Medical School Admission Consulting

What Medical School Applicants Need to Know About the AAMC Preview Exam

What is the AAMC Preview Exam?

The AAMC Preview exam, formerly known as the AAMC Situational Judgement exam, assesses prospective students’ understanding of “effective professional behavior.” The test uses nine core competencies, which have been identified as critical for medical school success. As per its previous name, the exam remains a situational judgment test designed to provide medical schools with a more holistic view of an applicant’s medical school readiness. 

The competencies tested are:

  • Cultural Awareness

  • Cultural Humility

  • Empathy and Compassion

  • Ethical Responsibility to Self and Others

  • Interpersonal Skills

  • Reliability and Dependability

  • Resilience and Adaptability

  • Teamwork and Collaboration

  • Commitment to Learning and Growth 

How is the exam scored?

The exam is multiple choice. Students will receive descriptions of a “situation” and are then asked to judge possible behaviors in response to the situation as “very ineffective to very effective” on a four-point scale. The exam consists of 186 questions. 

Test-takers will receive one overall score between 1 and 9 (highest). A higher score denotes that the test-taker’s responses were more frequently in line with the consensus of medical educators. 

How is it different from CASPer?

Similar to CASPer, the test gauges situational judgment. However, the CASPer test is open-ended while the Preview exam is multiple choice. The AAMC Preview was also designed with medical students and professionals in mind and test-takers must verify a statement that they are taking the test solely with the intent of applying to an allopathic or osteopathic medical program. The CASPer test is more general in nature. 

An applicant may need to take both the AAMC Preview and the CASPer test, depending upon the application requirements of the medical schools they are applying to.  

When can I take the AAMC Preview exam?

The exam is administered from March through September 2024. Test-takers may sit for the exam twice in one year, and up to four times overall. Key registration dates are available here. 

What schools require / recommend the AAMC Preview Exam?

These lists are continually being updated. We recommend checking the AAMC website for the latest. This post is up-to-date as of February 2024.  

Schools requiring:

  • Mercer University School of Medicine

  • Saint Louis University School of Medicine

  • Spencer Fox Eccles School of Medicine at the University of Utah

  • University of California, Davis, School of Medicine

  • University of California, Los Angeles David Geffen School of Medicine

  • University of Massachusetts T.H. Chan School of Medicine

Schools recommending:

  • Geisinger Commonwealth School of Medicine

  • George Washington University School of Medicine and Health Sciences

  • Louisiana State University School of Medicine in New Orleans

  • Morehouse School of Medicine

  • Oakland University William Beaumont School of Medicine

  • Southern Illinois University School of Medicine

  • University of Alabama at Birmingham Marnix E. Heersink School of Medicine

Schools requiring a Situational Judgment Test (the Preview will satisfy):

  • Rutgers, Robert Wood Johnson Medical School

DO schools recommending:

  • Des Moines University Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine program (you may submit your application with or without a Preview score)

Additional schools may collect Preview Exam scores in the 2024-2025 admissions cycle, not for the purposes of assessing applicants, but to collect data to determine if they will incorporate the Preview Exam into future application cycles. These research-only schools are identified within the AMCAS application. 

Where can I find out more about the AAMC Preview Exam?

The AAMC provides a number of useful materials and resources online. Consider starting with the AAMC Preview Essentials and the Professional Readiness Exam Sample. 

Albert Einstein College of Medicine Announces Free Tuition for All Students

A historic donation to the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in the Bronx, New York will allow students to attend the medical school tuition-free. Dr. Ruth Gottesman, a former professor at the school and the current Chair of the Board of Trustees, gifted a staggering $1 billion. The NY Times described it as, “one of the largest charitable donations to an educational institution in the United States and most likely the largest to a medical school.”

Upon her husband’s death in 2022, Dr. Gottesman was surprised to receive a portfolio of Berkshire Hathaway stock, which financed the gift. He included the instructions to “Do whatever you think is right with it.” Upon consideration of the sum, she knew with certainty what she wanted to do. “I wanted to fund students at Einstein so that they would receive free tuition,” she said. “There was enough money to do that in perpetuity.” Gottesman hopes this gift will not only free students just starting out in their careers from crippling medical school debt, but that it will also broaden the student population to include those who would otherwise have not have been able to afford medical school. 

For current fourth-year students, the gift will go into effect immediately, with each student receiving a reimbursement for the spring semester. All other students will cease paying tuition starting in August.

More Medical Schools Reduce Debt-Burden on Students

According to a Medscape report, 11 medical schools in the last five years have eliminated or reduced tuition. The University of Houston waived tuition for its first class of students. And other programs, like the Yale School of Medicine, are demonstrating a longer-term commitment. The school recently announced that a large donor gift will ensure that all medical students with demonstrated financial need will take on no more than $10,000 in loans. 

On average, medical school tuition has increased by $1500 a year since 2015, which has significantly outpaced inflation. And the majority of students, almost three-quarters, take out loans to pay for its cost. Students bear an average debt burden of $200,000 to $215,000, although about 14 percent have loans worth more than $300,000. This is particularly noteworthy because tuition actually makes up a small percentage of schools’ operating budgets. While it varies between programs, at NYU Grossman, prior to it becoming tuition-free, tuition comprised just 0.25 percent of the budget. Via Medscape, Daniel Barron, MD, and a psychiatrist at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, argued that most schools could cut tuition by belt-tightening and redirecting some existing funds. 

"Tuition can't keep rising without having unintended consequences. The resulting debt is putting a massive amount of pressure on future generations of physicians," said Robert Pearl, MD, and a professor at Stanford’s School of Medicine told Medscape.  

Below, we’ve compiled a list of schools that have created programs to reduce or waive tuition. The Education Data Initiative also provides a complete list of average costs for resident and non-resident attendees at the 193 accredited medical schools (allopathic and osteopathic). 

Schools With Eliminated or Reduced Tuition:

New York University Grossman School of Medicine: Provides full tuition for all admitted students, as well as student health insurance

Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine (CCLCM): Provides full tuition and select administrative fees for all admitted students

Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons: Offers the Vagelos Scholarship Program, which will meet 100 percent of a student’s demonstrated financial need

Weill Cornell School of Medicine: Offers need-based financial aid under a financial program that offers full-ride grants (debt-free) instead of loans

Icahn School of Medicine at Mt. Sinai :The Enhanced Scholarship Initiative (ESI) allows qualifying (financial need-based) medical students to graduate with a maximum total debt of $75,000.

Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis: Considers all admitted first-year students for a full or partial tuition scholarship for all four years of medical school based on need and/or merit (or a combination) 

Stanford School of Medicine: Provides scholarship funding to eliminate medical school debt for qualified students with demonstrated financial need

Geisinger Commonwealth Medical School: The Geisinger Primary Care Scholars Program provides debt-free medical school and living assistance to medical students who commit to work within primary care at the health system after graduating.

NYU Grossman Long Island School of Medicine: Provides full tuition, student health insurance, and offers debt-free scholarships to qualifying students for housing, food, books, and other miscellaneous expenses

Kaiser Permanente School of Medicine: Offers students, entering between 2019-2024, the school’s first five cohorts, a scholarship covering 100 percent of tuition for all four years of medical school

Yale School of Medicine: Beginning with the 2023–2024 academic year, Yale medical students with demonstrated financial need will not need to take out more than $10,000 in loans per year.

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Unemployed and Considering Graduate School? Ensure This Time is Meaningful and Productive

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If you are currently unemployed, graduate school can appear both tempting and daunting. Tempting, in that it will offer a new path forward complete with a career center. Daunting in that it may be necessary to directly address the unemployment period within the application. While unemployment should never deter you from attending graduate school, we encourage our clients to consider carefully if graduate school is the right path for them. The money and time invested must lead to an optimal path forward to be worthwhile. Though graduate school can be tempting to alleviate the pains of unemployment, if you have never considered it prior to unemployment, it might not be the right move now.

If you’ve known awhile that eventually you would pursue a graduate program, a period of unemployment may provide a beneficial time to study for entrance exams and create compelling application materials. However, admissions committees will want to see that you are using your time wisely and productively, extending yourself beyond the work on your application materials. In order to present the employment gap as a critical time of development, consider the following:

On the application itself, you should not dwell on or make excuses for the employment gap.  Rather, you will want to address it briefly, explain that it is not indicative of weakness in ability or character, has not hindered your pursuit of your goals, and you did indeed spend the time productively, gaining valuable insight. You ultimately want to show the admissions committee that you will work hard throughout the graduate program, be able to secure professional placement and that, instead of slowing you down, this obstacle has given you an opportunity to adjust course, work harder, and become better.

Your story set apart.