The Casper Test Has Rolled Out Significant Changes For The 2023-24 Admissions Cycle
It’s no secret that pursuing a career in medicine is highly competitive. Due to the vast number of applications admission officers face each year, they wanted a way to learn more about the candidates beyond the numbers: GPA and standardized test scores.
Acuity Insights offers assessment tools for some medical, dental, physician assistant, veterinary and direct medical programs to evaluate their applicants better. It currently offers two exams within its suite: Casper and Duet. Snapshot was previously offered, but it is discontinued for the upcoming admissions cycle.
Duet allows students to demonstrate that they have similar values to the schools. Casper, as a situational judgment test (SJT), will enable students to demonstrate their abilities to handle a tough situation as the medical schools access the following characteristics:
- Equity
- Ethics
- Empathy
- Resilience
- Motivation
- Collaboration
- Self-awareness
- Communication
- Professionalism
- Problem-solving
Since it was first implemented in 2015, Capser has grown in popularity as a way to assess students’ ability to succeed in these people-facing careers. For the 2023-24 admissions cycle, Acuity Insights revamped its offerings to help provide colleges with a more holistic view of their applicants.
Casper: What’s Changed In 2023-24
The format of this SJT experienced significant changes for the upcoming admissions cycle. Before, students faced 15 scenarios, divided between video and word-based passage sections.
Now students will have to tackle just 14 sections in total, reducing the amount of test-taking time from 110-120 to approximately 90-110 total minutes, which includes the introduction, roughly 80 minutes of questions and two optional breaks.
Section 1: Video-Based Scenarios
The question order has changed. Previously, students had to answer five word-based passages and could take a 5-minute optional break in the middle. Before moving on to the video passage, they could take an additional 10-minute break and then tackle the ten video passages.
Now, students will have to answer the video prompts first. The reason for this change was in case students ran into technical difficulties with recording their responses, it would happen earlier in the test, and therefore they wouldn’t lose their previous work.
In this first section, students will be presented with six videos introducing a character, a predicament and the student’s role in the situation. After watching each short video, students will have one minute per question to respond. Students will give typed responses for two scenarios, while four of the videos will require recorded video responses, presented in a randomized order.
Section 2: Typed Scenarios
Previously, applicants had five word-based scenarios, but that number has been increased to eight. Test-takers will be presented with a written scenario and have to answer three questions within five minutes. They will have to record a video answer for five scenarios, and the remaining three will require a typed response. These scenarios will appear in random order.
The cost of taking the Casper for medical school also increased to $85, with seven distributions to schools included in this fee. There is an additional fee of $16 per school if students want to distribute their scores to others. However, for Vet, Dentistry, BS schools that require Casper and/or Duet have a fee of $60 with one free distribution and then $16 per additional distribution. The exam will still be taken online and can only be taken once per cycle.
If students want to reschedule the exam, they can do so for free 31 or more days before the test date, with no limit to the number of times they can reschedule. If they choose to reschedule within 30 days of the test date, they can do so but must pay a $20 fee. However, the rescheduling fee is waived if students experience a certified technical or medical issue.