Scores & Results
CASPer Score Percentiles: What Your Quartile Actually Means
CASPer gives you a quartile, not a score. That frustrates people who want a number to compare, but the quartile tells you something quite precise once you understand what it is measuring against. Here is the percentile map, what an average result really looks like, and how much a middling quartile actually costs you.
The percentile map
| Quartile | Percentile range | Share of test takers |
|---|---|---|
| 4th | 75th to 100th | 25% |
| 3rd | 50th to 75th | 25% |
| 2nd | 25th to 50th | 25% |
| 1st | 0 to 25th | 25% |
Why there is no average CASPer score
"What is the average CASPer score?" is one of the most searched CASPer questions and it has no answer, because the scale is relative by construction. A quartile is a position in a ranked list, not a mark out of anything.
This has a consequence people miss: the distribution never shifts. If every applicant in a cycle prepared harder than the year before, exactly 25 percent would still land in the 4th quartile. You are not competing against a standard, you are competing against the other people who sat your test form. That is the whole game.
Who you are actually ranked against
Not the general public. Your comparison pool is other applicants to your program category, in your cycle, on your test form. That group has already self-selected into being motivated, academically capable people applying to competitive programs. Landing in the 3rd quartile of that group is a meaningfully better performance than the phrase "above average" suggests.
What each quartile means in practice
4th quartile: top 25 percent
Clears every CASPer screen in use. Can help at the margins where a committee is weighing similar applicants. Will not rescue a weak GPA or MCAT. This is the target, but treat it as insurance rather than a differentiator.
3rd quartile: 50th to 75th percentile
Above the midpoint and past the screening threshold at most schools that use one. Neutral rather than helpful. If this is your result, the honest advice is to stop thinking about CASPer and spend the energy on the parts of your application you can still change.
2nd quartile: 25th to 50th percentile
Below the midpoint. Rarely fatal on its own, but it is the band where a school with a strict cut-off could exclude you. Worth being realistic about when you build your school list, since programs vary a lot in how hard they screen.
1st quartile: bottom 25 percent
The band most likely to fall below a screening threshold, so at schools that use CASPer as a filter this can end the application before a human reads it. It is not a judgement of your character. It usually reflects incomplete answers under time pressure, which is a fixable problem for next cycle.
Why quartiles land where they do
The most useful thing to understand about low quartiles is that they are rarely about ethics. People do not end up in the 1st quartile because they gave monstrous answers. They end up there because they ran out of time.
Each scenario has multiple prompts and each is rated. A brilliant answer to two prompts and a blank third scores worse than three complete, ordinary answers. That single mechanic explains most of the distribution, and it is why practising under a real timer moves scores more than reading about medical ethics does.
The pattern in one line
Complete beats brilliant. Get something reasonable down for every prompt, every time, and you have done the thing that most separates the top half from the bottom half. Our answer structure guide and the PACE framework both exist to make that automatic under pressure.
What you cannot find out
Three things people look for that genuinely do not exist:
- A numerical score. You get a quartile. Not a raw score, not a percentile figure, not a per-scenario breakdown.
- Published cut-offs. Very few schools state a CASPer threshold publicly, and those that screen do not generally publish where the line sits.
- Score history across cycles. Quartiles do not carry forward, so there is no track record to compare against.
If you want the school-by-school picture of how much weight CASPer carries, we go through it in do med schools care about your CASPer score.
The takeaway
Quartiles are percentile bands: bottom 25, 25 to 50, 50 to 75, top 25, ranked against other applicants to your program type. There is no average score to chase and no number to convert to. A 3rd quartile is fine and not worth agonising over, a 1st quartile is the one that can genuinely cost you at screening schools, and the gap between them is usually about finishing every prompt rather than about being a better person.
Frequently Asked Questions
What percentile is each CASPer quartile?+
Quartiles divide test takers into four equal groups. 1st quartile is the bottom 25 percent, 2nd is the 25th to 50th percentile, 3rd is the 50th to 75th, and 4th is the top 25 percent. By definition exactly a quarter of people land in each one, every single cycle.
What is the average CASPer score?+
There is no average score to report, because you are never given a raw number. The midpoint of the distribution sits at the boundary between 2nd and 3rd quartile, so a genuinely average performance lands you in one of those two. Chasing an average number is asking the wrong question.
Is 3rd quartile a good CASPer score?+
It is above the midpoint and it clears the screening threshold at most schools that use one. It is not a standout result, and at highly competitive programs it will not do anything for you beyond not hurting. Most applicants who ask this are fine and should put their energy elsewhere in the application.
Is a 1st or 2nd quartile CASPer score bad?+
1st quartile can be a real problem at schools that screen on CASPer, since it is the band most likely to sit below a cut-off. 2nd quartile is weaker than you would like but rarely fatal on its own. Neither ends an application by itself, and neither can be retaken within the same cycle.
Can you convert your CASPer quartile into a number?+
No, and nobody can do it for you either. You receive a quartile and nothing more granular, and schools receive the same. Anyone advertising a precise CASPer score prediction is selling you certainty that does not exist.
Are CASPer quartiles compared against everyone or just your program type?+
Against the pool that sat the same test form for the same program category and cycle. So a medical school applicant is ranked against other medical school applicants, not against every CASPer taker in the world. That pool is already self-selected and competitive.
Does a 4th quartile CASPer get you into medical school?+
No. At most schools CASPer functions as a screen or a supporting data point rather than a driver of admission. A top quartile keeps every door open and can help at the margins, but it does not carry a weak application. Treat it as a box you do not want to fail.