SECONDARY APPLICATIONS
After your primary application is transmitted to schools of the health professions, you will likely recieve secondary applications. You should aim to return these no more than two weeks after recieving them, but be sure to check the policy of the school issuing the secondary for further deadlines and guidance.
Some schools send a secondary to all applicants while others screen and send the secondary only to selected candidates; this information is generally available from the application service directory for your health profession (ie, the MSAR, ADEA Guide to Dental Schools). The secondary carries an additional application fee; if you recieved fee assistance on the primary application most schools will waive the secondary fee.
Planning ahead can make it easier to complete your secondary applications promptly. Most schools will ask a question that boils down to "why here?" By taking careful notes on the information you gather and reflections you have when generating your school list, you can be better prepared to answer this question on your secondary applications.
CASPer
While CASPer has been popular in Canada for several years, it is starting to gain traction in the United States, and MD & DO schools including New York Medical College, Rutgers - Robert Woods Johnson, Drexel, Temple, Touro, and SUNY Upstate are now requiring the CASPer test; the full list of CASPer schools is on the CASPer website. If a school that you have applied to wants you to take the test, they will notify you, at which point you should schedule an exam promptly and follow all deadlines given by your program. If none of the programs you apply to ask for the CASPer, you will not take the exam.
CASPer is an online screening tool used by some schools of the health professions. The exam is a situational judgement test that does not presume any prior scientific or medical knowledge. You will give typed responses to written and video prompts. These responses will be scored only on the content of the answer - you should not concern yourself with allocating time for perfecting grammar and spelling, but instead with giving as complete a response as possible within the time given.
The CASPer test is very different from your health professions entrance exam like the MCAT or DAT - it is not a content-knowledge exam and extensive study or test prep programs are not required. You will not travel to a test site; instead, you can take it from any laptop or desktop computer with a webcam and an internet connection. They do have set times and dates to take the test, so you will need to have a plan for where you will be to take the exam. Try not to wait on the final deadline for your programs to take the test; you can only sit the CASPer test once per application cycle and you do not want technical issues on the final test day to prevent you from taking the exam.
The free CASPer Webinar for Applicants and online sample test questions are great ways to prepare for the CASPer test. The systems check you run when you register for the exam, to ensure your laptop meets the technical requirements to take the test, will give you a feel for the real test environment.