In 2026, What Medical Schools Require Casper?

While most of your medical school application is centered around your grades, hard skills, and personal background, the application does little to shed light on your empathy, communication skills, and ethical decision-making. In order to determine how strong an applicant’s soft skills are, dozens of schools across the United States and the world require applicants to take the Casper test, a major component of Acuity Insights.

So, what medical schools require Casper, and how do you know if you need to take the test?

Read on to learn what the Casper test is, which schools require Casper, and why so many schools are adopting this test.

Last updated February 2026.

What Is the Casper Test and Do You Need to Take It?

The Computer-Based Assessment for Sampling Personal Characteristics, commonly known as Casper, is part of Acuity Insights, a multi-part assessment designed to evaluate a prospective medical student’s people skills and critical reasoning.

• Casper is a 65-85-minute situational judgment test.
• Duet is a value-alignment assessment.

Developed in 2010 in Canada, Casper is a computer-based situational judgment test that measures who you are beyond your hard skills and grades—your interpersonal skills, ethical decision-making, empathy, and resilience.

The Casper tests people based on the following 9 competencies:

• Collaboration
• Communication
• Empathy
• Fairness
• Ethics
• Motivation
• Problem solving
• Resilience
• Self-awareness

Casper consists of 11 scenarios. There is a typed response section and a video response section. Within each section, you will be presented with either a word-based or video-based scenario followed by two open-ended questions.

Typically, the scenarios are not set in a clinical setting but instead drawn from everyday life. For example, if you’re grocery shopping and see a pregnant teenager steal some diapers, what do you do?

Casper takes about 65-85 minutes, which includes two breaks. In the video response section, you have one minute to respond to each question individually. In the typed response section, you have 3.5 minutes to respond to two questions before the test automatically moves on to the next scenario.

Each of the 11 scenarios is scored by a unique rater, so no two scenarios in your test will be scored by the same person. Therefore, your Casper score is composed of multiple objective impressions of you. The raters have no prior knowledge of you whatsoever and have no idea how you answered the other scenarios.

Casper raters are required to complete a training session and accreditation in order to score the test, and your test results are automatically sent to the schools you’re applying to.

Whether or not you need to take the test depends on the schools you are applying to.

Only certain schools require applicants to take the Casper test, and the list fluctuates each year.

What Medical Schools Require Casper?

Currently, dozens of programs in the US require Casper, as do schools in Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, and Qatar.

Here is a list of every US medical school that requires Casper. (Updated February 2026)

Allopathic (MD) Medicine

1. Baylor College of Medicine
2. Boston University Aram V. Chobanian & Edward Avedisian School of Medicine
3. Burnett School of Medicine at TCU
4. Central Michigan University College of Medicine
5. Donald and Barbara Zucker School of Medicine at Hofstra/Northwell
6. Drexel University College of Medicine
7. Louisiana State University New Orleans – School of Medicine
8. Medical College of Wisconsin
9. Michigan State University College of Human Medicine
10. Netter School of Medicine Quinnipiac University
11. New York Medical College
12. Renaissance School of Medicine at Stony Brook University
13. Rush University Medical College
14. Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School
15. Temple University Lewis Katz School of Medicine
16. Texas Tech Health Sciences Center El Paso
17. Tulane University School of Medicine
18. University of Colorado Denver Medical School
19. University of Texas at Tyler School of Medicine
20. University of Texas Health Science Center Houston, McGovern Medical School
21. University of Texas Health Science Center San Antonio, Long School of Medicine
22. University of Texas Medical Branch, John Sealy School of Medicine
23. University of Vermont Larner College of Medicine
24. Virginia Commonwealth University School of Medicine
25. Wake Forest School of Medicine

Osteopathic (DO) Medicine

1. Sam Houston State University College of Osteopathic Medicine
2. William Carey University College of Osteopathic Medicine

For medical schools around the world, here is a list of every school and program that requires applicants to take Casper. 

Why Do Medical Schools Require Casper?

Medical school applicants hoping to one day become physicians must have a strong foundation of medical knowledge and possess superior smarts. Fortunately, there are plenty of metrics with which to test an applicant’s cognitive abilities. Schools adopted Casper because it assesses aspects of being a doctor that are underrepresented in medical school applications.

Strong interpersonal skills are just as vital to a doctor’s success as superior cognitive abilities and medical know-how. Doctors must be able to listen effectively and communicate with their patients to accurately diagnose them and, depending on the specialty, deliver bad news to the patient and their family when the time comes. They must also maintain absolute professionalism throughout every patient interaction and be guided by iron-clad ethics.

While your personal statement, letters of recommendation, and Work and Activities section provide some insight into your ethical decision-making, empathy, and communication skills, the primary focus of your medical school application is your hard skills.

Admissions committees want to know who you are beyond your grades. They do not want to accept an applicant with stellar grades if it means the applicant is socially inept, rude, or possesses a Machiavellian sense of ethics.

When faced with an ethical dilemma, as physicians often are, what will you do? Will your patients feel safe and comfortable with you, or will they dread every interaction and question whether or not you have their best interests at heart?

Some admissions committees are prioritizing having these questions answered before they accept an applicant to their program.

Casper Test Dates

In order to register for the Casper test, you must create an Acuity Insights account with the following information:

• Government-issued photo ID
• Valid email address
• Working webcam
• Working microphone

You must register for your Casper at least 3 days before your preferred test date so that your identity can be verified and your payment processed. Do not book the test at the last minute.

Casper test dates vary between schools. It’s imperative that you pay close attention to the due dates set by the schools you are applying to. The test dates for upcoming admissions cycles are made available in the spring.

You can only take the Casper once during an admissions cycle. If you are unsuccessful at matriculating to medical school, you will have to take Casper again the following admissions cycle.

View the latest Casper test dates and times.

Casper Test Preparation

You can’t actually study for the Casper like other tests, but you can practice for it by answering sample test questions, taking practice tests, increasing your typing speed, improving your reading comprehension, and understanding the video format—all of which we strongly recommend you do!

Casper is not a complicated test, nor is it a long one, but it will challenge you in ways tests of your hard skills won’t. To be successful, set aside plenty of time to practice and prepare.

Review our 15 different Casper preparation strategies that will help you succeed on test day.

Casper Prep with Med School Insiders

The Med School Insiders Casper prep platform leverages cutting-edge AI and 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 at no risk.

Still have questions? We cover 19 common Casper questions in our Casper Test FAQ.