If you’re a future-focused premed planning ahead for your upcoming medical school applications, you know how important it is to stay current with new changes in the admissions process. The more knowledgeable you are, the more prepared you can be—and the better outcomes you’ll be able to achieve.
Perhaps that’s why you’ve started researching a recent addition to medical school admissions: the AAMC PREview professional readiness exam, formerly known as the AAMC Situational Judgment Test, or SJT. While the exam was only pilot-tested in the 2020–2021 application cycle, you can reasonably expect it to play a more prominent role in upcoming years.
So, what is the AAMC PREview exam? What does it measure? How can you prepare for the AAMC PREview exam? And how will it affect your medical school admissions chances?
Over the past several years, you’ve painstakingly earned high academic stats and pursued the right extracurricular activities in order to maximize your medical school admissions odds. With your eyes firmly glued to the goal of earning your white coat, you’ll do whatever you can to conquer this new exam and stand out as a competitive medical school candidate.
Continue reading to discover everything you need to know about the AAMC PREview exam, including what it measures, how it’s scored, and how to prepare successfully. Plus, we’ll share sample scenarios so you can improve your skills and prepare to ace the AAMC PREview exam.
AAMC PREview is an examination developed by AAMC in collaboration with medical school faculty, admissions officers, and student and diversity affairs officers. Different from the Casper test, Snapshot and Duet, and the discontinued AAMC VITA interview, all of which are taken independently, the AAMC PREview exam is proctored live.
The purpose of the AAMC PREview exam is to evaluate whether applicants possess the necessary pre-professional knowledge and qualities in order to be successful medical students and doctors. In particular, this exam addresses nine professional competencies that are closely related to the fifteen core competencies for entering medical students:
AAMC PREview is intended to be used as a pre-interview screening measure. Since the exam assesses professional competence and personal qualities, the data it provides can be used as a balance to traditional academic metrics.
The AAMC PREview exam could either work for or against you during the med school admissions process, depending on your results. It might identify you as having particularly strong pre-professional competence as a frontrunner in the applicant pool. On the other hand, students with poor professionalism will be singled out as less prepared for medical school and the medical field.
During the 2020-2021 AMCAS application cycle, two schools were chosen to pilot the AAMC PREview exam, then called the Situational Judgment Test: the University of California Davis School of Medicine and the University of Minnesota Medical School’s Twin Cities campus. Only applicants who intended to apply to one of those two medical schools were able to take the exam, and their results were not shared with any medical programs outside of the pilot group.
The purpose of the pilot wasn’t to immediately revolutionize pre-existing medical school application review systems. In that first year, the AAMC was simply trying to determine how to best administer the exam and explore the ways it could add value to the admissions process. The two pilot medical schools were encouraged to use the test results as one factor in their holistic admissions review.
Prior to the 2023-2024 cycle, AAMC PREview scores were provided to the small list of schools on your list that required or recommended them. That said, starting with the 2023-2024 cycle, the AAMC will be making scores from every PREview exam you've taken available to all schools you apply to via AMCAS, even the ones that don’t explicitly recommend or require the exam. (Note: We provide a list of schools that explicitly require or recommend AAMC PREview at the end of this guide).
All signs point to AAMC PREview having increasing influence on the admissions process, and it’s possible that schools that don’t explicitly recommend or require the exam will incorporate it into their admissions decisions.
The AAMC PREview exam consists of written scenario sets that present hypothetical dilemmas related to the core competencies. The scenarios are designed to simulate real situations you may face in medical school, so they are based in health care, educational, or other real-life settings. Since these scenarios are aimed at pre-health students, you don’t need specific health care experience or knowledge to succeed on the test.
Immediately following each scenario, you’ll find a list of items describing the different actions you could take when responding to the hypothetical dilemma. You’re asked to rate the effectiveness of each behavioral response using a four-point scale.
Within each scenario set, you might use specific effectiveness rankings more than once, or perhaps not at all. You should rank each action response individually, not in comparison with the other possible items. The AAMC PREview exam contains 30 scenario sets for you to consider and 186 response items for you to rate. You’re given 75 minutes to complete the exam.
AAMC notes that the total session time for each exam will range between 95–115 minutes. We’ve put a time breakdown in the table below.
| AAMC PREview Session Time Activity | AAMC PREview Session Time Approximate Length |
|---|---|
| Check-in | 5-15 minutes |
| Examinee Agreement and Exam Instructions | 5 minutes |
| Exam Time | 75 minutes |
| Void Question and School Selection | 5-10 minutes |
| Post-Exam Survey (optional) | 5 minutes |
| Total | 95-110 minutes |
