← all questions · Getting onto training · General practice and rural generalism guide
RACGP: sit Casper, pick up to six pathway/region preferences, and that is the whole application — no CV, no referees, no interview 12. You can apply as an intern 3. ACRRM is the opposite: five 250-word essays at 40% and a six-station MMI at 60% 4. Every 2027 place went in round one 5.
RACGP, in order. Current AU or NZ medical registration at application and general registration by commencement — so interns can and should apply 3. Citizenship, PR or a 309/482/485/491/494/820 visa 3; if your primary degree was overseas the s19AB moratorium restricts you to the rural pathway 3. Then the National Entry Assessment, which since 2025 is the Casper situational judgement test: 65–85 minutes, remote-proctored, 11 scenarios, $190, once per calendar year, no exemptions, and a fail bars every RACGP Fellowship application that calendar year 1. It tests ethics, empathy and self-awareness, not clinical knowledge, and RACGP states your quartile is not what determines an offer 1.
No CV is scored and no referees are required — "you're not required to provide referees or details of your employment history (unless requested)" 2. Offers run off a nine-tier priority framework instead: tier 1 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander and ADF applicants get a guaranteed place; tier 2 RGCU enrolees; tier 3 rural origin; tier 4 rural connection to your first-preference region; tier 5 regions of need 6. Your assessment score only ranks you within a tier when it is oversubscribed 6. You nominate up to six pathway/region preferences and get a change window with comparative applicants-versus-places data 2. Preferencing is where the application is won.
ACRRM runs a completely different process: application plus referees, a written suitability assessment of five essays (minimum 250 words each) worth 40%, then a six-station MMI worth 60% for shortlisted candidates; reference checks inform the decision but score zero 4. Four intakes a year, commencing 1 February or 2 August 4.
The 2026 campaign for the 2027 year: RACGP's main intake ran roughly 3 March to 14 April with offers in June, and the second round was cancelled because every place went in round one 5. Treat "apply whenever" as dead.
One thing people miss: 52 weeks FTE of hospital experience above internship is required before your first community GP term — intern year does not count, though RPLE can absorb it 7.
Community view: applicants find Casper opaque and the tier logic invisible 89.
r/ausjdocs — community view, not policy; verbatim, cautionary beside positive where both exist, every quote linked to the comment.
I applied for ACRRM and RACGP this year, was fortunate enough to be offered both. Frankly I found the Casper test borderline insulting.
Don't catastrophise. It's not all doom and gloom. Try again next year. Don't forget to consider applying for ACRRM as well.
Q3 on Casper, preferenced an undersubscribed region, but did't get an offer. I truly don't understand how this works.
I applied in internship and have no regrets at all.
I just have a feeling that people are applying because the GP application opens earlier than any other training specialities.
Asked 60 times on r/ausjdocs (title-regex count) · encoded by hand from the numbered sources, retrieved 12 Sept 2026; no AI wrote any of it. how the count was made
asked_count = posts in the r/ausjdocs dump (19,145 posts, 2022-09-13 to 2026-09-12) whose title matches /(?=.*(\bAGPT\b|GP training|general practice|RACGP|ACRRM))(?=.*(get(ting)? (on|onto|into)|\bapply\b|applic|applying|selection|intake|CASPer|pathway|how (do|to)))/i. Quotes are drawn from the offer-day and post-rejection threads, balanced so an applicant who got both colleges' offers and still disliked Casper sits beside the 'apply in internship, no regrets' and 'try again, consider ACRRM' answers.