Application Cost Calculatorthe real price of an AMCAS or AACOMAS cycle
Primaries are the cheap part. Itemize every fee you will actually pay — AMCAS, AACOMAS and TMDSAS applications, MCAT attempts, CASPer, secondaries, interview travel and the suit — from published 2026–27 rates. Change any input and watch which line is quietly eating your budget.
Price your cycle, line by line
Start from a typical applicant — 20 primaries, one MCAT sitting, CASPer and four in-person interviews — then edit anything. If you have already saved schools in the toolkit, your MD and DO counts are filled in for you. Nothing is sent anywhere: the arithmetic runs entirely in your browser.
Where the money goes
Largest firstEstimates, not admissions advice. Primary, MCAT, CASPer and PREview figures are published 2026–27 cycle fees; secondary fees, travel and attire are editable averages. Verify against the AAMC cost of applying page before you budget.
Every published fee the calculator uses
These are the 2026–27 cycle rates the model runs on. Application fees are revised annually, so check any figure at source before committing a budget — each row links to the body that publishes it.
| Item | Fee | Notes | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| AMCAS primary — first school | $180 | Covers processing and verification | AAMC |
| AMCAS — each additional school | $48 | Charged per designation added | AAMC |
| AACOMAS primary — first school | $198 | Osteopathic centralised application | AACOM |
| AACOMAS — each additional school | $60 | Charged per programme added | AACOM |
| TMDSAS — flat, all Texas schools | $230 | One fee however many Texas programmes | TMDSAS |
| MCAT registration — standard | $345 | Per attempt, gold-standard registration | AAMC |
| MCAT registration — Fee Assistance rate | $145 | Per attempt once FAP is approved | AAMC FAP |
| CASPer (Altus Suite) | $85 | One sitting, distributed to all schools | Altus |
| AAMC PREview | $100 | Single fee, shared with all programmes | AAMC |
| Secondary application — typical | $100 | Set by each school; editable input | Per school |
| Interview travel — typical, per interview | $400 | NGMP estimate; editable input | Estimate |
| Interview attire — one-off | $200 | NGMP estimate; toggle on or off | Estimate |
Primary sources: AAMC cost of applying to medical school, AACOM for AACOMAS, TMDSAS for Texas, and Altus for CASPer. Last checked July 2026.
The single biggest lever on your bill
The AAMC Fee Assistance Program (FAP) is means-tested against your parents’ income — and your own income if you are treated as independent — broadly at or below 400% of the US federal poverty level for that household size. US citizenship or lawful permanent residency is required, and you re-apply each calendar year.
What approval actually waives
- MCAT registration drops from $345 to $145 per attempt, and rescheduling fees are reduced too.
- AMCAS primary is covered for your first 20 school designations. Beyond that you pay the standard $48 additional-school rate.
- AAMC preparation materials — the official practice exams and question packs — come free rather than as a separate purchase.
- AACOMAS runs its own waiver, applied for separately, which typically covers the first-school fee only.
- Many individual schools waive their secondary fee automatically for FAP-approved applicants, though you usually have to state it on the secondary.
On the calculator’s default inputs, FAP approval is worth $1,298 — more than the entire AMCAS primary. Toggle “AAMC Fee Assistance approved” in the tool to see it against your own list.
Apply before you pay anything
Fee assistance is never applied retroactively. If you register for the MCAT or submit AMCAS before your FAP decision comes back, you pay full price and the benefit is lost for that transaction. Decisions typically take a few weeks, so start the FAP application well before your intended MCAT registration date.
Three places the cycle costs more than you planned
Almost nobody is caught out by the primary application fee — it is a known number paid once, early, when motivation is high. The overruns come later, in three predictable places.
Secondaries land in July, all at once
Within days of your primary being verified, most of your schools send a secondary with its own fee. Twenty primaries at $100 is $2,000 arriving in a fortnight, on top of the money you already spent, at the exact moment you are least willing to write a school off. This is the line that most often doubles a budget.
Interview travel is the wild card
A single interview needing a flight, a hotel night and ground transport lands between $300 and $700. Six of those is more than the whole application. Invitations arrive with two to four weeks’ notice, so you are buying fares in the most expensive booking window there is.
Retakes reset the clock and the bill
A second MCAT attempt is $345 plus prep materials, and it usually pushes your submission later in a rolling cycle — which in turn tends to mean more schools applied to for the same probability of an offer.
Cut the list before secondaries, not after
Every school you remove at the primary stage saves the additional-school fee and the secondary fee behind it — roughly $150 per school. Removing five weak-fit schools from a 25-school list saves about $740 with no change to your realistic outcome.
Ask for the secondary fee waiver
Most schools waive the secondary fee for FAP-approved applicants, and a good number consider written hardship requests from applicants who narrowly miss FAP. It is a short email, and a yes is worth $100 every time.
Take the virtual interview option
Where a school offers both, virtual costs you nothing and does not disadvantage you at programmes that offer the choice. Set in-person interviews to zero in the calculator to see the size of that line for your own list.
How the total is built, and what it cannot know
The calculator is deliberately simple arithmetic over published rates. Primaries are priced as a first-school fee plus an additional-school rate for AMCAS and AACOMAS; TMDSAS is one flat fee no matter how many Texas programmes you add. MCAT, CASPer and PREview are per-attempt or per-sitting fees. Secondaries are your primary count multiplied by a completion percentage and an average fee. Travel is your in-person interview count multiplied by a per-interview figure, and attire is a single toggle.
What is published versus what is estimated
- Published rates — AMCAS, AACOMAS, TMDSAS, MCAT, CASPer and PREview. These come from the bodies that set them and are listed in full above.
- Editable averages — secondary fee, travel per interview and attire. Schools do not publish a single secondary rate, and travel depends entirely on where you live. All three are inputs precisely because we should not assert them.
What the model deliberately leaves out
- Commercial MCAT prep courses, tutoring and books — these vary by an order of magnitude.
- Transcript and course-verification fees charged by your undergraduate institution.
- Lost wages from interview days and from the application-writing months.
- Deposits held at accepted schools, which are refundable or credited in most cases.
- Post-acceptance costs — background checks, immunisations and relocation.
These are estimates, not admissions advice, and not a quote. Fees change annually and individual schools vary. Treat the total as a planning figure, then verify the lines that matter most for your own list. Dental applicants: AADSAS is not modelled here yet — start from the US dental school directory while a dental version is built.
Frequently asked questions
The other two tools
All three share one saved school list, so the schools you pick in the list builder show up here as primary counts and in the chance estimator as verdicts.
Spend it where it changes the outcome
A cycle you apply to once is worth planning properly. Get your school list, personal statement and interview prep right before the fees start landing.