My Experience Taking the CASPer Exam

Last night, I took the CASPer exam. I’m applying to 8 schools, and only one of them requires it. Still, I decided to take the exam because you never know what might happen, and I didn’t want to miss out on that option—especially since the school is fairly close to where I live. After working two jobs all day, I sat down to take the CASPer exam at 8 p.m. The test is online and taken from the comfort of your home, but it’s a bit different from typical exams because you’re being recorded on video throughout. For those who might not be familiar, CASPer stands for Computer-based Assessment for Sampling Personal Characteristics. It’s an open-response, situational judgment test (SJT) designed to assess personal and professional qualities—things like collaboration, problem-solving, ethics, and empathy—not scientific or medical knowledge. It’s commonly required by many health-related graduate programs. One thing to note is that CASPer scores are only valid for one year. So if I need to reapply next cycle, I’d have to take the exam again. Your scores are released to the programs within two weeks, but you won’t know your individual score for another 4 to 5 weeks—which is a bit frustrating because the schools get to see your results before you do! The exam evaluates a range of behavioral characteristics, including: Collaboration Communication Empathy Equity Ethics Motivation Problem-solving Professionalism Resilience Self-awareness Each section of the exam is graded by a different rater, chosen from a diverse pool of individuals. This helps ensure a more balanced and objective assessment of your performance. In the end, you’ll receive a quartile score (for example, 3rd-4th quartile is considered a high score). The test took me about 90 minutes to complete. There were 14 questions, each with two parts—one written response and one video recorded response. The video questions were a bit nerve-wracking, but overall, the process was manageable. Now, it’s just a waiting game until my results come in. Fingers crossed!