 100
In the context of consulting and medical school admissions, the “investment” is the cost of your consulting package. The “gross benefit” comes from the quantifiable benefits that counseling helps you achieve—such as scholarships, avoided expenses, and early entry into residency.
Admissions consulting firms, such as Inspira Advantage, help students increase their acceptance rate through highly competitive medical school applications. The most reliable counselors provide great personal support that turns weaknesses into strengths; helping students write, organize, and refine school-specific essays; and highlight impactful research, volunteer, and community service experiences relevant to each student’s targeted medical school.
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Things to include in your ROI calculation
#1 Average Scholarship Value
Competitive applications often lead to merit-based scholarships. If consulting raises your application profile and gets you an offer of $35,000 per academic year, that’s $140,000 over four years.
For example, according to the AAMC’s survey of 2024 graduates, 65% of medical students receive some form of non-loan financial aid—such as scholarships or grants—more than a quarter of them earning a total of $50,000 or more. In this case, you can multiply $50,000 by four to determine the amount of the scholarship over four years.
#2 Recurring Costs to Avoid
The cost of reapplying to medical school is ~$2,500. This includes covering the costs of the first and second application, as well as travel to the interview. If the consultant helps you get accepted the first time you try, you can avoid this completely.
#3 Avoid MCAT Retake Fees
MCAT retakes include a $345 registration fee.
#4 Avoid Lost Housing Income from Delayed Entry
According to Medscape’s 2024 Resident Salary Report, the median salary for a PGY-1 is $65,000. Postponing admission for a year means losing that income, as well as delaying your career for a year. Consulting that makes you eligible for this cycle saves that important first year of income.
#5 Total Financial Profit
Combine scholarship value, avoid re-application fees, avoid MCAT retake fees, and maintain a PGY-1 salary.
#6 Package Price
Determine the exact cost of the consulting package you are considering purchasing. Admissions consulting packages can cost anywhere from a few thousand dollars for targeted services to over $10,000 for comprehensive options that even guarantee admission to medical school.
What’s hard to put a dollar on, but still important:
- Advantage of acceptance rate: Students who work with an admissions coordinator often have a higher chance of being accepted than students who apply without the support of an admissions coordinator. There is often a significant gap between the acceptance rates of supported versus unsupported applicants. The difference can be determined in a year when more than half of the applicants are rejected.
- Admission to highly competitive schools: The percentage of students accepted into advanced or accessible programs, which can affect competition to match residency and lifetime benefits.
- Value added services: Finding publishing opportunities, arranging clinical shadowing with doctors, or connecting you with research mentors—all strengthen your CV in ways that stay away from the application cycle.
- MCAT prep courses: It can cost $1,000-$3,000 and hundreds of hours of study. If a guide improves your first attempt score, that’s money and time saved.
- To reduce stress: Avoiding months of rewriting personal statements, re-prepping for the MCAT, or struggling with only secondary essays. While you may not attach a hard dollar value to reduced fatigue, the emotional bandwidth saved can be significant.
How to Calculate ROI on Med School Admissions Consulting
Here’s the ultimate ROI formula you can use to see if consulting with an admissions doctor is really worth it.
ROI = ((Total Financial Profit − Package Cost) ÷ Package Cost) × 100
To find an approximate amount of Net Financial Interest, use the formula below.
Total Financial Benefit = Tuition Amount + Avoided Reapplication Costs + MCAT Retake Costs + PGY-1 Salary Saved.
Then, you divide the Total Financial Profit by the cost of the consulting package you are considering purchasing and multiply the result by 100 to get the ROI percentage.
With the ROI formula, you can determine the percentage of return you get on your consulting investment, which shows exactly how much value you are getting compared to what you spent.
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Example Calculating ROI
Let’s take for example Inspira Advantage, an established brand in the med school admissions consulting industry. Let’s substitute Inspira’s well-known figures into the ROI formula.
Inspira’s net financial gain = $35,000 + $2,500 + $345 + $65,000 = $102,845. Package cost = $10,300 (for the package of 30 Secondaries + Interviews Director). That means the ROI formula looks like this:
ROI = (($102,845 − $10,300) ÷ $10,300) × 100
Now, $102,845 – $10,300 = $92,545; and $92,545 ÷ 10,300 = 8.98; and 8.98 x 100 = 898%. That means this consulting service generates 8.98x return on investment. That’s a return of nearly 9 to 1, and this doesn’t even count intangible benefits like reduced stress and stronger citizenship prospects.
The Bottom Line
Calculating the ROI of medical school admissions counseling helps reframe it from an emotional decision to a financial one. By assigning dollar values to the scholarship, avoided costs, and saved earnings, you can directly determine whether the service is worth the investment.
The rule of thumb is that if your estimated ROI exceeds 100% and your assumptions are realistic, it is a strong candidate for investment. In a process where a one-year delay can cost upwards of $65,000, the right advisor can pay for itself many times over before you even write your first tuition check.
WHAT DO YOU THINK? Have you considered consulting medical school? Have you ever done it? How was the experience? Was the ROI worth it?
