Understanding CASPer, Snapshot and Duet

[Music] hi everyone my name is Olivia with all of the news surrounding Casper snapshot and duet also known as the Ala Suite I wanted to talk to an expert about what effects these will have on the application cycle so I'm joined by Dr Ed lipit Dr lipit is the associate director of advising here at med school Coach and he's also served on the admissions committee at the Virginia Commonwealth University he'll give us a general overview of each tool and I'll follow it up by asking some questions from the student perspective here we go well you know it's a it's a pleasure to be here and the topic that I'm going to address is one that actually causes a fair amount of concern for medical school applicants um it's the Casper exam and it's really called the Altus Suite which includes the Casper and two other screening tools uh called uh duet and snapshot and let me just give you a little bit of background around 20022 2003 at McMaster University in Ontario um they developed What's called the multiple uh mini interview format um it was in response to a criticism that the conventional interview with the traditional interview was too subjective so they came up with this idea that maybe situational judgment type questions would be important so that kind of revolutionized to some extent the interview process so the Casper exam is kind of an offshoot of the uh multiple mini interiew format that's the DNA of the Casper exam and the Casper exam really came into Vogue around 2014 at that point a handful of schools picked it up and now it's been increasing to the point where almost 50% of the schools utiliz the Casper in some way or or form um and most of the schools are using it again as a screening tool not necessarily as a substitute for either the traditional or the multi- mini interview format so you know let's talk just a little bit about the Casper and so what is the acronyms stand for computer-based assessment sampling of personal characteristics uh that's saying quite a lot basically it's a situation judgment test and you know these types of tests they're trying to evaluate the individual's ability to um articulate uh problem solves show their judgment maybe some bioethical dilemmas that they need to solve and in addition to the Casper again which came along about seven years ago something like that they expanded on the cas so now it's called the Altus Suite alus is actually a company that was formed on the campus of McMaster University and they now present a suite of examinations so what do we have in the Ala Suite we have the Casper which screens applicants for they call it non-cognitive competencies um in other words they're trying to judge the individual again in terms of their ability to solve problems uh to articulate uh answers to dilemmas that they're presented with then there's a fairly new exam which is just beginning to be introduced which is called the snapshot now the snapshot it's a video response tool to to probe applicants skills and and motivations think of snapshot is a mini traditional interview that they're adding to the Casper exam and then finally there's the uh duet and that's called a value alignment assessment um what happens is the individual actually gets to fill out a questionnaire the schools fill out a questionnaire and then they compare the responses to try to size up the individual you know are they a good match are they a fit uh for the school now you have to understand you know some of the motivation for these situational judgment tests there are some tremendous benefits to the institutions you know they they are cost efficient very coste effective to administer to large numbers of candidates compared to you know the other types of testing um you know the personal statement in the application is important structured interviews are important but this is a very efficient way for schools to evaluate applicants it's standardized it's basically computer-driven um and it's it just makes it makes life easier for admissions committees I think so what exactly is the Casper the Casper is both video-based and word-based scenarios 12 sections eight of them are video clips that the individual responds to and this is all on their on their computer and four of them are word based scenarios where again you know you're given a paragraph that describes a problem and then you have to respond to it now after each scenario three questions are asked and the individual has five minutes in total to type the response to all three questions that that follow the scenario that's presented uh there's an optional 10-minute break partway through and supposedly spelling mistakes typographical errors are ignored but you know it's important for an individual to be you know comfortable with the keyboard because you know that's the type of examination uh uh you know that they're taking so what does the individual need uh obviously to be prepared for the exam um you know an appropriate browser a stable internet connection a keyboard that they can work with so those are just some of the basics of course um and I think the best preparation you know you you can't anticipate the enormous number of potential questions that can be asked but the individual can at least be familiarized with the format and the requirements take some sample exams so that they're comfortable again with the format to some extent that's about all you can do and scenarios are General ethical dilemmas which at least the folks who who developed the Caster believe are encountered in everyday life the in here's a little bit of the mystery the individual programs the individual schools determine exactly how they're going to use this and how much emphasis they're going to put on it and we really and that's not revealed to us the other thing that's not revealed is exactly how it's scored uh apparently there's an individual assigned to each and every question they want some Independence in terms of the evaluation uh process there is a score that's created and that's passed on to the schools and you don't get to see your score so there is a little bit a little bit of mystery associated with these types of exams so in summary you know how is the Casper utilized well most schools are now using it not as a substitute for the conventional interview but as a pre-screening tool it can facilitate decisions for candidates that are maybe on the cusp on the edge um they may have a cutof score to screen out applicants or they can use a very high score maybe to include applicants that ordinarily they might reject so I guess you could say that it's part of their attempt at a holistic approach uh to evaluating applicants um I'll give you an example of a question that uh that actually is has been posed on the Casper um such as this such as this you know think of a time when you had to make a sacrifice in order to accomplish a goal now the three questions for that scenario are briefly describe the situation and the sacrifice you made do do you regret your decision to make the sacrifice why why not why or why not did you learn anything from the situation that can be applied to your desired career so you know they start out pretty much with a a bit of a u soft question and then it gets a little stickier and usually I advise um applicants to read all three questions to eliminate redundancy and to um answer the questions at hand and as I said before you know when I started out uh as an advisor there were only a this was back around 2014 2015 there were only a handful of schools that were using the Casper and now it's approaching almost uh almost 50% um of the schools just one more thing again six representative scenarios uh type responses to each prompt and an evaluation by an advisor that's the uh med school coach Casper interview prep um basically it's representative and it allows the individual to become comfortable with the format so that's Casper now they've added recently they've added uh another examination which some schools require now others feel it's option it's called snapshot so what's snapshot snapshot is a video response tool which supposedly probes the applicants communication skills and and their motivation and I look at it as putting a face on the applicant in other words the Casper is is pretty cut and dry again it's got the uh the MMI DNA the MMI Heritage so now we're kind of softening the cast for a little bit by allowing the individual to uh present more of a in a in more of a traditional format so what exactly is the Casper it's brief it's a it's a 10minute extension of the Casper and only individuals who have either registered for the Casper or taken the Casper uh qualified to do snapshot so in other words currently it's not being used as a standalone exam but rather it's a it it augments the Casper itself it's a oneway interview and that there's no true interaction you're recorded three questions with 2 minutes to read and respond to each question and again these questions are going to be more of the um traditional questions give you an example um these are possible questions that I think are representative of the snap shot tell us about someone you admire what's your favorite book have you read a book of Interest lately uh is there some obstacle that you've overcome and many times they qualify that you know they want to they don't want to hear about you know the hassle that you had in organic chemistry but rather is there a non-academic some some very personal obstacle that you've overcome and you know they could ask you a general question like what excites you about medicine so you know obviously these are softer questions and I think they complement the um I'd almost say the rigidity of the Casper examination now I kind of like the idea of the snapshot this is a personal commentary on all this because uh I think it it it probably was in response I'm guessing that it was in response to um maybe a little bit of criticism of the Casper being a little bit of an overreaction to the subjectivity of of traditional interview doing so it complements it now finally there's something uh uh recently introduced which schools are trying to figure out whether they really want to get involved in this it's called this value alignment assessment or uh the uh the duet namely from what I can from what I understand and there's not a lot of information about this because it's so new but it simply seems to be a matching process where you fill out a questionnaire the school fills out a questionnaire they look for overlap of responses similarity of responses it's kind of a a program fit um I believe you know you're taking a little bit of a chance by by taking that exam because you you're you're trying to um anticipate uh and also um match quite frankly the uh the the mission statement uh of the school now one of the reasons why I'm and this is a personal commentary on this one of the reasons why I'm I'm a little critical of it is because my feeling is that uh within the um primary application you can State much of your own personal mission and motivation within your personal statement and not only that but most of these schools as you know you send in your primary application then during the usually over the summer uh the year before matriculation you get these secondaries and many times the the secondaries which are small school specific applications those secondaries will um have you discuss in essay form why you're applying to that school what is your motivation does your mission does your personal statement mesh with the uh philosophy and the personal and the U uh uh mission statement of the institution so for me I'm I'm kind of wondering why an additional um uh assessment of your motivation to attend to that school is is necessary but that's that's just off the top of my head uh nonetheless though it may be at some of these institutions that you have no choice if it's not considered optional and if it's part of the entire Suite that you're uh required to take um so there's really no way that you can prepare for uh the um the duet except thinking long and hard about why that school was on your list and my feeling as an advisor is that every school on your list you should have a good reason for it being there uh and if you don't have a good reason then I mean really why are you applying so it's something that should be part of your thoughts process uh anyway now interestingly there may be more uh situational judgment tests on the horizon in fact the uh American Association of medical colleges the aamc has come out with their own sjt or situational judgment test and right now there are about half a dozen schools that have actually adopted it and are um you requiring applicants to take it uh so it's it's you'd almost call it um uh in competition with the Casper um what's of interest to me is that UC Davis uh uh now requires it if you go to their website you'll see that and um that that's powerful that's important uh for one of the uh University of California schools to adopt this means that this test is here to stay and you may see other schools uh following suit so the bottom line is um there are more and more I'd almost call them hurdles that the applicant is faced with however if you understand the exams the purpose of the exams and if you understand the format um that'll help you uh be successful and uh you know it's it's simply becoming part of the application process so it it it behooves the applicant uh again to learn about these exams become familiar and you don't have to go it alone because there are plenty of advising services including of course med school coach that have developed programs to familiarize the applicant so that they can do well and be successful I'm happy to take any questions that you might have thank you so much that was a great overview I learned more than I thought I would um having been through the cycle this most recent one I took the Cal for myself um um and I was wondering my first question so when I was going through the process AMC had released the vaita interview and that was a required part of our application process and I'm wondering how that compares to the alst snapshot you know I I I actually think uh they're very they're very similar um you know they're basically um they're one-way interviews what what's what gives people trouble uh and obviously you did very well and you handled it well so my complim to you but one of the problems is with these oneway recorded interviews there are no visual cues you know I'm sure that when you're interviewing with an individual either in person or online they're reading you and you're reading them right and I'm sure that you react to their facial expressions maybe even their just their composure um right and often you know you could tell whether you're on the right track or not whether uh you know whether you understand question completely and uh you're providing a response that's appropriate you get these visual cues there's there's none of that you know with the with the Vita which is kind of kind of similar the Vita I think is a little bit longer a little bit more extensive um but uh it's it's it's really in the same category of assessment and again uh I'm finding that at first when the vaita came out and I learned about it I thought that some schools might be using it as is a substitute for conventional interviews but they're really not at least most of the schools that I know of I know UCLA in particular so I've had a number of U applicants that I've worked with who've uh applied to UCLA and they've used it as a pre-screen you know even even even you know if you excel at the Vita that's wonderful but then you move on to the conventional interview okay thank you on on the line of sort of potentially substituting the conventional interview do you think that's where this is headed are we moving away from conventional interviews or is this always meant to be a supplement well a couple things there's been some debate interestingly with my colleagues um at med school coach I've taken a I've taken a stand that's um many don't agree with I I I think you've seen the future I think that even though uh U many people believe that you know an in-person interview adds another dimension to the process I don't disagree with that but I don't think it matters anymore I think that schools have found this to be so uh efficient so cost effective and from the applicant standpoint you know you really don't have to go running around the country which can be very time consuming uh and also very expensive for individuals so I think the online type of format is here to stay um I don't think these exams are going to be replacing either the traditional or the MMI format of online interview I think this is in addition it's complementary not competitive and I do believe that these will stay at least for the near future as screening tools basically they're just throwing more at you um I I think again this is just personal opinion I think schools are struggling with number one the overwhelming VI volume of of of applicants look GE in UCLA 14,000 Georgetown 14,000 leom and osteopathic School 15,000 overwhelming numbers okay and you know I've seen I think I've seen thousands of of files to be honest to tell you the truth and the the the caliber the quality of applicant is extraordinary uh in fact it's it's disappointing that so many Worthy individuals may not gain acceptance just based on numbers and I think the schools are having a lot of trouble differentiating individuals you know uh everybody's you know got the great GPA they got a really solid MCAT they've done extraordinary things with their lives either the research or the volunteer work or the teaching or the leadership they fill the categories beautifully and you just scratch your head and you go you know we need um we we we need more differentiators and so I think they're simply adding uh more of these hoops to jump through more of these hurdles to go over um I think the intent is good you know sometimes you might even get some information overload about individuals and how do you make these decisions so I think I think it's becoming more complex for the applicant and for the committee and for the committee in fact uh I almost feel feel A Little Bit of Sympathy for the Committees now because again they're they're inundated with such extraordinary applicants so I think their hope is that with these additional uh uh tools um they can sort of narrow it down and maybe make their life a little bit easier when it comes to uh selecting the very top individuals to have conventional interviews because as you know only8 maybe 10% of the app pool actually gets to the interview stage that there's ruthless screening of these applications just getting to the interview and when I when I do interview preps with individuals I mean I congratulate them for getting an interview um you know it's you that's what we're dealing with now okay yeah so you you mentioned how earlier this is very easy for a school to pick up it's cost effective it's very a very efficient system and on the student end at least when I went through it it was a free requirement so I didn't have to pay to take the Casper or anything like that and I'm if I'm guessing correctly it's still free right now but do you think a cost will soon come for students well that's a good question I I'll tell you who's paying for it right now it's the admissions committees um it's schools the institutions uh again it's just sort of a little side note but I've done a lot of research on on Altus and again this this is a a company that was um founded by um individuals uh who worked in admissions uh at McMaster University okay in fact one of the co-founders um uh Dr howold Ryder he was a chair of the committee and has done a lot of work and and published published uh many articles in the academic literature some of these you know Arcane you know educ ational journals about the um the significance of the situational judgment tests um the premise being that uh situational judgment tests such as the Casper they they actually posit that they do a better job of identifying uh individuals who will be successful in medical school and make for great doctors they're they're they posit that this type of testing um is Superior or certainly complements the standard traditional criteria which includes the metrics the personal statement the activities list the letters of recommendation all those things that you know that you're familiar with so yeah I mean you bring up a good point this could be a push ultimately to maybe replace some of the traditional uh criteria but right now right now it's a compliment right now it's a compliment but you bring up a good point I mean I really don't know for sure exactly uh how schools are going to um incorporate this in the future but right now it's a screening tool got it so one of my last questions here you mentioned how the sort of assessment of fit uh test there the that is a risky game you might be playing if you decide to to take it um and in your opinion you said you have to really know why you want to be with that school and I'm wondering is it one assessment that gets sent to every single school and if so how can you set yourself up for Success if you have to take it well you only get one shot at these exams as you know during each cycle okay and if you designate a school to receive it because they required it or if you've given the option and you've decided that you're going to make that move um you know they get that exam I have not seen the duet questionnaire I don't think anybody has so there's a little bit of mystery and Intrigue here but you know like I said it's it's it's somewhat of a match game and my my thought process was that the um the secondary application is is probably um is probably the best method or a better method or at least it's a method that you can understand in trying to explain why you'd like to go to that institution and of course if you do get to the conventional interview stage you'll probably have an opportunity to explain yourself so you know again it's it's a little bit of a of a match game and um uh you just have to hope that you know the the um the way that you answer the questionnaire matches or is compatible or sympatico with the way that the admissions committee has filled out their questioner because from what I understand then the folks at Altus make an assessment as to whether you're good fit your good match it's almost like U to some extent maybe matching you know for your for your residency so um you know I mean that that's that's just my thinking on this um but it it may well be and my prediction is that this alst Suite of exams all three that you're not going to be able to pick and choose that I think that schools are going to subscribe to this how they use it is maybe where they're going to vary but they're going to use it and they're going to require it and so it behooves the applicant to at least be knowledgeable understand um the origin of the exams the format of the exams and just be prepared okay awesome my last question in particular to the Casper I remember I was worried about it going in but if I'm not a particularly great or Speedy typer is this something I should spend some time doing you think that's a big limiting factor uh well you know there's some time management that's involved here uh sure uh absolutely in fact it's one of the things that um I'm I'm a little critical of it uh only because you're introducing uh that element uh into the equation uh when in fact I really wonder if that should if one of the criteria should be your how file you are with typing I mean I'm a huntting PE person people laugh at me know I took typing I I just couldn't do it so I'm hunting and teeking and I know I know I would be at a disadvantage well to be honest I probably couldn't get into medical school now to be frank um so so for me that's just that's sort of one more obstacle and again they say that um they they actually say on their website when I've done some research that they advise their evaluators to ignore you know typographical errors and you know errors in typing and grammar but I really wonder I mean that that probably shows poorly you know if if you're riddled with errors so I think that's another element that they've introduced and um I just wonder if so you have to understand that the Casper it's about seven or eight years old um although its development was earlier but it was instituted around 2014 I think you're seeing the first generation of Casper so it could be that as we move on I mean if you think about um you know the the online uh format and the technology even just seven years ago so I'm I'm I'm wondering we're if we're not dealing with a little bit of an old school exam that may be modified and changed as we move forward right and move away from you know the U the the word scenarios and the typing and move a little bit more towards the uh online interaction that we're doing right now so you see a change in the Casper I don't know okay you gave me one more thought for a question here um speaking of a of a changing cast maybe an older version that maybe I would have seen I was pretty interested after I took the Casper exam I got an email saying I was one of a couple hundred maybe students selected to receive their score from the Casper exam um I don't know how many other people saw it but even then I barely remember what the number was because it was so arbitrary it just gave me a number and didn't tell me really what it meant right um and so I'm wondering do you think that's where this is headed and without scores how are you best able to assess how well you're doing when you're preparing to take a Casper yeah well a couple things number one that is a I'm trying to figure out the the name to put on it that's an experimental program you were part of a small group um um I'm not even sure what the purpose of that was but anyway it's it's it's only a small subset of individuals the vast majority of individuals they they do not get that kind of feedback um well in terms of knowing how you're doing um again you know this is this is not a sales pitch but the fact of the matter is that that med school coach has a very Innovative program what happens is as these exams become introduced um again as these hurdles okay um I found um med school coach to be very Innovative and to react to this because you know part of their mission statement is to respond to the needs of the applicants of the clients and so you know they come up with programs such as they have a um virtual shadowing opportunity because that's a problem that's developed right people they lost their shadowing opportunities so they've come up with virtual shadowing well for these type of exams the situational judgment tests uh there is a um there's a prep and the prep includes uh six and I and I know this because I've participated in it and I prep for this um there is six scenarios that are presented to the individual in advance uh then there are three questions very similar to The Format uh the individual then goes through the uh you know typing out their responses then I as an advisor as part of the program I get this in advance I look it over I critique it then we do an interactive where we discuss each question and how it was approached and um what I found is that just that simple exercise the anxiety level of applicants just drops immediately because at least they know something about you know what they're going to be contending with they've gone through the process of typing out responses looking at three questions thinking about the three questions um um uh a as an entirety one mistake that people make is they they focus on the first question they don't look at the second and the third so they give an answer to the first and it spills over into the second and it spills over into the third it's not a unified response so these are little things little things that can help the individual but again I found that maybe 90% of of of the battle is familiarity with the format so that you're comfortable and you can kind of relax and think about the questions rather than the mechanics of how am I going to get through this thing thank you so much for doing this I learned so much and I hope anybody else watching this will learn equally as much if not more it's my pleasure good luck to [Music] all

Channel: MedSchoolCoach

Views: 7,826

Keywords: casper, duet, snapshot, medical school tests, casper exam, medschoolcoach, altus suite

Id: QK2GuC2SSK8

Length: 35min 20sec (2120 seconds)

Published: Wed May 19 2021