While much of your residency application is based on your grades, Step scores, and other hard skills, the application does little to communicate your soft skills, such as your empathy, professionalism, ethical decision making, and bedside manner. This is why more and more residency programs are now requiring applicants to take the Casper test, a key component of Acuity Insights. So, what are the residency programs that require Casper?
Read on to learn what the Casper test is, which residency programs require Casper, and how to succeed if you need to take the test.
Save our complete Casper Test Guide to prepare for Casper, including detailed study strategies, Casper dos and don’ts, and how test-takers are assessed.
Last updated September 2024.
Do Residency Applicants Need to Take Casper?
The Computer-Based Assessment for Sampling Personal Characteristics (Casper) is a key component of Acuity Insights, a multi-part assessment designed to assess a premed or medical student’s empathy, communication, and bedside manner.
You may have encountered Casper when you applied to medical school four years ago, but the test and the corresponding components from Acuity Insights continue to evolve year after year. Most notably, in 2022, a video component was added to Casper, splitting the test into two—a video response section followed by a typed response section.
Find more details about how Casper is formatted in the FAQ section below.
Note that Casper is only one part of Acuity Insights. Some programs may also require a Duet assessment. Check the requirements of each program you are applying to to determine what aspects of Acuity Insights, if any, are required.
Learn more: Understanding Acuity Insights: Casper and Duet.
What Residency Programs Require Casper?
While not all residency programs require applicants to take Casper, some programs in the US do .
As of the 2024-2025 application cycle, only a handful of specialties utilize Casper. These specialties include:
- Anesthesiology
- Internal Medicine
- Interventional Radiology
- OB/GYN
- Ophthalmology
- Surgery
- Urology
If you are applying to programs in any of these specialties, check the list below for the programs you hope to apply to. Leave nothing to chance. Once you narrow down your Rank Order List, be sure to double-check the Acuity Insights Schools and Programs list, as well as the requirements listed by each individual program.
Here is a list of every US residency program that requires Casper. (Updated June 2024)
Anesthesiology Residency Programs That Require Casper
- Emory University
- Rush University
- UF-Gainesville
- University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus
Internal Medicine Programs That Require Casper
- Sinai Grace Hospital/Detroit Medical Center – Wayne State University
- University of Connecticut
Interventional Radiology Programs That Require Casper
- Hofstra University Northwell Health
OB/GYN Programs That Require Casper
- Ascension Providence Hospital
- Creighton University Arizona
- OhioHealth Riverside
- St. John’s Episcopal Hospital (South Shore)
- St. Joseph Hospital
- The Brooklyn Hospital
- Wright State University
Urology Programs That Require Casper
- Hofstra University Northwell Health
Casper Residency Program FAQ
1. What Is the Casper Test?
Casper is a computer-based situational judgment test developed in 2010 in Canada to measure who you are beyond your hard skills and grades. Casper evaluates your interpersonal skills, ethics and ethical decision making, professionalism, empathy, and bedside manner.
2. What Does Casper Assess?
While excellent grades and a high Step 2 score are definitely key to any residency application, there’s a lot more to being a doctor than excelling in academia. Doctors must also be able to earn their patients’ trust and communicate effectively with them. They need to listen closely to the information their patients provide, determine what the problem is, and deliver a wide range of challenging or, at times, earth-shattering information.
Doctors require patience, tact, and emotional intelligence—and stellar grades are not a true measure of these abilities.
Casper tests people based on the following 10 Constructs:
- Collaboration
- Communication
- Empathy
- Equity
- Ethics
- Motivation
- Problem solving
- Professionalism
- Resilience
- Self-awareness
3 | How Is the Casper Test Formatted?
Casper is composed of 14 scenarios, some word-based and some video-based, and each scenario is followed by 2-3 open-ended questions.
The scenarios are a mix of SJTs (Situational Judgment Tests) and behavioral descriptor questions. The scenarios aren’t usually based in a clinical setting. For example, you could be in a grocery store or at a job interview.
The test is divided into a video response section and a typed response section.
In the video response section, you will record a video of yourself verbally replying to two word-based scenarios and four video-based scenarios. After being presented with each scenario, you will be asked two questions, with one minute to record a video response to each question.
Your response will be automatically uploaded once your one minute is up. You will not be able to play back your recording or change your answer.
In the typed response section, you will type your responses to five video-based scenarios and three word-based scenarios. Three corresponding questions will follow each scenario, and you have five minutes to type your responses to the three questions before you are automatically advanced to the next scenario.
If your timer runs out, your responses will be saved and uploaded automatically. You can also choose to submit your answers before the timer runs out. In either case, you cannot change your answers.
4 | How Is the Casper Test Scored?
Each of your Casper responses is scored relative to other responses to the same scenario. Therefore, your score represents how strong your response is compared to the other test takers. Your responses will be evaluated using a Likert scale ranging from 1 to 9 (1 being poor and 9 being excellent).
Your Casper scores reflect your ability to use critical reasoning and social interpretation to effectively and ethically respond to professional and interpersonal dilemmas. Casper scores are Z-scores—standardized scores of applicants’ raw mean Casper scores. Acuity Insights also calculates an applicant’s percentile rank and quartile rank.
You will not receive your specific score. You will only receive a quartile rank indicating how well you performed relative to your peers. Programs will receive both your Casper score as well as your percentile rank.
Scores are divided into four equal parts, meaning a quarter of scores are placed in each quartile.
- 25% of applicants score in the first quartile (0-24 percentile)
- 25% of applicants score in the second quartile (25-49 percentile)
- 25% of applicants score in the third quartile (50-74 percentile)
- 25% of applicants score in the fourth quartile (75-100 percentile)
Scoring in the fourth quartile means your responses were thought superior to everyone who landed in the third, second, and first quartile, meaning you did better than 75% of other Casper test takers. Scoring in the first quartile doesn’t mean you failed; however, it does mean you performed worse than 75% of other Casper test takers.
For more details, read How the Casper Test Is Scored.
Can You Prepare for Casper?
While you can’t necessarily study for Casper, you can prepare for it with regular practice. You can answer sample test questions, take practice tests, improve your reading comprehension, and record and review video responses to get used to the test format.
Practicing within the Casper test format is critical to your success on the big day.
Review our 15 Casper preparation strategies to help you succeed on test day.
Success on Casper and Beyond
The Med School Insiders Casper prep platform leverages cutting-edge AI technology combined with in-depth video tutorials. It’s the most comprehensive prep resource for Casper out there.
Get instant feedback on both the typed and video response sections of the Casper test, including immediate personalized evaluation and emotion detection analysis. For the typed section, our platform will help you improve your typing speed as you simultaneously master essential Casper vocabulary.
The course includes unlimited practice problems, which means you’ll have endless opportunities to refine your skills, adapt to various scenarios, and truly understand the nuances of the Casper exam.
Plus, it comes with a 3-day money back guarantee, so you can try it for yourself at zero risk.
Tactfully and thoughtfully approaching your residency application is essential to your success. Med School Insiders can help you prepare a stand out residency application. Our team of doctors has years of experience helping medical students get matched with their ideal program.
We offer a number of Residency Admissions Consulting Services tailored to your needs, including personal statement editing, USMLE tutoring, interview prep and mock interviews, and overall application editing.
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