CAS systems have rapidly become the solution of choice for U.S. health professions associations over the past many years. The primary goal of such services is to facilitate the admissions process for applicants, health professions schools and programs, and the pre-health professions advisors.

For highly competitive and specialized professions in which applicants tend to apply to many schools—often outside of their local area—a CAS system provides a variety of significant benefits. When you consider that the number of schools designated per applicant can vary on average between 3 to 10 schools, depending on the profession and the maturity of the service, the value of centralization becomes readily apparent.

In order to facilitate the application process, the health professions schools team up with their association to develop a common application and a set of requirements that are standard to all participating member schools. The applicants then submit one application, one set of transcripts, and one set of letters of recommendation to a single source, the CAS. The CAS staff processes and disseminates the applicants' information to the schools designated by the applicant.