How important is CASPER to schools that require it

[Proudfather94]

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I know that it is important because they want it but are they going to look at it with the same importance as something like the mcat?

 

[JimKimSlim]

N = 1, but I thought I crushed my casper and received more ii’s from the participating schools than non-participating ones.

 

[KnightDoc]

I know that it is important because they want it but are they going to look at it with the same importance as something like the mcat?

Only they can answer this! For that matter, just how important is the MCAT? GPA? ECs? Etc.? The answer is that it very likely varies school to school, and, applicant to applicant for any given school. Even if it's true, what school is going to admit that they want it, but don't consider it as important as anything else?

 

[KnightDoc]

N = 1, but I thought I crushed my casper and received more ii’s from the participating schools than non-participating ones.

Obviously, it didn't hurt you, since you received IIs, but, did you actually receive your score? If not, you can't possibly know this, given how poorly we tend to judge our own performance on anything in general! 🙂

 

[JimKimSlim]

Obviously, it didn't hurt you, since you received IIs, but, did you actually receive your score? If not, you can't possibly know this, given how poorly we tend to judge our own performance on anything in general! 🙂

You’re right. There’s no way i can find out my score, and the only guidance I can give are speculations based on # of ii’s I received from the participating schools vs those from non-participating ones. Interestingly, I didn’t get into any schools that did AAMC VITA, which I thought I bombed, but there could be many factors determining your admissions chance post-interview. Again, N = 1.

 

[Earthworm Slim]

N = 1, but I thought I crushed my casper and received more ii’s from the participating schools than non-participating ones.

N=2

 

[KnightDoc]

You’re right. There’s no way i can find out my score, and the only guidance I can give are speculations based on # of ii’s I received from the participating schools vs those from non-participating ones. Interestingly, I didn’t get into any schools that did AAMC VITA, which I thought I bombed, but there could be many factors determining your admissions chance post-interview. Again, N = 1.

All I can say is that you seem to be unusually perceptive in general, so you might very well be an exception to the rule regarding self evaluation of performance in situations like this. 🙂

I think your VITA experience, however, is nothing more than a coincidence. I reached out to several schools last year, concerned about how they were going to use VITA. If you search my prior posts, I was concerned about it being used to supply data to an AI algorithm I suspected was being developed by the vendor. ALL schools told me they were unsure how they were going to use it.

That, plus the benefit of hindsight knowing that AAMC discontinued it after one cycle, leads me to conclude there is no way it was used to screen you out at all of the schools that used it. If schools found it that useful, they'd still be using it. If you didn't get into all of the schools that didn't use it, there really is no causation case to be made, just a correlation.

 

[officialmedschoolfan]

N = 1, but I thought I crushed my casper and received more ii’s from the participating schools than non-participating ones.

I got my CASPER score yesterday and was in the 4th quartile. I think all test takers will get their quartile range this year. I'll let you know how my cycle goes this year, and maybe applicants will have a better idea of how important CASPER is to schools after this cycle is over.

 

[baz2020]

I think your VITA experience, however, is nothing more than a coincidence. I reached out to several schools last year, concerned about how they were going to use VITA. If you search my prior posts, I was concerned about it being used to supply data to an AI algorithm I suspected was being developed by the vendor. ALL schools told me they were unsure how they were going to use it.

Wouldn’t be surprised if similar things were going on with snapshot currently

 

[Proudfather94]

I got my CASPER score yesterday and was in the 4th quartile. I think all test takers will get their quartile range this year. I'll let you know how my cycle goes this year, and maybe applicants will have a better idea of how important CASPER is to schools after this cycle is over.

I got mine yesterday and got the same quartile too. I'm just curious if the schools that require it are looking at it the same as something like the mcat or if it's something where they just R the people at the bottom, or if it's just going to make a slight difference like someone with weak ecs but a good CASPER may get an II over someone with decent ecs and a horrible CASPER.

 

[JimKimSlim]

I got my CASPER score yesterday and was in the 4th quartile. I think all test takers will get their quartile range this year. I'll let you know how my cycle goes this year, and maybe applicants will have a better idea of how important CASPER is to schools after this cycle is over.

I am so sorry to hear that you get scored now. One more hurdle to torture premeds, which is not an unusual move made by med schools/AAMC. I wonder what will be the next hurdle… a recorded video of you juggling while balancing on a tight rope?

 

[Proudfather94]

I am so sorry to hear that you get scored now. One more hurdle to torture premeds, which is not an unusual move made by med schools/AAMC. I wonder what will be the next hurdle… a recorded video of you juggling while balancing on a tight rope?

They only tell you the quartile which is better than the actual percentile

 

[officialmedschoolfan]

I got mine yesterday and got the same quartile too. I'm just curious if the schools that require it are looking at it the same as something like the mcat or if it's something where they just R the people at the bottom, or if it's just going to make a slight difference like someone with weak ecs but a good CASPER may get an II over someone with decent ecs and a horrible CASPER.

I don't know if it would be in the same category as the MCAT or GPA for this cycle. I imagine it would be lumped together with your primaries and secondaries. To me, it seems like ADCOMs evaluate based on three categories: MCAT, GPA, and then everything else.

 

[JimKimSlim]

MCAT, GPA, and then everything else.

MCAT, GPA, Clinical Experience, and then everything else.

 

[Proudfather94]

MCAT, GPA, Clinical Experience, and then everything else.

Cool so my 3 years as a full time pca is gonna pay off lol

 

[KnightDoc]

Wouldn’t be surprised if similar things were going on with snapshot currently

Not even. AAMC didn't shove VITA down anyone's throat, and the schools that opted in last year did so voluntarily. With Snapshot, Altus is intentionally misleading applicants into thinking it is required by all schools when the reality is that very few schools intend to even look at it. The problem is that the communication is being handled by Altus. Most schools don't say anything one way or the other, other than about needing to take CASPer. I'm sure Altus is up to no good, but I'm not sure the schools even know what is going on.

 

[Current-big-pharma-shill]

Not even. AAMC didn't shove VITA down anyone's throat, and the schools that opted in last year did so voluntarily. With Snapshot, Altus is intentionally misleading applicants into thinking it is required by all schools when the reality is that very few schools intend to even look at it. The problem is that the communication is being handled by Altus. Most schools don't say anything one way or the other, other than about needing to take CASPer. I'm sure Altus is up to no good, but I'm not sure the schools even know what is going on.

At the end of my CASPer they asked if I wanted to take a practice video CASPer to help them get feedback and I didn't think anything of it. Perhaps that and snapshot could be used as something for training models. A data set of 40,000 people all answering the same three questions all trying to look their best/aim for the same goal would be a really good dataset to train something on...