Adding CASPer to the application process

[BarbellsAndBicarb]

Hey everyone,

I saw on the College of Medicine website that the admissions committee is meeting on January 29th to make a final decision on wether CASPer should be added into the application process. My question to this is, do you think this would replace the MMI entirely or do you think this would be in addition to the MMI?

Not sure what to think considering the MMI is worth 50% of admission.

Interested to hear everyones thoughts!

[BoardManGetsPaid]

most likely in addition to the MMI. there's only so much you can learn about a person from a CASPer. you gotta see if they're a weirdo or not in person lol

[Dr.Heisenberg]

obviously it's in addition to the MMI. Removing the MMI would be crazy. All medical schools have in person interviews, including abroad schools.

[yesandno]

It's funny how the CASPER is designed to screen out "weirdos", but in the reality you just fake it. Seriously, psychopaths are the ones who ace CASPER like nothing.

[chxiel]

3 minutes ago, yesandno said:

It's funny how the CASPER is designed to screen out "weirdos", but in the reality you just fake it. Seriously, psychopaths are the ones who ace CASPER like nothing.

I think you'd be surprised at how some people answer to what you think are 'common sense' situations. I actually disagree that majority of CASPer is faking - in fact, I personally think that markers can sense if one is excessively cookie cutter. May not be everyone's experience but this is just my two cents. Sometimes being genuine (unless you are genuinely psychopath) might get you further than you think

[Dr.Heisenberg]

I don't know what they're trying to achieve by adding CASPer. Maybe it's another way to assess personality other than just MMI. But CASPer isn't going to add much, many of the type of questions you see in CASPer are very similar to the MMI. 

[King74]

The CASPer is being added as an additional layer of screening, in the same way that the U of S has used references, and will be used simply as a "rule-out" for people who score below a designated threshold.  It's become commonplace at the CaRMS/residency entry level, and has been used very successfully at the U of S for that purpose, so it's now being introduced for admissions.  We are also in the process of doing a complete admissions review, so expect more changes over the next few years.

[rmorelan]

On 2/1/2020 at 12:43 PM, King74 said:

The CASPer is being added as an additional layer of screening, in the same way that the U of S has used references, and will be used simply as a "rule-out" for people who score below a designated threshold.  It's become commonplace at the CaRMS/residency entry level, and has been used very successfully at the U of S for that purpose, so it's now being introduced for admissions.  We are also in the process of doing a complete admissions review, so expect more changes over the next few years.

Interesting - thanks for the info. As we move along more and more these sorts of qualitative assessment methods are being added. I have to say it is an interesting change now that I have some longitudinal perspective on various admission processes. These techniques are now really well established, and the schools are finding utility in them (the MMI is certainly not a new thing now). 

 

[BarbellsAndBicarb]

On 2/1/2020 at 11:43 AM, King74 said:

The CASPer is being added as an additional layer of screening, in the same way that the U of S has used references, and will be used simply as a "rule-out" for people who score below a designated threshold.  It's become commonplace at the CaRMS/residency entry level, and has been used very successfully at the U of S for that purpose, so it's now being introduced for admissions.  We are also in the process of doing a complete admissions review, so expect more changes over the next few years.

Would you be able to comment on the possible other changes coming in the next few years? 

[King74]

On 2/9/2020 at 11:27 AM, BarbellsAndBicarb said:

Would you be able to comment on the possible other changes coming in the next few years? 

@BarbellsAndBicarb I would love to, but I don't want to misinform.  We just had an "Admissions Retreat" about a week ago with 50+ stakeholders from across Saskatchewan and the College of Medicine.  The goal of the retreat was to try to help create a picture of what type of students we would like to attract/admit to the U of S and how we are going to get there.  It was a great session, and I am hopeful for the future of admissions, but I don't think I can say much outside of the fact that I expect we will end up with a more "holistic" approach in the future.  I expect it will be relatively slow process of change over the next 2-5 years. 

[zoxy]

CASPer Just approved  by the University Senate. Will only be used to to rule out candidates that are less than two standard deviations from the mean(so bottom 2 percent if the distribution is normal) or if red flagged on CASPer.

Funny that for OOP like me, USask basically wants you to be in the top two percent for MCAT but as long as you're not in the bottom two percent in the CASPer it's fine. I'm fine with that though, can't believe that Mac gives the same weighing to a one hour test as four years of undergrad or the very robust standardized test that is the MCAT. 

[nrcplstake]

On 4/28/2020 at 4:43 PM, zoxy said:

CASPer Just approved  by the University Senate. Will only be used to to rule out candidates that are less than two standard deviations from the mean(so bottom 2 percent if the distribution is normal) or if red flagged on CASPer.

Funny that for OOP like me, USask basically wants you to be in the top two percent for MCAT but as long as you're not in the bottom two percent in the CASPer it's fine. I'm fine with that though, can't believe that Mac gives the same weighing to a one hour test as four years of undergrad or the very robust standardized test that is the MCAT. 

Hey! i was wondering where you can find information on how they are using CASPER for OOP? i seem to have trouble finding this information 

[bearded frog]

On 4/28/2020 at 2:43 PM, zoxy said:

 I'm fine with that though, can't believe that Mac gives the same weighing to a one hour test as four years of undergrad or the very robust standardized test that is the MCAT. 

It's well correlated with MMI performance.

[yesandno]

"It's well correlated with MMI performance"

I read a study about CASPER called "Extending the interview to all medical school candidates--Computer-Based Multiple Sample Evaluation of Noncognitive Skills (CMSENS)", so they found that the correlation b/w CASPER results and MMI performance is 0.51 (an article calls it a 'mild correlation'). Also, CASPEr can be a predictor of future test results and not on-the-job behaviour. These are actually very reasonable findings because if someone is lying on CASPer, he/she will lie on MMI too. I can't imagine a situation when CASPer results drastically differ from MMI results.