APPIC Site Visits - Internship Match

[psychologynbooks]

Hi all! I am participating in the APPIC match. I have 9 interviews at sites with APA Accreditation, and 1 interview at a site that is not yet accredited but has their site visit in February (after match day). If the site visit goes well, they will be "accredited on contingency" before my internship year starts. Although the site is not yet accredited, I actually prefer this site more than most of my 9 accredited ones. My only fear is that if I rank it high it is too much of a gamble. From what I know, this site has a strong reputation and the interns currently there love it... I just would regret it if I ranked a site I did not like first that was accredited and then this site becomes accredited too, and I missed out on my chance. On the flip side, there's the risk that something goes wrong with the site visit and I am matched to an unaccredited site when I had 9 other chances at an accredited one.

Any thoughts would be helpful! Are site visits almost always successful? Is it as much of a gamble as I think to consider this site?

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[niceman]

You can read the notices of actions on the APA Accreditation website to get a sense of how many internships have gotten accredited/deferred or withdrawn from the process:

APA-Accredited Programs

Find APA-accredited programs, including doctoral graduate programs in clinical, counseling, school psychology and combination programs; internships, a required component of doctoral training; and postdoctoral residency programs in traditional and specialty practice areas of psychology.

www.accreditation.apa.org

It is important to remember that internship is only one year. You don't have to complete the best or the most preferred internship in order to be successful down the road, but doing an unaccredited internship will limit your opportunities because many postdoc sites would not even consider your application if you did not complete an APA-accredited internship. A couple of students from my program decided to do an unaccredited internship because they needed to stay local. That internship site got accredited on contingency during their time there so it worked out. But one of my supervisors also had to literally move across the country for their postdoc because they didn't do an APA-accredited internship. This is a stressful process so it's helpful to sort out your priorities and manage these emotions when you make important career decisions.

 

[psychologynbooks]

You can read the notices of actions on the APA Accreditation website to get a sense of how many internships have gotten accredited/deferred or withdrawn from the process:

APA-Accredited Programs

Find APA-accredited programs, including doctoral graduate programs in clinical, counseling, school psychology and combination programs; internships, a required component of doctoral training; and postdoctoral residency programs in traditional and specialty practice areas of psychology.

www.accreditation.apa.org

It is important to remember that internship is only one year. You don't have to complete the best or the most preferred internship in order to be successful down the road, but doing an unaccredited internship will limit your opportunities because many postdoc sites would not even consider your application if you did not complete an APA-accredited internship. A couple of students from my program decided to do a unaccredited internship because they needed to stay local. That internship site got accredited on contingency during their time there so it worked out. But one of my supervisors also had to literally move across the country for their postdoc because they didn't do an APA-accredited internship. This is a stressful process so it's helpful to sort out your priorities and manage these emotions when you make important career decisions.

This is very helpful! I looked into the link you shared and while it seems most sites get accredited after a site visit, there are a handful that don’t. I think I will be less optimistic about site accreditation here now and re-rank accordingly.

 

[summerbabe]

Any thoughts would be helpful! Are site visits almost always successful? Is it as much of a gamble as I think to consider this site?

One thing to consider is the type of site and access to resources (because accreditation and site visits are time consuming).

For example, a VA that is not yet accredited has a very strong likelihood of passing because it first needs to meet the VA's internal training standards (that are aligned with APA) before it can launch. Plus, the training director will have VA's educational/training branch to provide institutional knowledge and support during this process.