What Is the Casper Test?

Acuity's Casper page lays out the current format: 2 sections and 11 scenarios. Every scenario asks you 2 open-ended questions.

The scenarios are everyday situations with a conflict or a judgment call built in, the kind you'd run into at work, at school or in a group project. Most are short videos, and one of the typed scenarios is text only. The questions then ask what you'd do and why.

The 65 to 85 minutes includes two optional breaks. You can't go back to a scenario once its time runs out, and in the video section you can't rewatch or redo a recording. Acuity's sample video scenarios mention a longer limit than 1 minute per question, so confirm the timer when you take the practice test.

Here's how the response time splits between the two sections if you use every second.

About three quarters of your answering time is typing, and 7 of the 11 scenarios are typed. The rest of the 65 to 85 minutes goes to watching the scenarios, reading the questions, the breaks and the setup steps.

Acuity lists nine skills on its Casper page: collaboration, communication, empathy, ethics, fairness, motivation, problem solving, resilience and self-awareness. Medical schools already see your grades and your MCAT score. Casper is their attempt to compare thousands of applicants on judgment and people skills before deciding who gets an interview.

Does it work? One of the main validity studies, published in 2017 in Advances in Health Sciences Education, followed 109 doctors who took Casper as medical school applicants. Their Casper scores predicted the personal and professional parts of Canada's licensing exams three to six years later, with corrected correlations of 0.3 to 0.5. Keep in mind that the authors are the McMaster researchers who created the test, and that the sample is small.

You don't get a number, and neither part of the test has an answer key.

• Human raters, not AI. Acuity says certified human raters score every test using a structured process.
• One rater per scenario. According to Med School Insiders' guide, each scenario goes to a different rater, who scores your responses from 1 to 9 against other responses to the same scenario. Raters are told to ignore typos and grammar.
• Schools get your results first. Acuity's advisor page says scores reach your programs about two to three weeks after the test.
• You get a quartile. Acuity's help center says your quartile usually arrives about 4 to 5 weeks after your test date.

The quartiles split test takers evenly: the 1st quartile is the 0 to 24th percentile, the 2nd is the 25th to 49th, the 3rd is the 50th to 74th, and the 4th is the 75th to 100th. A 4th-quartile result means your responses were rated above about 75 percent of the people who took the same test, not that you got 75 percent of anything right.

A low quartile usually doesn't end your application. Acuity's advisor page says most schools don't use firm cutoffs, and applicants in the lowest quartile are usually still eligible. Schools decide for themselves how much Casper counts.

For the 2026-2027 cycle, the U.S. medicine version of Casper costs $85, which includes sending your results to 9 schools. Each additional school costs $20, as tallied from Acuity's Dates and Fees page by Confetto and Inspira Advantage. Fees aren't refundable.

That means a list with 12 Casper schools costs $85 plus 3 times $20, or $145. If you're approved for the AAMC Fee Assistance Program, check before you pay: Acuity says applicants approved through participating U.S. fee assistance programs may have their Casper fees waived or reduced.

Med School Insiders' May 2026 list counts 33 U.S. schools that require Casper: 29 MD programs and 4 DO programs. A few on the MD side are Baylor, Boston University, Drexel, Hofstra/Northwell, Medical College of Wisconsin, Tulane, UT Southwestern, Vermont, VCU and Wake Forest. Several Texas public schools are on it too, including UT Health Houston, UT Health San Antonio, UTMB, UT Tyler and Texas Tech El Paso.

The list changes every year, and third-party lists don't always agree. Check each school's own admissions page, or its entry in the MSAR, before you book a test.

Some schools pair Casper with Duet, a separate Acuity questionnaire about which program features matter most to you. Inspira describes it as untimed and about 15 minutes long, and Acuity says the Casper fee already covers it. For 2026-2027, Inspira names UT Tyler as the only medical school that requires Duet.

You may also see the AAMC's own situational judgment test, PREview, on some school pages. It's a different exam with its own registration, so check which one each school on your list asks for.

Casper results expire faster than your MCAT^®. Acuity says Casper scores are valid for one year because the test content changes every year, compared with four years for the MCAT^®. So you take Casper during the cycle you're applying in, and you can take it once per cycle.

Pick a date that's before the earliest distribution deadline of any school on your list. Acuity's advisor page says results go out through its own score-sharing system, not through AMCAS or TMDSAS, and programs you add to your list after your results are out receive them within one business day.

A practical window is around the time you submit your primary application. That way your result is already on its way to schools while you're writing secondaries, and a missing Casper score won't be the thing keeping your file incomplete. The MCAT timing guide covers how early submission helps at schools with rolling admissions.

Remaining U.S. medicine test dates for this cycle, per Confetto's table of Acuity's schedule, are November 12, December 3, January 5 and February 9. Register early. If you need accommodations, Acuity wants the request form at least 4 weeks before your test date.

A few hours of prep goes a long way, mostly in the typed section.

• Take the official practice test. Acuity gives you a full practice test in your account once you reserve a date, and you can take it as many times as you want. It's the only way to feel the real timer.
• Practice typing under time. You get 3.5 minutes for two answers, which works out to about 1 minute 45 seconds each. If you type slowly, short timed drills help.
• Answer the question you were asked. A strong point on a different question doesn't answer this one. Name what you'd do, then say why.
• Consider everyone involved. Many scenarios put two people with competing interests in front of you. Acknowledge both sides, say what you'd want to find out before judging, and propose a fair next step.
• Use real examples. If a question asks about your own experience, a specific, brief story from work, school or volunteering works better than a general statement about your values.
• Set up your space. You test at home with a webcam, so use a room where you won't be interrupted and a reliable internet connection, and run Acuity's system check with the same setup you'll use on test day.

Take the free practice test before you decide whether to spend money on a prep course.

• Is Casper the same as the MCAT? No. It's a separate test from a different company, with no science content and no right answers.
• How long is Casper? About 65 to 85 minutes, including two optional breaks.
• Can you fail Casper? No. You get a quartile, and most schools don't use hard cutoffs.
• Can you retake it? Once per admissions cycle, and results are valid for one year.
• Do DO schools use it? A few do. Med School Insiders lists 4 DO programs that require it.

Casper is one piece of your file, alongside your grades, experiences and MCAT^®. When your scores come in, look up where they stand in the PurpleCAT MCAT score guide.

Last verified October 30, 2026, against Acuity Insights' Casper page and advisor page, and Confetto's and Inspira Advantage's summaries of Acuity's 2026-2027 Dates and Fees page.