Download my free 2027 AMCAS application checklist and cost calculator to track primaries, secondaries, letters, completion status, PREview, Casper, and fees.
Free AMCAS Application Checklist and Medical School Cost Calculator for 2027
Applying to medical school can become surprisingly difficult to organize because submitting your AMCAS primary application is only the beginning. After that first submission, you may be tracking dozens of individual medical schools, secondary applications, recommendation letters, MCAT scores, PREview or Casper requirements, secondary fees, photographs, residency forms, portal updates, interview invitations, and the very important distinction between an application that has been submitted and one that a medical school has actually marked complete.
I created this free AMCAS Medical School Application Checklist and Cost Calculator because I wanted applicants to have one place where all of those moving pieces could live together. I went through the medical school application process myself, and looking back, one of the things that stands out most is just how many separate steps happen after the primary application is submitted. I did not have this exact spreadsheet when I applied, so I built it later around the pieces I now wish I could have seen together in one dashboard.
You can access my free AMCAS Application Checklist and Medical School Cost Calculator here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1r8jrGiEUAmh1Vg38y0hRQhRo-BqA8XUd/edit?ouid=105382639329696126686&rtpof=true&sd=true&usp=sharing. If you want to create your own editable copy directly in Google Drive, you can use https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1r8jrGiEUAmh1Vg38y0hRQhRo-BqA8XUd/copy.
The current version has been updated around the 2027 AMCAS application cycle, which is the application students complete in 2026 to begin medical school in fall 2027. For the current cycle, the AAMC charges $180 for the initial AMCAS submission, which includes one medical school designation, followed by $48 for every additional medical school. You can verify the current AMCAS fees directly through the AAMC at https://students-residents.aamc.org/applying-medical-school-amcas/certifying-and-submitting-your-application.
The spreadsheet contains an application dashboard, school-by-school checklist, AMCAS fee calculator, secondary-fee calculator, PREview and Casper fields, an additional-expense log, and automatic summaries showing how much you have already paid and how much you may still need to budget. Most importantly, I designed the spreadsheet so that secondary submitted and application complete are not treated as the same thing, because those were very different milestones during my own application cycle.
My Experience Going Through the AMCAS Application Process
When I applied to medical school, I tried to get several of the administrative pieces out of the way before secondary season became busy. I completed the situational judgment testing I needed in May and finished my primary application around the first week of June because I wanted those pieces moving through the system before secondaries began arriving in larger numbers.
That became especially helpful once late June and July arrived. My secondaries came in throughout that period, and I finished the final applications during the last week of July before receiving an interview invitation in August. Going through that process taught me that being organized was not only about writing essays quickly because an application could still be incomplete if another required component had not arrived.
I would therefore think about the application cycle as several overlapping systems rather than one application. AMCAS handles the centralized primary, while each medical school may have its own secondary portal, fee, recommendation-letter expectations, assessments, documents, deadlines, and definition of when your file becomes ready for review. That distinction is exactly why I built this spreadsheet to track multiple stages rather than giving you one checkbox labeled “Applied.”
Download the Free AMCAS Application Checklist and Cost Calculator
You can access the free spreadsheet here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1r8jrGiEUAmh1Vg38y0hRQhRo-BqA8XUd/edit?ouid=105382639329696126686&rtpof=true&sd=true&usp=sharing. If you want Google Drive to immediately prompt you to create your own version, use the direct copy link at https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1r8jrGiEUAmh1Vg38y0hRQhRo-BqA8XUd/copy.
I recommend making your own copy before entering any school information, payment amounts, or application statuses. Once you have your own version, you can customize it to your exact school list and update it throughout the application cycle without changing the original shared template.
The dashboard automatically tracks how many medical schools you have entered, how many have received your primary application, how many secondaries you have received, how many secondaries you have submitted, how many applications have officially become complete, how much money you have already paid, and your projected total application spending. I intentionally made the school-specific cost inputs editable because application fees change and medical schools do not all charge the same secondary fee.
What Is Included in the AMCAS Application Spreadsheet?
The workbook is built around four major goals: tracking your schools, tracking whether each application is genuinely complete, calculating how much your application cycle is costing, and showing you which requirements still need attention. I wanted one sheet to tell you what had happened while also making it obvious which schools still required action.
For each medical school, you can track whether it has been added to AMCAS, whether the primary application has been received, whether a secondary has arrived, the date you received the secondary, whether you submitted it, the submission date, the secondary fee, and whether that fee has been paid. You can also track recommendation letters, MCAT availability, PREview, Casper, photographs, state residency documentation, additional school-specific requirements, portal checks, and the date the school officially marked your application complete.
That final group of columns is one of the parts I think is most useful because it prevents the false sense of being finished that can happen immediately after submitting a secondary. During a busy application cycle, it is very easy to remember that you submitted an essay while forgetting that the school is still waiting for a letter, assessment score, photograph, or residency form.
Submitted, Verified, Delivered, and Complete Are Different
AMCAS terminology becomes much easier once you understand that several different milestones can occur between pressing submit and having a medical school review your file. When you submit AMCAS, you certify the primary application and send it to the AMCAS program, but that does not mean the application has already completed verification.
AMCAS needs the required transcripts before your application can move through the normal verification process. During verification, your coursework is compared with your official transcripts and standardized AMCAS GPAs are calculated. The current 2027 AMCAS Applicant Guide is available at https://students-residents.aamc.org/applying-medical-school-amcas/publication/2027-amcas-applicant-guide, and I recommend keeping it bookmarked throughout the cycle because it is the official source for current AMCAS procedures.
After processing, AMCAS can transmit your application to the medical schools you designated. Recommendation letters, MCAT scores, and PREview scores may become available on their own timelines, which means a school can have your AMCAS application before every other component is complete.
The individual medical school then determines what else it needs before your file is considered complete. A secondary may be only one part of that process, which is why I track Primary Received, Secondary Received, Secondary Submitted, Application Complete, and Completion Confirmation separately.
Why Secondary Submitted Does Not Mean Application Complete
Imagine that you finish a secondary application on July 12, pay the supplemental fee, and immediately receive an email confirming submission. It is tempting to mentally cross that medical school off your list and move on, but the portal may still show that one recommendation letter has not arrived or that the school is waiting for PREview, Casper, a photograph, or another requirement.
From your perspective, the secondary is finished, but from the medical school’s perspective, the application may still be incomplete. I would therefore check the portal again after the other components have had time to match with your file and specifically confirm whether the school itself has marked your entire application complete.
The spreadsheet gives you a separate field for that status because it is much more useful than relying on your memory of when you submitted the essay. This is one of those small organizational details that becomes much more important when you are juggling twenty or thirty different schools.
2027 AMCAS Application Fees
For the current 2027 AMCAS cycle, the initial AMCAS application fee is $180 and includes one medical school designation. Every additional medical school currently costs $48, and you can verify the current fee schedule directly through the AAMC at https://students-residents.aamc.org/applying-medical-school-amcas/certifying-and-submitting-your-application.
Once you are applying to more than one school, the basic calculation is $180 + $48 for every school after the first. At current pricing, applying through AMCAS to 20 medical schools would cost $1,092 in primary application fees alone, while 30 schools would cost $1,572 and 40 schools would cost $2,052 before you add a single secondary fee, situational judgment test, travel expense, or other application-related cost.
Those numbers are a major reason I included a calculator rather than simply telling students that medical school applications are expensive. Seeing the projected total before the charges start arriving makes it much easier to plan realistically.
How Much Does AMCAS Cost for 1, 10, 20, 30, and 40 Schools?
Using the current 2027 AMCAS fee schedule, applying to one school costs $180, ten schools costs $612, twenty schools costs $1,092, thirty schools costs $1,572, and forty schools costs $2,052. These amounts cover the AMCAS primary application only and do not include medical school secondary fees or other expenses.
I would not interpret those numbers as an argument for applying to as few schools as possible simply to reduce the total. Your school list should be built around your competitiveness, state residency, mission fit, preferences, and the programs where you would realistically attend if accepted. The calculator simply lets you see the financial consequence of that list before secondary season starts adding another layer of expenses.
Secondary Application Fees Can Become Expensive Quickly
The AMCAS primary is only one layer of the total application cost because individual medical schools frequently charge separate secondary application fees. Those fees vary by school, which is why I deliberately did not hard-code one universal secondary fee into the spreadsheet.
Instead, every school has an editable secondary-fee field. When the secondary arrives, you can enter the exact amount charged by that school, and the spreadsheet automatically adds it into your projected total while separately tracking whether you have paid it.
I prefer using the actual amount rather than multiplying every school by an assumed average because your real school list is what matters. If a school charges no fee or grants you a waiver, you can simply enter zero and allow the total to update accordingly.
My Advice for Budgeting for Secondaries
One thing I would prepare for is the fact that secondary fees can arrive within a relatively short period. If your AMCAS application is transmitted early, several schools may send supplemental applications around the same time, which means you could be paying multiple application fees while also trying to complete several sets of essays.
That is very different from the primary application, where the major fee appears in one transaction. Secondary season can feel like a long sequence of smaller charges, which makes the cumulative amount surprisingly easy to underestimate.
I would therefore build a projected secondary budget before secondaries begin arriving. Once your school list is reasonably stable, look up current secondary fees where possible and enter them into the spreadsheet so you have an approximate idea of how much money you will need available during June, July, and August.
AAMC Fee Assistance Can Change the Cost Dramatically
The AAMC Fee Assistance Program can substantially reduce the cost of applying for students who qualify. Under the current benefit, an approved applicant receives one AMCAS submission covering up to 20 medical school designations without the standard AMCAS application fees, which represents $1,092 at current 2027 pricing.
You can review the current AAMC Fee Assistance benefits at https://students-residents.aamc.org/fee-assistance-program/what-are-benefits-fee-assistance-program. I also have a detailed guide explaining the current program at https://aspiringmd.com/aamc-fee-assistance-program-fap-essentials-pdf-download/.
One of the most important things to know is that Fee Assistance benefits are not retroactive. If you submit AMCAS and pay the standard fees before your Fee Assistance application has been approved, you should not assume that you can receive a refund afterward.
That is why I recommend investigating Fee Assistance well before AMCAS submission if there is any reasonable chance you may qualify. The financial benefit is significant enough that the timing matters.
What if You Apply to More Than 20 Schools With Fee Assistance?
The current Fee Assistance benefit covers up to 20 AMCAS medical school designations within the applicable submission benefit. If you apply beyond that allowance, the additional designations generate additional charges.
That distinction matters for students who build larger school lists because it is easy to hear that twenty schools are covered and forget that schools twenty-one and beyond return to normal additional-school pricing. The calculator lets you see the difference between a twenty-school list and a larger list so you can determine whether each additional school genuinely adds enough value to justify its primary and likely secondary costs.
PREview Costs and Tracking
For the 2026 PREview testing year, the standard AAMC PREview registration fee is currently $105. You can verify the current registration information at https://students-residents.aamc.org/aamc-preview/register-aamc-preview-exam.
Applicants approved for AAMC Fee Assistance currently receive a $0 first PREview registration and a discount on later registrations. As with other Fee Assistance benefits, I would not assume that the benefit will be applied retroactively after you have already paid.
Not every medical school requires PREview, so I would determine whether the schools on your actual list require or recommend it before automatically registering. The AAMC maintains its current list of participating schools at https://students-residents.aamc.org/aamc-preview/participating-schools.
My Experience With Situational Judgment Testing
I personally completed the situational judgment testing I needed in May, before the busiest part of secondary season started. My reasoning was simple because I wanted those requirements moving through their systems before I started receiving large numbers of secondary applications.
Looking back, I would use the same strategy again. The exact assessments and participating schools have changed over time, but the planning principle still makes sense. Build your school list early enough to identify testing requirements and schedule those assessments before they become the one missing component keeping an otherwise finished application from being complete.
That is why the spreadsheet tracks both the school’s policy and your own completion status. Knowing that PREview or Casper exists is not enough because you need to know whether your individual school requires it and whether your application has satisfied the requirement.
Casper Costs Are Editable on Purpose
I did not want the spreadsheet to depend on one hard-coded Casper price because assessment fees and distribution requirements can change. Instead, the workbook gives you editable fields so you can enter the current amount shown for your registration and the programs receiving your results.
I would check the exact amount in your Acuity account when you register and replace the starting estimate in your personal spreadsheet. This keeps the tracker useful even when the pricing structure changes after this article is updated.
Recommendation Letters Need Their Own Tracking
Letters are another good example of why I separate assigned from received. A recommendation letter can exist in your planning system without actually being available to the medical school yet.
AMCAS allows applicants to create letter entries, but each individual medical school determines which letters it wants and which entries should be assigned. The current AMCAS Applicant Guide at https://students-residents.aamc.org/applying-medical-school-amcas/publication/2027-amcas-applicant-guide explains the official process and should remain your primary reference.
You may have asked a professor for a letter, created the AMCAS entry, and assigned it correctly while the writer still has not uploaded it. Alternatively, AMCAS may already have the letter while one school portal has not yet marked it received.
The spreadsheet therefore gives you a school-level place to verify whether the letters you intended to send have actually reached the point where the school considers the requirement satisfied.
Do Recommendation Letters Need to Arrive Before You Submit AMCAS?
No. Recommendation letters do not need to be present for the AMCAS primary application to enter the normal verification process, which means you generally do not need to delay submitting an otherwise finished primary solely because one recommender has not uploaded a letter.
The individual medical school may still require those letters before considering your application complete. I would therefore continue monitoring the recommendation-letter process while AMCAS verification is underway instead of treating those timelines as though they must occur sequentially.
This is another reason I like separating centralized AMCAS processing from individual medical-school completion status inside the tracker. They are related parts of the same application cycle, but they are not the same milestone.
Transcripts and AMCAS Verification
Transcripts are different because AMCAS needs the required official transcripts before the application can move normally through verification. During verification, AMCAS compares the coursework you entered against the transcripts it receives and calculates standardized AMCAS GPAs.
I would request transcripts early enough that a missing document does not unnecessarily delay your place in the verification process. I would also monitor your AMCAS account until each expected transcript is marked received rather than assuming that requesting a transcript means AMCAS definitely has it.
The current Applicant Guide remains the best place to check the exact transcript procedures for your application year: https://students-residents.aamc.org/applying-medical-school-amcas/publication/2027-amcas-applicant-guide. This is one of those areas where I would rely on the official instructions rather than an old Reddit post because transcript procedures and processing details can change.
Why Early Organization Matters During Peak AMCAS Season
Application materials can take longer to process during the busiest part of the cycle, so I think the strongest application checklist begins before you ever press submit. Make sure the coursework you entered matches your transcripts as closely as possible, confirm that every institution requiring a transcript has been handled correctly, review your medical school designations, check the personal statement and Work and Activities section, and confirm your recommendation-letter plan before certifying.
I would not submit assuming that everything can easily be changed later because AMCAS limits what applicants can modify after submission. A careful final review before submitting is much easier than discovering afterward that you entered information incorrectly and have only limited options for correcting it.
Can You Add Medical Schools After Submitting AMCAS?
You can generally add additional medical schools after the initial AMCAS submission when the relevant deadline still allows it, although the normal additional designation fees will apply. That flexibility can be useful if you want the application to begin processing while you are finalizing a smaller part of your school list.
I would still build the core school list beforehand because selecting medical schools deserves thoughtful research. Whenever you add a new school in AMCAS, I would add it to this tracker at the same time so your spreadsheet and real application stay synchronized.
Track Projected Cost and Amount Paid Separately
One feature I particularly wanted in the spreadsheet was the ability to distinguish what you expect to spend from what you have already paid. Those can be very different numbers in June.
Suppose your projected application cycle will cost $4,000, but you have currently paid only $1,100. If you look only at the charges that have already hit your account, you may think the expensive part is nearly finished when another $2,900 is likely to arrive through secondaries, assessments, interviews, deposits, or other costs.
As you pay expenses, the workbook tracks them separately while preserving the projected total. That gives you a much more realistic idea of how much money may still need to remain available throughout the cycle.
Track Interview Travel Even When Interviews Are Often Virtual
Interview policies vary by medical school and application year, so I would keep an open expense category for interview-related costs even if many of your interviews are virtual. An in-person interview can involve airfare or driving, hotel costs, meals, parking, and local transportation, while virtual interviews can still involve smaller expenses such as professional clothing, lighting, a webcam, headphones, improved internet access, or finding an appropriate private setting.
The spreadsheet includes an additional-expense section rather than trying to predict exactly which costs every applicant will have. I think recording your real expenses is much more useful than relying on a national average that may have little resemblance to your individual cycle.
Medical School Deposits Belong in Your Budget Too
Application expenses do not necessarily stop when you receive an acceptance because some schools may require deposits or other pre-matriculation payments. Those costs can appear while you are still waiting to hear from other programs, which means the financial side of application season can continue long after the final secondary has been submitted.
I would use the additional-expense section to record these later costs as they occur. That way, the spreadsheet eventually becomes a record of what your complete medical school application cycle actually cost rather than only what you paid before interviews.
Use MSAR to Fill in School-Specific Requirements
This spreadsheet is an organization tool rather than a replacement for researching individual medical schools. I would use MSAR and each school’s own admissions website to determine secondary fees, recommendation-letter requirements, state residency considerations, PREview expectations, deadlines, and other school-specific requirements.
I have a complete guide to using MSAR here: https://aspiringmd.com/msar-for-premeds-official-med-school-stats-and-free-report-links/. Once you have researched a medical school, enter the information into the tracker so that the research becomes actionable instead of disappearing into another browser tab.
Not Every Medical School Uses AMCAS
AMCAS is used by most U.S. MD medical schools, but it is not the only medical school application service. AACOMAS is used for osteopathic medical schools, while many Texas medical schools use TMDSAS, and individual exceptions should always be checked directly.
The AAMC maintains current participating-school information at https://students-residents.aamc.org/applying-medical-school-amcas/amcas-program-participating-medical-schools-and-deadlines. This spreadsheet is primarily designed around AMCAS and its fee structure, so you can adapt many of the school-level tracking columns for AACOMAS or TMDSAS, but you should replace the fee formulas and application-service-specific requirements rather than assuming the systems are interchangeable.
How I Would Use the Spreadsheet Before AMCAS Opens
Before the application opens, I would use the spreadsheet as a planning tool rather than a completion tracker. Enter the schools you are seriously considering, research their recommendation-letter policies, determine whether PREview or Casper applies, enter known secondary fees, check residency restrictions, and begin estimating the total financial commitment.
At this stage, most of the completion fields should still be blank because the value comes from having your structure ready before application season becomes busy. This also gives you time to notice problems, such as discovering in May that several schools on your list require an assessment you have not yet scheduled.
How I Would Use It in May
May is when I would begin turning the plan into real application logistics. Finish the personal statement and Work and Activities section, request transcripts according to the current AMCAS instructions, confirm your recommendation writers, finalize your core school list, and schedule any required situational judgment assessments.
During my own cycle, this was around the period when I completed the situational judgment testing I needed, which prevented those requirements from becoming another task during my busiest secondary weeks. I would also read the current AMCAS Applicant Guide instead of relying entirely on advice from someone who applied several years earlier because policies and fees can change.
How I Would Use It in June
June is when I would begin recording real submission milestones. I submitted my own primary around the first week of June, and I would record the submission date alongside transcript status, recommendation-letter progress, and any other outstanding requirements.
Once the application enters processing, I would monitor its status without allowing myself to spend the entire day refreshing the portal. The spreadsheet should tell me what I already know so I do not need to keep all of those details in my head.
As primaries begin reaching schools and secondaries start arriving, the school-specific portion of the workbook becomes increasingly important. This is when the tracker starts moving from planning tool to active application dashboard.
How I Would Use It in July
July was the busiest part of secondary season for me, and this is where I think the tracker becomes particularly valuable. Instead of keeping several applicant portals open and trying to remember which essays I had submitted, I would update the sheet when a secondary arrives and again when I submit it.
After the other requirements have had time to match with my file, I would return to the school portal and confirm whether the entire application is actually marked complete. If the portal still shows an outstanding item, I can record it rather than relying on memory.
That gives me a clear list of what deserves attention while preventing completed applications from taking up unnecessary mental space. I think that becomes especially valuable when several new secondaries are arriving at the same time.
How I Would Use It in August and Beyond
By August, I would expect the tracker to shift from primarily monitoring secondary essays toward monitoring application completion and interview movement. That progression happened fairly quickly during my own cycle because I completed my last secondaries during the final week of July and received an interview invitation in August.
At that stage, I would still follow up on applications that have not become complete, but I would not compulsively check every portal every day. The Last Portal Checked and Follow-Up Needed columns make it easier to know whether a school genuinely needs attention or whether you are simply tempted to refresh because you are waiting.
When Should You Contact a Medical School About a Missing Item?
I would not contact an admissions office immediately after submitting something because portal matching can take time. First check whether the school publishes a normal processing period, confirm that AMCAS or the assessment platform shows the item as available, make sure you assigned the correct letters, and verify that you followed the school’s instructions.
If the item still does not appear after a reasonable amount of time, contacting the admissions office makes sense. The Follow-Up Needed column allows you to flag a concern without making yourself feel as though every unresolved field requires an immediate email.
How Much Does Applying to Medical School Cost?
There is no one correct total because the number of schools, secondary fees, assessment requirements, interview costs, deposits, fee waivers, and individual circumstances vary substantially between applicants. What we can calculate precisely is the current AMCAS primary fee structure, which begins at $180 for one school and increases by $48 for each additional designation.
The rest of my calculator is deliberately based on your actual application. Enter the real secondary fee for each school, add PREview only if you need it, enter the Casper amount you are actually charged, record travel only if it occurs, and use the additional-expense log as new costs arise.
That gives you a personalized medical school application cost rather than a generic estimate. It also gives you a record you can look back on later if you want to understand what the entire cycle really cost.
Is This an Official AAMC Spreadsheet?
No. This is an independent AspiringMD planning tool that I created after going through the medical school application process myself, and it is not affiliated with or endorsed by the AAMC, Acuity Insights, or any individual medical school.
Official AMCAS instructions, the current AAMC Applicant Guide, MSAR, medical school admissions websites, applicant portals, and direct communication from schools remain the final authority for requirements and deadlines. You can access the current 2027 AMCAS Applicant Guide at https://students-residents.aamc.org/applying-medical-school-amcas/publication/2027-amcas-applicant-guide.
The goal of my spreadsheet is much simpler. I want to give you one organized place to store that information after you find it.
Frequently Asked Questions About the AMCAS Application Checklist and Cost Calculator
Where can I download the free AMCAS application checklist?
You can access my free spreadsheet at https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1r8jrGiEUAmh1Vg38y0hRQhRo-BqA8XUd/edit?ouid=105382639329696126686&rtpof=true&sd=true&usp=sharing. If you want to immediately create your own Google Drive copy, use https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1r8jrGiEUAmh1Vg38y0hRQhRo-BqA8XUd/copy.
Is the AMCAS checklist free?
Yes. I created the spreadsheet as a free AspiringMD resource so applicants can organize primary applications, secondaries, recommendation letters, school requirements, application completion, and costs without purchasing another planning template.
How much does AMCAS cost in 2027?
The current AMCAS processing fee is $180 and includes one medical school designation, while each additional school costs $48. You can verify the current fee directly through the AAMC at https://students-residents.aamc.org/applying-medical-school-amcas/certifying-and-submitting-your-application.
How much does AMCAS cost for 20 schools?
At current 2027 pricing, applying through AMCAS to 20 schools costs $1,092 before secondary fees and other application expenses. Applicants approved for qualifying AAMC Fee Assistance may receive one AMCAS submission with up to 20 school designations covered under the current benefit.
How much does AMCAS cost for 30 schools?
At current pricing, applying to 30 AMCAS schools costs $1,572 before secondaries and other expenses. The calculator performs this calculation automatically based on the number of schools you enter.
Does submitting AMCAS mean my application is verified?
No. Submission occurs before verification, and AMCAS still needs the required transcripts before completing the normal verification process. After verification, the processed application can be transmitted to designated schools.
Can I submit AMCAS before recommendation letters arrive?
Yes. Recommendation letters do not need to be present for AMCAS verification, although individual medical schools may require the letters before they consider your application complete.
Can I submit AMCAS before transcripts arrive?
You can submit the primary, but AMCAS needs the required transcripts before the application can normally proceed through verification. I would therefore request and monitor transcripts early rather than assuming the request itself means they have arrived.
Does submitting my secondary mean I am complete?
No. The school may still be waiting for recommendation letters, scores, PREview, Casper, photographs, residency documentation, payment, or another school-specific requirement.
That distinction is one of the main reasons I created separate Secondary Submitted and Application Complete fields. I want the spreadsheet to reflect the school’s status rather than only the work you personally finished.
Does the spreadsheet track secondary applications?
Yes. It tracks secondary receipt, receipt date, submission, submission date, fees, and payment status while continuing to track the school until the entire application is complete.
Does the spreadsheet calculate secondary fees?
Yes. You enter the actual fee charged by each school, and the spreadsheet includes those amounts in your projected and paid totals.
Does the spreadsheet track PREview?
Yes. It includes PREview policy and completion fields so you can identify which schools require or recommend the exam and whether you have completed the requirement.
What is the current PREview fee?
For the 2026 testing year, the current standard PREview registration fee is $105. You can verify the current amount at https://students-residents.aamc.org/aamc-preview/register-aamc-preview-exam.
Does the spreadsheet track Casper?
Yes. Casper is included as an editable field because the amount and distribution requirements can change. I recommend entering the exact price shown when you register rather than relying indefinitely on a hard-coded estimate.
Does Fee Assistance waive every secondary fee?
Not necessarily. Secondary fee policies are controlled by individual medical schools, so you should verify the policy of each program before assuming that an AAMC Fee Assistance award automatically removes every supplemental fee.
Can I use this spreadsheet for AACOMAS?
You can adapt the school-level tracking portion, but the AMCAS fee calculator is designed specifically around AMCAS. AACOMAS has its own pricing and policies, so those formulas would need to be changed.
Can I use it for TMDSAS?
You can adapt many of the checklist columns, but TMDSAS has a different application structure and fee system. Applicants to Texas programs should verify which application service each school actually uses.
Can I add schools after submitting AMCAS?
In many cases, yes, provided the relevant deadline has not passed. Additional designation fees will apply, and I recommend adding the school to your spreadsheet at the same time you add it to AMCAS so your records remain synchronized.
Can I change AMCAS after submitting?
Only certain information can be changed after submission, so I would review the primary very carefully before certifying it. The current Applicant Guide at https://students-residents.aamc.org/applying-medical-school-amcas/publication/2027-amcas-applicant-guide explains the current rules.
Should I track when each medical school marks my application complete?
Yes. I think this is considerably more useful than tracking secondary submission alone because a school can have your secondary while still waiting on another requirement.
Should I check every medical school portal every day?
I would not. Use the Last Portal Checked field so you know when you last reviewed each application and can follow up on genuine unresolved issues without turning portal checking into a daily habit.
Did you use this exact spreadsheet when you applied?
No. I created this exact spreadsheet later after going through AMCAS and medical school admissions myself. My own experience is what made me want separate fields for secondary submission, school completion, situational judgment testing, recommendation letters, fees, and portal follow-up instead of one generic application checkbox.
Final Thoughts: How I Would Organize AMCAS if I Were Applying Again
If I were applying to medical school again, I would start this spreadsheet before AMCAS opened and use it as the central administrative record for the entire cycle. I would enter the medical schools I was seriously considering, research their requirements, estimate the expected costs, confirm recommendation-letter expectations, and identify which situational judgment tests I actually needed before applications started arriving.
That is similar to the general timing I followed during my own medical school application. I completed the situational judgment testing I needed in May, submitted my primary around the first week of June, worked through secondary applications throughout late June and July, finished the final ones during the last week of July, and received an interview invitation in August.
The biggest thing I would improve today is keeping every administrative milestone visible in one place. I would not rely on remembering that I assigned a recommendation letter because I would record whether the school actually received it, and I would not assume a submitted secondary meant I was complete because I would confirm the portal status.
I also would not vaguely estimate how much I had spent because I would record each fee as it occurred. I would research PREview and Casper requirements before secondary season rather than discovering them only after a school portal showed something missing.
The current AMCAS fee structure makes budgeting especially worth doing early because the primary alone reaches $1,092 at 20 schools, $1,572 at 30 schools, and $2,052 at 40 schools before you pay a single secondary fee. AAMC Fee Assistance can change that calculation dramatically for applicants who qualify, but the benefits are not retroactive, which makes early planning even more important.
Most importantly, I would use this spreadsheet to reduce the amount of application information I am carrying around mentally rather than allowing the spreadsheet itself to become another task. Update it when something actually changes, such as when you add a school, when the primary reaches the school, when a secondary arrives, when you submit it, when a fee is paid, when a requirement is received, and when the school finally marks your application complete.
You can access my free AMCAS Application Checklist and Medical School Cost Calculator here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1r8jrGiEUAmh1Vg38y0hRQhRo-BqA8XUd/edit?ouid=105382639329696126686&rtpof=true&sd=true&usp=sharing. If you want to create your own version immediately, use the direct copy link at https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1r8jrGiEUAmh1Vg38y0hRQhRo-BqA8XUd/copy.
For official instructions, I would keep the current 2027 AMCAS Applicant Guide bookmarked throughout the cycle at https://students-residents.aamc.org/applying-medical-school-amcas/publication/2027-amcas-applicant-guide. If you are still building your medical school list, my complete MSAR guide is available at https://aspiringmd.com/msar-for-premeds-official-med-school-stats-and-free-report-links/, and if you may qualify for Fee Assistance, my current guide is at https://aspiringmd.com/aamc-fee-assistance-program-fap-essentials-pdf-download/.
The goal of the spreadsheet is simple: give you one organized place to see what has happened, what still needs to happen, and how much the entire application process is actually costing you.