Recently I have been getting questions from MCAT students & family/friend advisees on CASPer schools. I did not apply to any places that required one and simply understand it as some sort of personality assessment that gets scored/used in ways that aren't released to the applicant? And I am also under the impression that this is something people actually prep for (MCAT was more than enough test prep fun times for me...)?
Basically I've been suggesting to mid/high stats applicants to avoid the hassle of CASPer schools if they're not super interested due to the unclear expectations/additional cost/fact that no upper-tiers have adopted it yet. Is this misguided? What are learned SDN opinions on the likelihood of CASPer becoming standardized for all med schools in future cycles?
Casper is an interview screening tool in the style of an MMI interview. The goal is to screen out those applicants who would be rejected in the interview phase, and select for students who will do well in the interview phase. You are presented with a video scenario or a text prompt and are required to answer 3 questions in 5 minutes. This is repeated ~10 times. Each prompt of 3 questions is scored together on a 9 point scale similar to a likert scale. Scorers only score that specific question and score many applicants answers to that same prompt (IE a scorer will score 50 answers to the same question. A different scorer will score every prompt for an applicant. Scorers have no information about an applicant other than their answer.) How your answers to each individual prompt is combined is not disclosed, and applicants do not know their score. The score is sent directly to each school that the applicant selected, and how each schools use that information is up to that school. You are explicitly not scored on english skills, grammar, or typos/spelling mistakes. You are also not scored on answer length.
The idea is that if the school has an MMI style interview, they have limited resources and cannot interview every one of their thousands of applicants. Traditionally, they will invite the applicants with the top scores in other domains to interview (GPA/MCAT/ECs). However, clearly there will be some applicants with high scores who cannot and will not do well on an interview, and some with lower scores in other domains who will excell on an interview. The theory is that this tool will help to eliminate those who would fail the interview anyway, saving the applicant the time and money of going to interview, and give the school the chance to interview someone who might otherwise not been able to but might have a chance at acceptance based on their interview performance. If someone has reasonable problem solving and interview skills, then the Casper is an advantage to them.
So if the questions are not overly complex at all and it seems that anyone can just do well with minimal practice, how can they effectively rank applicants on their performance? From the company that runs CASPer, they've said that CASPer is a way to rank a large amount of applicants, so if you rank at the bottom is that the same effect as failing?
It's the same as how an MMI is scored. For each station (prompt) you get a score. At the end they combine the scores in each station (prompt) somehow and get an overall score. Your score is then used relative to other applicants in combination with other factors to make a final rank list. It should not and does not replace the gold standard of an in-person interview. Scores are based on problem solving and responding to ethical dilemmas. Obviously some answers will be better than others but its not a question of knowledge memorization beyond ethical principles.
What all is involved in signing up for the test and submitting the score? Do you do it through secondaries?
You sign up with casper directly, like the MCAT, and choose which schools receive your score, like the MCAT, and your score is sent automatically. You do not see the score.
Does any one know how the CASper is scored?
Each prompt of 3 questions is scored together on a likert-like scale. How those scores for each prompt is combined and how each school uses it is not disclosed.
