The Best Premed Advising Company: What to Look For Before You Hire Anyone

A physician's honest answer

I founded MedEdits in 2007 and I provide the service this article is about, so read every judgment below with that in mind. What I can offer you is the perspective of someone who sat on a medical school admissions committee and read applicants' records as they arrived, which means I know which decisions made years earlier show up in the file and which ones never mattered. I have tried to write the guide I would want if I were choosing someone to advise my own child through the premed years.

The question almost nobody asks: what are you actually hiring a premed advisor to do?

By the time you sit down to write your AMCAS application, letter of recommendation options, your academic, scholarly, and extracurricular record is essentially fixed. Your coursework is on your transcript, your MCAT score is what it is, and your clinical, service, and research experiences either show sustained commitment or they do not. No  advisor or editor, however gifted, can add two years of meaningful patient contact to an application that lacks it. The reality that we wish more students paid attention to is that work that decides most outcomes happens in the years before anyone writes a word: which courses to take and when, how to spend summers, when to sit for the MCAT, how you build relationships with mentors and professors, whether to take a gap year, and which experiences to deepen rather than simply add.

So the best premed advising company is the one that gets those decisions right, early, with the judgment of someone who has seen how an admissions committee reads the result. At the same time, you want someone who understands the trends in admissions; there is no question that we see nuanced shifts every year that impact admissions outcomes and this directly impacts how we advise the next class of students we advise. Writing matters enormously later, however, and I have explained elsewhere why your application writing deserves a trained editor working alongside a physician. In the premed years, thoughtful strategy is the goal.

Why premed advising is not the same as application year consulting

Many firms sell both premed advising and application year guidance and treat them as one service, but the goals for each are quite different. Application year consulting asks how to present the record you have. Premed advising asks what record you should build, how you should explore your authentic interests while simultaneously satisfying what medical schools want to so see, and whether you are ready to apply at all.

Something else to pay close attention to: According to the AAMC, 54,699 people applied to U.S. MD programs in 2025, and 23,440 matriculated. In my experience, it is highly unusual that the applicants who are not admitted weren't successful because of a weak essay or a typo. It is more likely they applied before their record was ready, or they built a record that looked busy but did not show a committee what it needed to see, or they overestimated their competitiveness. The AAMC's 2025 Matriculating Student Questionnaire found that 72.7 percent of matriculants took at least one gap year between college and medical school, which tells you that applying straight through from junior year is no longer the norm. Deciding when to apply is one of the most consequential choices a premed makes, and an essay editor is not positioned to make it with you.

The best premed advising is also longitudinal. The advice a sophomore needs about course sequencing is different from the advice a senior needs about MCAT timing or a gap year job, and both depend on what happened in between. An advisor who meets with you once, hands you a checklist, and disappears has given you information you could have found for free. What you are paying for is judgment that adapts as your record develops.

The credential I would look for, and it is not the one most services advertise

Here is the standard I would hold any premed advising company to, including mine. The person guiding your premed years should have served on a medical school admissions committee that decided outcomes, not simply have been admitted to medical school.

That distinction matters more in the premed years than at any other stage. A medical student who was accepted two years ago knows what worked for one applicant. A committee member has read hundreds of records and has seen, again and again, which patterns persuade and which ones raise questions. That is the experience that tells you a long commitment to one clinical role with real responsibility usually says more to a committee than hundreds of scattered shadowing hours. It is also what tells you that a research-heavy record with little patient contact invites a question about whether you understand what physicians actually do. Those are judgments about how committees think, and having been an applicant does not teach them.

I served on the admissions committee at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, held a faculty appointment there, and worked as an Associate Residency Director. At MedEdits, genuine admissions or residency committee experience is a hiring requirement for every advisor before they work with a single student, rather than something present in some advisors and absent in others

Why no advisor should work alone

When I was on the faculty at Mount Sinai, no one worked a difficult case alone. When a difficult patient came in, I asked a colleague for help if needed (and often that help was offered without my asking). If an applicant's file raised a question the committee could not resolve, it was discussed until someone could. That culture of shared judgment and accountability is what I set out to recreate when I founded MedEdits in 2007, and it is the part of the academic model I loved and have tried my best to replicate.

Every MedEdits advisor works under my direct oversight. I serve as a resource to our faculty on any question that comes up, and our advisors rely on one another as well, so a student whose situation calls for a particular kind of experience gets the benefit of it even if it sits with a colleague. I meet with our faculty regularly, and I follow every student's progress and outcome personally. When a plan is not working, I know about it, and we change course together.

That matters more in the premed years than it might seem. Premed advising unfolds over months or years, and the right decision in sophomore year depends on judgment that someone is accountable for long after the session ends. So when you evaluate any firm, including mine, ask who serves as the backup to advisors when they need it, who follows your progress over time, and who is responsible if the plan goes wrong. Is the founder still involved in a hands-on way? Is the person at the helm a former medical school faculty member with hands-on admissions experience? The answers tell you whether you are hiring a team or a single person working on their own and the quality and experience level of those involved.

Why early strategy matters more than any essay

The decisions that cause the most avoidable harm are rarely dramatic. They are small choices made without anyone asking how a committee will read them. A student takes organic chemistry in a semester already overloaded with science courses and posts the lowest grades of college in exactly the courses committees scrutinize. A student schedules the MCAT on the date that looks efficient rather than the one that follows adequate preparation, and then carries a score that needs explaining. A student adds a new activity every semester because each one sounded good, and arrives at the application with a list rather than a story.

None of these can be fixed in the application year. All of them are avoidable with the right advice two years earlier. That is why I tell families that the most valuable premed advising usually happens when there is the least to show for it, in the freshman and sophomore years, before the stakes feel real.

The best advisor will also tell you something you may not want to hear: that you are not ready to apply yet. Reapplying to medical school costs far more in time, money, and morale than applying one year later with a stronger record. An advisor whose model depends on your applying this cycle has little reason to tell you that. An advisor whose judgment was formed on a committee will tell you anyway.

What we will not do, and why you should want that

One thing we want our students to be is accountable. It is important to take ownership of this process if you want to be a success.  If you are looking for someone to tell you which activities will look good so you can collect them, we are not that service. Committees are very good at recognizing activities chosen for appearance. The applicants who stand out are the ones whose experiences grew from genuine interest and deepened over time. Our job is to help you find what you actually care about and build on it.

We will not write anything for you, now or later. When the time comes to write, we edit and advise, and the work remains yours.

And we will not promise you an acceptance. No honest advisor can. In the premed years such a promise would be especially hollow, because the outcome depends on work you have not done yet.

How to evaluate any premed advising company

These are the questions I would ask before paying anyone to guide the premed years, and they apply to every firm, including MedEdits. For questions about a firm's ownership, advisor caseloads, and structure, see my separate guide to the questions to ask before hiring a medical school admissions consultant.

Has the person who will advise me served on a medical school admissions committee? Not the firm's founder, and not its roster in general. The specific person you will work with.

Will they build a plan around my actual calendar? Premed advising should produce decisions tied to your semesters: which courses when, when to take the MCAT, what to do next summer, and whether a gap year makes sense. General advice to "get clinical experience" is not a plan.

Will they tell me when I am not ready to apply? Ask directly how they handle a student whose record is not yet competitive, and listen for whether the answer protects you or protects the sale.

Do they advise on depth or on hours? An advisor who talks mainly in hour counts is reading the application like a checklist. This is not how applications are evaluated.

How do they work with my college's premed office? Many colleges offer a health professions advisor and a committee letter process. A good private advisor works alongside that resource rather than replacing it, and understands how committee letters are read.

What happens between sessions? Premed questions do not arrive on a schedule. Ask how you reach your advisor when a decision comes up in the middle of a semester, and how quickly you will hear back.

What exactly am I buying, and at what price? If pricing is not published or explained plainly before a sales call, that is information too.

Where MedEdits fits, and where we do not

MedEdits is a physician-led boutique. I founded it in 2007 and it has remained independently owned, which is why we can stay small enough that a senior person is involved in your plan. Our premed advisors are physicians and medical educators who have served on admissions committees, and our model is built around a relationship that lasts the full year rather than a single session.

We work especially well with students who want strategic guidance early and who are responsible and take ownership of the process. We work with applicants planning no gap year, career changers, students recovering from a difficult semester, students deciding whether a postbaccalaureate or special master's program makes sense, and students weighing whether to apply now or later.

Where we are not your best fit: if you want a self-guided course, a large platform with an elaborate dashboard, or the lowest-cost option available, other services are built for those things and we are not. And if your college offers strong premed advising and your path is straightforward, you may not need us yet. I would rather you hear that from me.

How to work with us

If you are applying to medical school in 2028 or later, our annual premed advising packages give you a MedEdits faculty advisor for a full year. Each package includes up to four formal advising sessions and unlimited messaging through a dedicated collaborative workspace, so your questions are answered when they come up rather than at the next scheduled session. Packages are $1,500 and $2,600. The pricing is published because you should know what you are buying before you talk to anyone. We also offer realistic pricing without extras you might not necessarily need. Your timeline and milestones will be established between you and your advisor; nothing we do is templated or generalized between applicants.

What we cover depends on where you are in your education. It typically includes coursework, GPA, and choice of major, MCAT timing strategy, clinical, service, teaching, and research experience, summer and gap year planning, letter of recommendation planning, and development of the premed competencies committees look for.

If you are applying this cycle, our comprehensive application year packages are the better fit. If you are not sure which fits, a free consultation will sort it out quickly, and we will tell you honestly if you do not need us yet.

Frequently asked questions

What is the best premed advising company?

There is no single best company for every student, and I would be skeptical of any list that claims otherwise, including one that flattered me. The right advisor depends on where you are in college, how straightforward your path is, and how much support your campus already provides. What I would insist on regardless is that the person advising you has served on a medical school admissions committee and will stay involved as your record develops.

When should I start working with a premed advisor?

Ideally in the freshman or sophomore year of college, while course sequencing, early experiences, and MCAT timing are still open decisions. It is never too late to benefit from strategy, though. A junior or a graduate deciding between applying now and taking a gap year is facing one of the most consequential choices in the process.

Is a private premed advisor worth it if my college has a premed office?

Your college's premed office is often excellent and free, and you should use it. Private advising earns its cost when your campus advisor carries a very large caseload, when your path has complications, or when you want guidance from someone who has served on a medical school admissions committee. The two work best together.

What is the difference between a premed advisor and a medical school admissions consultant?

A premed advisor helps you build the record you will eventually present, during the years before you apply. An admissions consultant, in the usual sense, helps you present that record during the application cycle, through the primary application, secondaries, and interviews. Some firms, including MedEdits, do both, and continuity between the two is valuable, but they are different jobs.

How much does premed advising cost?

Costs range from free campus advising to hourly private sessions to annual packages. MedEdits annual premed advising packages are $1,500 and $2,600. The more useful question than price is who advises you and whether that person stays involved throughout the year. You also want to make sure you aren't paying for services you don't need. 

Should I take a gap year before medical school?

Not by default, in either direction. AAMC data show that most matriculants now take at least one gap year, but a gap year helps only when it strengthens your record. A good premed advisor should be able to tell you whether yours would, and what it should contain.

What I would tell you if we were talking

Before you pay anyone, including us, ask who will advise you, whether that person has sat on the committee that will decide your outcome, and whether they will tell you the truth about your timeline. The premed years are when a candidacy is developed or stunted, long before anyone reads an application. Choose someone whose judgment was formed on the other side of the table.

Schedule a free consultation with MedEdits

Related MedEdits resources

For a firm-by-firm look at the field, see my comparison of the best medical school admissions consulting companies. For questions to ask about any firm's ownership and structure, see 10 questions to ask before hiring a medical school admissions consultant. For what committees are actually evaluating, see our guide to premed professional competencies.