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.

AAMC PREview

AAMC’s PREview is an online, standardized exam created by AAMC to evaluate an applicant’s professional readiness. Any school that uses the AMCAS primary application service is able to use PREview in their evaluation of applicants. Of the schools that are using the exam for the coming cycle, some require the exam, some recommend it, and some use the scores for research purposes only. A school’s use of PREview will be listed on their profile in MSAR as well as on their admissions website. Currently, there is only one DO school recommending PREview, though others are considering using the exam in the future. You should keep track of which schools will be using the exam so that you can determine if you should be taking it. If none of the schools you are applying to use PREview, there is no need to take the exam.

PREview is designed to assess eight preprofessional competencies as determined by AAMC. You will be presented with a number of written dilemmas that you may come across during medical school, set in educational, healthcare, or real-world settings. Each scenario will be followed by several actions that could be taken and it will be your responsibility to rate the effectiveness of each response. The exam is 75 minutes long and is administered on specific dates in March through October. Scores take approximately one month to be released. There is a fee to take the exam, but students who have qualified for a fee waiver through AAMC will have that fee waived. You can only take the exam from a desktop or laptop and you can find more specific information about the test day and what you’ll need here. 

We encourage students to review the Essentials Guide to learn about the policies and procedures of the exam, and make sure to read the Examinee Preparation Guide, which includes formatting, structure, and ways to prepare for the exam. AAMC has prepared a video to explain the test day experience as well as a Practice Exam Booklet. These are all excellent resources to get you ready for the exam.

Altus Suite

The Altus Suite, comprised of Snapshot, Duet, and CASPer is a multi-evaluation competency assessment tool used by health professional schools as part of the admissions process. Snapshot is a one-way video interview in which you’ll be asked to respond to three questions. The questions ask you to reflect on your motivation to enter the medical field. Before you can begin, you are asked to do a practice session to make sure you’re prepared. Duet assesses the alignment between your values and the school that you’re applying to. You’ll be provided pairs of characteristics and you’ll be asked to choose the one you value most. Both Snapshot and Duet are short in length (approximately 15 minutes) and if you do not complete them within a short time frame of completing CASPer, you cannot go back and do them this cycle, so it is important to complete all three pieces. This will be listed among the other admissions requirements on schools’ websites. Because CASPer is more widely in use, we expand further on the exam below.

CASPer

Many MD & DO schools in the U.S., including Donald and Barbara Zucker School of Medicine at Hofstra/Northwell, New York Medical College, Stony Brook University School of Medicine, Rutgers - Robert Wood Johnson, Drexel, Temple, Pennsylvania State University College of Medicine, and State University of New York (SUNY) Upstate are now requiring that applicants take the CASPer test. If a school requires you to take the exam, they will state so on their admissions requirements website, and it’s important to know what the requirements are for the schools you are interested in. If none of the programs you apply to require CASPer, you do not need to take the exam.

CASPer is an online screening tool that does not presume any prior scientific or medical knowledge. It is a situational judgment test where you will be asked to give typed responses to written and video prompts. The exam is seeking to evaluate what you do in tough situations and, more importantly, why. 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 as you can only sit for the test once per application cycle and you do not want technical issues on the final test day to prevent you from taking the exam.

For more information about the exam, you can watch the webinar and visit the FAQ page of the CASPer website. 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.