A good CASPer score is the 4th quartile: the top quarter of the people who sat the same test as you. Acuity Insights standardizes each applicant’s result within a single test instance, so the quartile is a rank against that cohort and not a mark against a fixed standard. Quartiles divide the scores into four equal parts, which means a quarter of test takers land in each one by construction. Applicants see only the quartile, roughly a month after the sitting. Programs see a single z-score and a percentile. There is no published pass mark from Acuity.

Why is a CASPer quartile relative and not absolute?

Acuity states that responses are standardized to show each applicant’s relative standing within the overall applicant pool in the same test instance. Read that twice, because almost every myth about this test dies on it.

It means the question “what raw score do I need” has no answer. It means your quartile depends on who else sat that day. It means an answer that would have placed 4th quartile in one instance could place 3rd in another, and nobody, including Acuity, can tell you in advance which. And it means that anyone who tells you what quartile you are going to get is selling something. This site will not do it, and the 4th Quartile Promise is worded the way it is for exactly this reason: it commits to the work continuing, not to a number.

What do schools actually do with the quartile?

They differ, and the differences are larger than applicants expect. Three real patterns from Canadian medicine, each documented on the school’s own admissions page:

  • A weighted component. McMaster’s published pre-interview formula weights GPA, MCAT CARS and Casper at 32% each, and Casper then drops out of the post-interview ranking entirely. There, a quartile is worth a defined and substantial fraction of your invitation.
  • An undisclosed threshold. Queen’s sets a minimum acceptable Casper score each cycle and does not publish it. There, the score is a gate, not a slider. Clearing an unpublished bar is the whole job.
  • Not mentioned at all. Several faculties, including UBC and Toronto medicine, publish detailed requirement lists that never name Casper, and never say in writing that it is not required. Unconfirmed is not the same as not required. Ask the office before you skip a sitting.

The practical consequence: a 3rd-quartile result is a different problem at each of those three schools. Work out which kind of school your list is made of before you decide how much a retake is worth.

Does the quartile mean a quarter of people fail?

No, and the framing does the damage. Quartiles are a shape imposed on the distribution, not a judgment. Three quarters of a strong cohort are outside the 4th quartile and most of them are perfectly good candidates. What the quartile tells you is your position relative to a group, and the only thing you control is your own answers.

The applicants who handle this best treat the quartile as feedback on a skill rather than a verdict on a person. The ones who handle it worst retake without changing anything they do, and get the same result from the same habits.

A scenario, and two answers

You are a teaching assistant. After a midterm, two students in your tutorial start comparing grades out loud in the hallway, and one of them announces the other’s mark to a group standing nearby. The student whose mark was announced goes quiet and leaves.

A weak answer. “I would remind both students that grades are confidential and that comparing marks creates an unhealthy competitive environment. I would speak to the student who shared the mark about privacy, and check in with the student who left to make sure they are okay.”

A strong answer. “Two different problems happened and they need different responses at different speeds. The urgent one is the student who left, because being outed by a mark in front of a group is humiliating and the humiliation is what will still be there tomorrow. I would find her, and I would not open with the policy. I would say what I saw, that it was not hers to share, and ask what she wants from me, because she may want nothing done and that is a legitimate answer I would weigh heavily. The slower problem is the student who announced it. I would talk to him separately and not in front of anyone, and I would start by finding out whether he knew it was hers to tell, because a thoughtless brag and a deliberate embarrassment look identical from the hallway and they are not the same thing. What I do next depends on which it was. If the department has a rule about discussing grades, I would say what it is and that I am telling him rather than reporting him, this time.”

What separates them. The weak answer is not wrong, it is undifferentiated. It gives both students the same weight and the same speed, and it leads with policy, which is what you say when you have not decided what actually matters. The strong answer triages: it names who is hurt now, goes to her first, asks what she wants instead of deciding for her, separates carelessness from cruelty before assigning a consequence, and tells the other student what is happening rather than handling him behind his back. Same facts, different order, and the order is the score.

Key numbers

  • Applicants receive a quartile. Programs receive a single z-score and a percentile.
  • Quartiles split scores into four equal parts, so one quarter of test takers sit in each.
  • Standardization happens within the same test instance, so the comparison group is your own test date.
  • Acuity states the quartile reaches applicants about one month after the sitting.
  • No honest source predicts an individual quartile, because the cohort does not exist until test day.

If your list has a threshold school on it and you want the score worked on properly, the CASPer programs mark real answers against the method.

Related: what is the CASPer test and is CASPer prep worth it.

Last reviewed 17 September 2026. Written by Arvin Ardakani, final-year medical student, 4th quartile on CASPer four times.