There’s a lot of confusion surrounding what medical school admissions consultants do and how they help students get accepted to medical school. This guide will walk you through what working with one of Inspira Advantage’s expert consultants looks like.
Step 1: Personalized Application Support Package Selection
Before you start working with a med school admissions consultant, you must choose a package that fits your needs. The first step is to speak with an Inspira Advantage Enrollment Manager during a free 20-minute consultation.
Your Enrollment Manager will take the time to understand your unique goals, timeline, and challenges before building you a personalized advising plan. Here are just a few of the ways we can tailor your program to fit your journey:
We can support you in applying to a specific number of schools by tailoring your school list strategy and ensuring your application materials are optimized for each one.
We can add the Inspira Advantage Research and Publication Program to your package to help strengthen your academic and research profile by guiding you through creating original research projects, resulting in poster presentations or peer-reviewed publications.
We can adjust the number of schools that require secondary essays based on your school list, ensuring you receive personalized, school-specific guidance for each institution’s unique prompts, without paying for reviews you don’t need.
We can include additional mock interviews replicating the actual med school interview experience. You'll get realistic practice and detailed feedback to refine your responses and performance across MMI, traditional, and panel-style interviews.
We can include scholarship application support in your program to help you craft compelling essays and materials that align with each school’s values and criteria. Students who work with Inspira Advantage receive an average of $140,000 in scholarship offers, making this a valuable addition to your advising package.
We can add an admissions committee-style panel review that mirrors the admissions process, giving you detailed feedback from former admissions officers to catch inconsistencies, refine messaging, and strengthen your overall application.
Customization is at the heart of every Inspira Advantage offering. If you would like to personalize your program in any way, all you have to do is notify your Enrollment Manager.
Here’s what Emily, a past Inspira Advantage applicant, had to say about working with us throughout the medical school admissions process:
“I really felt cared for and that everyone was listening to my specific needs, and was really able to dig deep…to really hone in on the things that I specifically needed help on, I felt like [Inspira Advantage] was able to assist me in those specific areas that were personal for me.”
You can take a look at Emily’s full breakdown of her experience with Inspira Advantage by watching the video below:
Not all services offer the same level of personalization, transparency, or results, and the wrong fit can waste your time and money. Take the time to compare carefully and learn which consulting firm can help you get accepted.
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Step 2: Completing the Student Onboarding Questionnaire
Completing our Student Onboarding Questionnaire helps your admissions counselor learn more about you. The answers you provide in your questionnaire help us match you with a consultant who fits your needs best.
We will ask for your personal information, including your name, email, and phone number.
Our Student Onboarding Questionnaire will also ask about your academic and professional background, including:
What is your cumulative GPA?
What is your science GPA?
What year do you expect to graduate from college?
How did you choose your undergraduate institution?
Have you been involved in any community service or volunteer work?
The Student Onboarding Questionnaire will also ask questions about your:
Availability to meet with your admissions consultant
Personal background
Values
Career goals
Motivation to pursue medicine
One of the most crucial pieces of our Student Onboarding Questionnaire is the Application Planning section. This section helps your admissions counselor understand how much progress you’ve made in the application process, what date you want to submit your application, when you expect to matriculate into med school, and which medical schools you’re interested in attending.
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Step 3: Matching You With Your Best-Fit Admissions Consultant
After completing and submitting the Student Onboarding Questionnaire, your name and information will be added to our customer relationship management (CRM) system.
You will receive a welcome email from your Student Success Manager that covers important details about when you will be matched with a counselor and tips to help you and your counselor work together effectively. Your Student Success Manager is your contact for any questions, concerns, or comments at every step through your admissions consulting program.
Your Student Success Manager will match you with your best-fit consultant within 1 to 2 days based on the information you provided in our questionnaire. Factors your Student Success Manager will evaluate to match you with a consultant include your:
The days of the week and times you’re available to meet with your consultant
Your time zone
Target medical schools
Learning and working styles
Individual goals
Here’s a screenshot of a few of our expert counselors you can work with:
Inspira Advantage medical school admissions consultants work with only three to five students at a time. Many larger admissions consulting firms will allow one counselor to manage many students (often ranging from 12 to 60). Our commitment to a smaller student-to-consultant ratio (from 3:1 to 5:1) allows us to provide students who work with us with a premium, focused experience.
After you are matched with your consultant, they will email you to set up a time and date for your first call.
You will also receive login information for AdvantageOS, our online organizational platform for students, parents, and counselors. The AdvantageOS home screen, pictured below, allows you to chat with your counselor, view your personalized admissions timeline, and keep yourself on track toward submitting the ultimate medical school application.
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Step 4: Calls With Your Counselor to Understand How They’ll Further Personalize Your Consulting Program
Your First Session: Aligning Strategy, Support, and Timeline
Your first meeting with your consultant will help them learn more about you. They will ask questions about you, your background, goals, and preferences to better understand what you need and how to personalize your consulting program further. This introductory call ensures you will work together effectively and submit the strongest application possible. Your first call will cover these key points:
Counselor introductions
Discussions about your background, goals, and motivations
Going over the process for document sharing via Google Drive
Sharing a project planner to help you stay on top of deadlines
Determining a communication cadence that works for you
Establishing your preferred communication methods (email, video chat, etc.)
Explanation of next steps
A Q&A session for any questions you want to ask your consultant
How frequently you meet with your admissions consultant depends on your application deadline, availability, and progress with your medical school application before meeting with your consultant.
You will have as much direct interaction with your consultant as you want. We offer unlimited advising hours and communication with your consultant. Students enrolled in our all-inclusive packages never have to fear that they will run out of hours.
After your first meeting with your consultant, you will receive access to the AdvantageOS platform. This platform has a messaging system that allows you to connect with your counselor, ask questions, and schedule or reschedule your next counseling session.
Check out what it looks like in the screenshot below:
Persona Assessment Calls to Find Your Unique Application Angle
You and your counselor will meet to discuss your activities, skills, and most meaningful experiences. These calls build upon the information you provided in the Onboarding Student Questionnaire.
During these persona assessment calls, your counselor will identify key experiences, traits, and possible application narratives. Your consultant will also provide an accurate, honest assessment of your candidacy for medical school. Sample persona assessment questions include:
Why did you decide upon the major you picked for college?
What was your favorite elective course and why?
What was your favorite core course and why?
What’s your favorite way to spend your free time?
Have you engaged in community service/volunteer work you’re especially proud of?
What are your three most meaningful personal achievements?
Your consultant will use the information you provided in your questionnaire and during these calls to draft a comprehensive persona assessment that includes 15 to 20 key experiences you can use to help build your primary application.
You can read what one Inspira Advantage applicant had to say about their counselor helping them find a unique application angle below:
Step 5: The Admissions Timeline & Application Milestones Planning
The AdvantageOS platform has a checklist and calendar to ensure you and your consultant are up-to-date on key deadlines, application milestones, and any components you’ve completed that you want your counselor to edit.
You can also see the dates of your upcoming consulting sessions using your AdvantageOS schedule. Your schedule will also show any action items assigned by your consultant, including webinars and other application to-dos, as you can see in the screenshot below.
Some students wonder if admissions consulting is really worth the investment. But considering how competitive med school admissions have become, finding the right support can be the reason why you get accepted to medical school.
Step 6: Building and Editing Your Primary Application: Personal Statement Creation & Other Components
We support students applying to medical school through the AMCAS, AACOMAS, and TMDSAS. These are the steps your consultant will support you with as you work toward submitting your primary application.
Building a Balanced Medical School List
Your consultant will work with you to create a balanced medical school list with institutions you’d be thrilled to attend. Your interests and preferences are at the forefront of the school list creation process.
Your consultant will help you rank schools based on factors such as:
Whether you want to apply to MD/DO schools
Whether you’re interested in specialized or joint medical programs, including MD/MBA, MD/MPH, or MD/PhD programs
Your cumulative and science GPA
Your actual or predicted MCAT score
School type (research-based, clinical experience-based)
Potential medical specialties you’re interested in
Location preferences (e.g., in-state vs. out-of-state medical schools)
How much money you’re willing to spend on tuition and the cost of attendance
Any other cultural or campus offerings that align with your goals and preferences
Your counselor will ensure your school list encompasses safety, target, and reach schools to maximize your chances of acceptance. You and your counselor will meet to deep-dive into school choices and explore your options.
Building a Recommendation Letter Strategy and Approaching Professors and Supervisors
Your consultant will help you formulate a letter of recommendation strategy to ensure your recommendations are detailed and complement the rest of your primary application.
We help you identify your best recommenders, including science and non-science faculty members, physicians you’ve shadowed, clinical experience or internship supervisors, research advisors, and anyone else you can speak about your character and fit for medical school.
Your counselor will also help you share relevant materials with recommenders, including:
A list of your grades, separated by science and non-science courses
Your CV or resume
A personal statement draft
AAMC's guidelines for writing a strong letter of evaluation, including a reminder to write the letter on official letterhead and sign it
Other details that can help a recommender understand themes in your application that you want to highlight to admissions committees
Your consultant will guide you through approaching recommenders and can help you draft a letter, email, or in-person pitch to recommenders to provide a letter for you. They will also help you decide whether a letter packet, committee letter, or individual recommendations are best for your application.
Activities Section List Building and Editing
Your consultant will use the information you provided during persona assessment calls to help you decide which activities to share in your application. Your counselor will help you brainstorm, write, and edit activity entries. These activity list summaries must meet a strict character limit and show the impact of your experience on yourself, school, or community.
You will work together with your consultant to evaluate each activity based on:
The amount of time you dedicated to the activity
The activity’s impact (e.g., quantitative results, positive effect on the community)
How the activity shows your commitment to the medical field
How the activity complements the rest of your application documents
Whether the activity showcases leadership, empathy, technical skills, and the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) core competencies
Your consultant will also help you identify a selection of your most meaningful activities and help you build longer descriptions for them.
Personal Statement Brainstorming, Creation, and Editing
The personal statement is shared with every medical school you apply to. It is one of the most important elements of a primary application.
Your consultant will help you build upon the application narrative you selected together through the persona assessment calls to create a compelling personal statement:
First, you and your consultant will brainstorm key experiences and personal traits you want to highlight in your narrative.
You will then discuss your brainstorming notes to discover which experience you have the most compelling narrative for.
Your counselor will help you tie this experience to your passion for medicine and desire to attend medical school.
Your consultant will provide expert guidance as you draft your medical school personal statement.
Your consultant will edit your personal statement for concision, clarity, tone, grammar, and impact.
Personal statement creation can take a long time and multiple revisions. Unlimited personal statement support through our all-inclusive packages means you can take as much time as you like to work through your narrative until it’s perfected and ready for submission.
The medical school personal statement editing process is highly personalized. Some students prefer to work asynchronously through the editing process, where the counselor will suggest edits and the student will make changes at separate times. Some students prefer to work with their counselors in live sessions to review the counselor’s suggestions and make or reject changes. You can decide which approach works best for you.
You can see what two past Inspira Advantage applicants had to say about our approach to personal statement building and editing below:
The admissions committee panel review is an Inspira Advantage program offering that allows other consultants to review your application before submission. This application review replicates how medical school admissions committee members will evaluate your application.
Students who want to include the admissions committee panel review in their package can submit their polished primary application (including personal statement, activities list, and other materials) along with any pre-written secondary essays they have completed at the time of submission for review.
You will receive additional redline edits on your submitted application documents from other consultants who have assessed your writing. Your counselor will read the additional feedback and relay any last-minute adjustments you can make to your application before submitting it.
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Step 7: External Scholarship Application Guidance to Cut Medical School Tuition Costs
Your consultant will help you search for merit scholarships, brainstorm essays, guide you on which materials to gather, and ensure your scholarship application documents are edited.
Applying for scholarships can mitigate tuition costs and help applicants graduate from medical school with less debt. Inspira Advantage applicants are 4.5x more likely to win medical school scholarships than students applying for awards alone. Students who work with us also secure an average of $140,000 for four years of medical school! That’s $35,000 in scholarships each year.
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Step 8: Casper & PREview Prep Support for High Scores
The Casper is a situational judgement test required by many medical schools. A third- or fourth-quartile score can demonstrate that you have the soft skills necessary to succeed as a physician.
Our all-inclusive programs offer a full-length Casper practice test that you can take to gain familiarity with the test’s format and content. After you finish the mock Casper test, your counselor will grade your answers to each scenario. They will also schedule a 60-minute call with you to provide tailored feedback on each of your answers.
The feedback you receive will help you improve your responses for next time. Your counselor will provide feedback on whether you:
Understood the scenario’s ‘issue’
Used empathetic language
Evaluated all perspectives
Identified potential missing information and changed your actions depending on variables (using ‘if, then’ statements)
Acted calmly and professionally in your video responses
Jumped to conclusions
Your consultant will also help you prepare for the AAMC PREview exam if the schools you want to apply to require it. Your counselor can help you:
Understand the directions and questions
Identify which AAMC core competency is alluded to in each PREview exam question
Evaluate completed AAMC PREview questions and provide feedback and advice for approaching scenarios next time
Provide guidance on how to pinpoint weak and strong responses
Click the video below to watch Inspira Advantage consultant Dr. Khurana provide a comprehensive overview of the Casper test.
Step 9: Secondary Application Essay Ideation, Writing, and Editing
Secondary applications are school-specific applications you will likely receive from most medical schools you apply to. Secondary application content can vary, but you will typically see at least some of the following components:
A few yes-or-no questions
Many full-length essays
Numerous short-answer questions
A section relating to re-entering course information that fulfills medical school prerequisite criteria
Medical school applicants can receive numerous secondary applications, each containing more essays to write. For example, if you apply to 20 medical schools, it’s possible that you’ll need to write dozens of essays within a short period.
The AdvantageOS online tool includes a card table that lays out all secondary application essays you need to create.
First, you and your consultant will brainstorm key experiences and school-specific topics and manage your secondary essay schedule.
You will then discuss your brainstorming notes to discover which narratives align best with school-specific secondary essay prompts.
Your counselor will help you tailor your writing to align with what top medical schools expect in secondary essays.
Your consultant will provide expert guidance as you draft secondary essays.
Your consultant will edit secondary essays for concision, clarity, tone, grammar, and impact.
The AdvantageOS Card Table tab allows you to see which secondary essays are in the brainstorming stage, are ready for editing, or have been edited by your counselor and are ready for your review.
Step 10: Medical School Interview Support for MMI, Traditional, and Other Styles
Every medical school hosts interview days as the last step in evaluating candidates. Medical school interviews are often hosted virtually, and can encompass the following formats:
Traditional
Panel
Group
MMI
Hybrid
Your counselor will conduct mock interview simulations to help you prepare for upcoming medical school interviews. These simulations will emulate the interview styles of the schools you applied to, and your counselor will ask school-specific questions to help you feel more confident for interview day.
Your counselor will schedule mock interview sessions in your AdvantageOS account. You will see dates, times, and a short session description.
These mock interview simulations will allow you to practice answering common and school-specific questions. At the end of these sessions, your consultant will provide feedback on improving your answers and delivery so you can perform your best on interview day.
You can read what a past Inspira Advantage applicant had to say about our interview prep approach below:
Step 11: Continued Support: Waitlists, Update Letters, and Counselor Guidance After Application Submission and Interviews
After you submit your primary and secondary applications, your consultant will regularly check in with you for updates regarding the status of your application as they help you prepare for interviews. Your consultant can help you craft medical school update letters before or after interviews to give admissions committees any relevant updates on your GPA, experiences, MCAT scores, or new activities.
Your consultant can also support you through the waitlist process if one of your dream schools places you on a waitlist. They will help you craft update letters to any school or a letter of intent to your top-choice medical school.
Your counselor can also offer support as you decide which admissions offer to accept. They will help you evaluate financial aid packages, review the pros and cons of attending each school, and ensure your personal mission and goals align with the school you choose to attend.
The truth is, there are a lot of companies claiming to help with med school admissions, but not all of them back it up with results. This guide to the top medical school admissions consulting services in 2025 gives a detailed look at the leading firms, what they offer, and how they compare when it comes to student outcomes and real success rates.
Working With a Medical School Admissions Counselor Gets Results
Now that you understand what working with a medical school admissions counselor looks like, it’s time for the next step in the process. Book a free 20-minute call below to speak with our team and take the first step toward medical school acceptance. Our MDs and former admissions committee members can’t wait to help you get into your dream school.
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