What Is Casper?

What Is Casper?

Casper stands for Computer-Based Assessment for Sampling Personal Characteristics. It is a situational judgment test used by admissions programs to evaluate interpersonal and professional characteristics that traditional grades and interviews often miss. Casper was originally developed at McMaster University's Michael G. DeGroote School of Medicine and launched in 2015. It is now owned and administered by Acuity Insights, formerly known as Altus Assessments, and as of August 2024 the exam has surpassed 1 million test registrations.

Unlike a multiple-choice knowledge exam, Casper asks open-ended questions about realistic, often ethically ambiguous scenarios. There is no single "right" answer - evaluators are looking at how you reason through a dilemma, not whether you recite a rule. For a deeper breakdown of exactly what Acuity Insights and admissions committees are measuring, see the Casper Exam Domains 2026: Complete Guide to All 9 Content Areas.

How the Casper Exam Works

Casper is delivered entirely online with remote proctoring on scheduled sitting dates - there are no physical test centers. You'll need a desktop or laptop computer with a working webcam and microphone; smartphones and tablets are not supported, so plan your testing setup well in advance.

For the 2026-2027 admission cycle, the exam presents 11 scenarios in a fixed order:

• 4 video-response scenarios shown first, where you record a spoken answer to each question one at a time, with 1 minute per question.
• 7 typed-response scenarios that follow, where both questions for a scenario appear together and you get 3.5 minutes to answer the pair.

Each scenario carries 2 open-ended questions, giving you 22 questions total across the exam. Every scenario begins with an optional 30-second reflection period before your response window starts. A 10-minute optional break follows the video section, and a 5-minute optional break comes after the first four typed scenarios. Altogether, the exam runs an estimated 65 to 85 minutes. (Note: the Australian teacher education version of Casper uses a shorter 8-scenario format running 45 to 65 minutes - a different structure than the admissions version most candidates encounter.)

Scenarios are presented as either video-based or word-based prompts, and you cannot switch response formats mid-test. Speech-to-text tools are prohibited unless you have an approved accommodation.

The Nine Casper Domains

Every scenario on Casper is built to sample one or more of nine personal characteristics. Understanding these domains is the single most useful thing you can do before sitting the exam, because they tell you what raters are actually listening for in your responses.

The remaining domains - Communication, Fairness, Self-Awareness, Resilience, Problem Solving, and Motivation - round out the full set of nine areas the test samples. Because Ethics and Empathy carry the most practical weight in scoring, given that nearly every scenario is built around an interpersonal or professional dilemma, candidates who prepare narrowly for "problem solving" style logic puzzles are often surprised by how consistently ethical reasoning shows up. A scenario-by-scenario walkthrough of all nine domains, with sample prompts for each, is available in the Casper Exam Domains 2026 guide.

Registration and Fees

Registration costs vary by test type and country. For US Medicine applicants, the base fee is $85 USD, which includes Casper itself, the Duet value-alignment assessment, and distribution of results to up to 7 programs. Additional program distributions cost roughly $18 each. Other health professions programs pay a lower base fee, and pricing shifts depending on country and test type, so it's worth checking your specific program's requirements before you register.

All Casper fees are final and non-refundable, and they do not transfer between admissions cycles - if you register and then miss your sitting or change programs, you generally cannot recover that payment or roll it forward. Applicants who are approved for AAMC or CASPA fee assistance can have the Casper fee waived entirely. For a full cost breakdown by test type and country, see Casper Certification Cost 2026: Complete Pricing Breakdown.

Who Requires Casper and Why

Casper is used by admissions programs - primarily in medicine and other health professions, along with select graduate and professional programs - as a screening tool alongside grades, test scores, and interviews. Programs use it because traditional academic metrics don't reliably predict interpersonal judgment, professionalism, or ethical reasoning under pressure, which is exactly what Casper is designed to sample.

If you're mapping out which programs actually value strong non-academic performance, or trying to understand what a competitive Casper result actually opens up down the line, the Is the Casper Certification Worth It? Complete ROI Analysis 2026 article and the Casper Jobs overview both break down how programs and downstream career paths weigh this exam.

How Casper Is Scored

Every response you give is read and scored by a different trained human rater, using a 1 to 9 Likert scale. Because a new rater evaluates each individual response, no single person sees your entire test - this is intentional, designed to reduce halo effects from a strong or weak early answer.

There is no passing score on Casper. Instead, applicants receive only a quartile ranking (showing roughly where your performance fell relative to other test-takers), while the actual numeric score goes directly to the programs you applied to. Results are typically available 2 to 3 weeks after your sitting date. Because there's no fixed benchmark to clear, many candidates find it more useful to think in terms of consistent, well-reasoned responses across all nine domains rather than chasing a specific number - a distinction covered in more detail in Casper Passing Score 2026: Exactly What You Need to Pass and Casper Pass Rate 2026: What the Data Shows.

Eligibility and Retakes

Applicants get one attempt per test type per admissions cycle. Retakes are only granted for verified technical failures reported within one week of the sitting - deciding you performed poorly is not grounds for a retest. Because scores are valid for a single cycle and never carry forward, reapplicants in a future cycle must sit Casper again from scratch, even if they scored well previously.

This makes registration timing and technical readiness genuinely high-stakes: a webcam glitch you don't report promptly could cost you the sitting entirely. Full eligibility rules, including what counts as a reportable technical failure, are detailed in Casper Requirements 2026: Eligibility, Prerequisites & How to Qualify, and testing windows for the current cycle are laid out in Casper Exam Dates 2026: Testing Windows, Deadlines & Scheduling.

Preparing for Casper

Because Casper has no content to memorize, generic study advice like flashcards or spaced repetition on facts doesn't transfer well. What does transfer is deliberate practice answering timed, open-response scenarios across all nine domains under conditions that mimic the real test - video responses recorded in one take, typed responses answered within the 3.5-minute window for a pair of questions.

A structured, week-by-week plan with sample prompts for each domain is available in the Casper Study Guide 2026: How to Pass on Your First Attempt. If you're still gauging how demanding the exam actually is relative to your other admissions requirements, How Hard Is the Casper Exam? Complete Difficulty Guide 2026 walks through what makes it challenging beyond simple content review. The most efficient way to build comfort with the format itself is simply running realistic timed scenarios on our Casper practice test platform before your actual sitting date.

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