1.1 About the AAMC PREview Exam: Purpose, Holistic Admissions, and Registration Logistics

About the AAMC PREview Exam: Purpose, Holistic Admissions, and Registration Logistics

Quick Summary: The AAMC PREview® Professional Readiness Exam is an online, standardized situational judgment test (SJT) developed by the Association of American Medical Colleges. It measures nine professional competencies organized under two skill areas—personal accountability and relational skills—giving admissions committees a standardized metric for non-cognitive attributes such as reliability, resilience, empathy, self-awareness, and ethical responsibility, without replacing academic benchmarks like the MCAT and undergraduate GPA.

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1. Historical Background and the Evolution of PREview

For decades, medical school admissions relied almost exclusively on cognitive measures—specifically undergraduate science GPA and Medical College Admission Test (MCAT) scores—supplemented by unstructured personal statements, letters of recommendation, and in-person interviews. While academic aptitude strongly predicts performance during the preclinical basic sciences curriculum, extensive empirical literature demonstrates that cognitive metrics alone fail to predict clinical clerkship success, interpersonal professionalism, bedside communication, or ethical conduct in patient care.

To address this systemic blind spot, the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) initiated extensive research into situational judgment tests (SJTs). In the 2020–2021 admissions cycles, the AAMC launched the AAMC Situational Judgment Test (SJT) Pilot with pioneering medical schools, including the University of California, Davis, School of Medicine and the University of Minnesota Medical School. Following rigorous psychometric validation and positive feedback from admissions deans, the exam was formally branded as the AAMC PREview® Professional Readiness Exam in 2022.

Today, PREview is utilized by an expanding coalition of allopathic (MD) and health professions institutions across the United States. It stands alongside other situational assessment tools (such as Casper) while remaining uniquely rooted in the AAMC's own nationally endorsed competency definitions.

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2. PREview in Holistic Review: The Dual-Pillar Framework

Holistic review is an admissions process that considers each applicant's full portfolio—experiences, attributes, and academic metrics—in relation to institutional mission. Under this paradigm, admissions decisions rest upon a dual-pillar model:

1. Cognitive Foundation: Assessed via cumulative GPA, Science/BCPM GPA, undergraduate rigor, and the four sections of the MCAT (Biological and Biochemical Foundations; Chemical and Physical Foundations; Psychological, Social, and Biological Foundations of Behavior; and Critical Analysis and Reasoning Skills).
2. Pre-Professional Competencies: Assessed longitudinally via clinical encounters, community service, leadership, and standardized cross-sectional evaluation through the AAMC PREview exam.

+--------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
|                      AAMC HOLISTIC ADMISSIONS FRAMEWORK                        |
+---------------------------------------+----------------------------------------+
|           COGNITIVE PILLAR            |         PRE-PROFESSIONAL PILLAR        |
+---------------------------------------+----------------------------------------+
| • Undergraduate BCPM / Science GPA    | • Interpersonal & Relational Skills    |
| • Overall Cumulative GPA Trend        | • Personal Accountability & Resilience |
| • MCAT Scaled Scores (472–528)        | • Ethical Responsibility & Integrity   |
| • Academic Honors and Course Rigor    | • AAMC PREview Total Score (1–9)       |
+---------------------------------------+----------------------------------------+
| Goal: Predicts preclinical academic   | Goal: Predicts clinical communication, |
| mastery and board exam passage        | patient rapport, and professionalism   |
+---------------------------------------+----------------------------------------+

The Nine Professional Competencies PREview Measures

The AAMC PREview Exam Examinee Preparation Guide organizes the exam blueprint into two skill areas containing nine competencies. AAMC states that roughly half the items measure personal accountability and half measure relational skills, and that within each area the items are distributed approximately evenly across the competencies — so no single competency dominates the exam.

• Personal Accountability (4 competencies):

  1. Commitment to Learning and Growth: "Practices continuous personal and professional growth for improvement, including setting and communicating goals for learning and development." Key traits include pursuing opportunities to improve knowledge, asking for and incorporating feedback, and reflecting on successes, challenges, and mistakes.
  2. Reliability and Dependability: "Demonstrates accountability for performance and responsibilities to self and others." Key traits include prioritizing and fulfilling obligations in a timely and satisfactory manner and understanding the consequences of not fulfilling responsibilities.
  3. Resilience and Adaptability: "Perseveres in challenging, stressful, or ambiguous environments or situations by adjusting behavior or approach in response to new information, changing conditions, or unexpected obstacles." Key traits include seeking help when needed, recovering from and reflecting on setbacks, and balancing personal well-being with responsibilities.
  4. Ethical Responsibility to Self and Others: "Behaves with honesty and integrity," considers multiple and conflicting principles and values, adheres to ethical principles when carrying out professional obligations, resists pressure to engage in unethical behavior, and encourages others to behave honestly and ethically.

• Relational Skills (5 competencies): 5. Teamwork and Collaboration: "Collaborates with others to achieve shared goals and prioritizes shared goals." Key traits include adjusting between team member and leader roles, sharing information, and giving and accepting feedback to improve team performance. 6. Interpersonal Skills: "Demonstrates an awareness of how social and behavioral cues affect people's interactions and behaviors," adjusts behavior in response to those cues, recognizes and manages one's own emotions, and treats others with dignity, courtesy, and respect. 7. Empathy and Compassion: "Demonstrates a desire to help others and alleviate others' distress," recognizes and acknowledges others' experiences, feelings, and perspectives, and is sensitive to others' needs and feelings. 8. Self-Awareness: "Reflects on personal assumptions and how they may influence interactions," considers situations from alternative viewpoints, revises thinking when new information emerges, and helps create an environment where all individuals feel respected and able to contribute. 9. Understanding Others: "Understands that people's experiences and backgrounds influence their behaviors and interactions," shows respect for individual differences, and demonstrates curiosity about how others see and make sense of the world.

[!WARNING] Beware outdated competency lists. A large amount of third-party PREview prep still describes the exam as testing eight competencies including Service Orientation and Cultural Competence. Those remain AAMC premed competencies in the broader admissions framework, but they are not among the nine competencies in the current PREview blueprint — the current Relational Skills area names Self-Awareness and Understanding Others instead. Always calibrate against the competency tables in the current AAMC PREview Exam Examinee Preparation Guide.

Important Distinction: The AAMC PREview exam does not replace the MCAT. A 9 on PREview cannot compensate for a critically deficient GPA, nor does a 525 MCAT excuse a 1 on PREview that indicates pervasive professionalism and ethical deficits. Medical school admissions committees evaluate both scores concurrently.

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3. Applicant Eligibility and Scope

The PREview exam is built for candidates applying to participating medical schools and health professions programs, and it integrates most directly with the American Medical College Application Service (AMCAS®) primary application — PREview scores upload to AMCAS automatically.

You are eligible to take PREview if all three of the following are true: you intend to apply to an eligible health professions program, you are testing from an approved location, and you have not reached the testing limits. Eligible programs named by AAMC include MD, DO, podiatric, and dental programs, plus any other health-related program that accepts PREview to satisfy a situational judgment test requirement. You may not take the exam if you are currently or were previously enrolled in a health professions program unless you obtain special permission by emailing askpreview@aamc.org.

Before registering, review the specific admissions policy of every target program. AAMC describes four ways a school may participate:

• Requiring a PREview score: Your application is not complete until you have provided a PREview score.
• Recommending a PREview score: The school requests your score but may review your application with or without it.
• Requiring a situational judgment test: Your application is complete once you submit any SJT score, and PREview satisfies that requirement.
• Exploring PREview scores for future use: The school collects scores to evaluate future use and will not use your score to make an admission decision in the 2026-2027 cycle.

Participation lists are updated frequently on the PREview website, in the Medical School Admission Requirements (MSAR) database, and through AMCAS.

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4. Registration Logistics, Fees, and the Fee Assistance Program (FAP)

Registration runs exclusively through the PREview Portal using your AAMC username and password. You must use your existing AAMC ID — creating a second AAMC ID is an explicit registration violation, as is registering under someone else's ID or switching registrations with another examinee. Because PREview is delivered remotely with live proctors, dates and appointment times are released first-come, first-served until they reach capacity, and you alone are responsible for selecting the correct time and time zone, including whether your location is on standard or daylight time. Fixing a time-zone mistake later costs a rescheduling fee.

Registration Windows and Deadlines

Registration for all eight 2026 windows opened on February 24, 2026. Every testing window carries its own published registration, rescheduling, and cancellation deadlines, and AAMC grants no deadline extensions for any reason:

• Scheduling deadlines close at 11:59 p.m. Eastern Time, generally about two weeks before the window (for example, the April 15-16 window closed April 1, and the June 3-4 window closed May 20).
• Rescheduling and cancellation deadlines are set by appointment date and time, not by a fixed calendar date.
• Canceling by the deadline returns a 50% refund of the registration fee. Rescheduling fees are never refundable.
• Missing the cancellation deadline forfeits the fee entirely, unless you qualify for a discretionary 50% emergency refund (documented medical emergency, death in the immediate family, primary caregiver duties, unexpected military or disaster-response deployment, displacement by a natural disaster, or a widespread outage). The Emergency Refund Request form and documentation must reach AAMC within 10 calendar days of your appointment, and AAMC approves at most one per examinee per calendar year.

You may hold only one appointment at a time, and holding multiple appointments is an explicit registration violation.

The AAMC Fee Assistance Program (FAP)

Applicants experiencing financial hardship are strongly urged to obtain Fee Assistance Program approval prior to registering for PREview. FAP benefits are not retroactive; if a candidate registers and pays the $105 fee before receiving FAP approval, the AAMC will not issue a refund for the difference.

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5. Attempt Limits and Retake Policies

To safeguard exam integrity, prevent score inflation through excessive item exposure, and ensure equitable access to proctored appointment slots, the AAMC enforces strict testing attempt caps:

• Testing-Year Limit: A maximum of two (2) attempts per testing year. Note that the PREview testing year is not the calendar year — the 2026 testing year runs from April through October.
• Lifetime Limit: A maximum of four (4) lifetime attempts, counted beginning with the 2024 administration. AAMC notes it may establish new limits in future years.

What Counts as an Attempt

The Critical Rule on Voided Exams

At the conclusion of the testing session you are presented with a question asking whether to score or void your exam, and you have 10 minutes to answer it. Three rules govern that decision:

• Silence means scored. If you do not make a selection before the 10 minutes expire, your exam is scored.
• The decision is final. Once made, it cannot be changed, and scores cannot be voided after release.
• A technical failure does not excuse you. If a technical issue prevented you from submitting your scoring decision, you must report it to AAMC within five calendar days of your exam date. Miss that window and the exam is scored and released to your AMCAS application, with no later opportunity to void it.

[!WARNING] Voided Exams Deplete Attempt Limits: Selecting the void option ensures that no score is calculated, no report is generated, and no data is delivered to medical schools. However, a voided exam still counts as an official attempt against both your two-attempt testing-year limit and your four-attempt lifetime limit. Furthermore, registration fees for voided exams are strictly non-refundable.

Candidates should only consider voiding in extraordinary circumstances—such as catastrophic, unresolved technical failure mid-exam or severe sudden acute illness during the 75-minute session—and never merely because they felt uncertain about several scenario ratings.

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6. The 2026 Testing Season Calendar and Score Release

The 2026 AAMC PREview testing season comprises eight (8) discrete testing windows distributed from mid-April through mid-October. Each window spans two consecutive testing days, with appointment slots released first-come, first-served until capacity is reached.

Official PREview scores are released approximately 30 calendar days following the conclusion of each testing window. Once processed, scores are deposited directly into the examinee's AAMC account and transmitted seamlessly to AMCAS, where they auto-populate on submitted applications without requiring manual score entry or individual transmission fees.

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7. Official AAMC Preparation Resources

AAMC publishes a small, authoritative prep set. Nothing else — including this guide — replaces working through it:

AAMC's recommended sequence is: take Practice Exam 1 under timed conditions and review every rationale against the key; take Practice Exam 2 applying what you learned; then take the Scored Practice Exam under timed conditions for a calibrated score estimate. Note that the Scored Practice Exam is delivered online but does not run inside the real exam platform, so it does not rehearse test-day proctoring.