Planning to apply to APA-accredited internships involving child work. Some sites have a child track AND a child-adult combined track. What's the benefit of applying to one or the other? What are they looking for in someone who applies to a combined track, vs. a child or adult track? Is one track usually more competitive than the other?
child track vs. child-adult combined track internships
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Question about competiveness is impossible to answer without more info as it is likely specific to site, type of work, setting. I was encouraged to apply to both tracks at internship sites when I was truly interested in both, and it did not seem to burn me - several sites I did interview for both and you rank the tracks separately. Overall though I am a huge proponent of getting the most diverse experience you can while you still have the option to benefit from others' supervision , so I'd go with whichever one would provide the most variety in training.
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From my experience of just going through the process, it really depends on the site. Some combined places are mostly adult with a little bit of child experience, some are truly half and half or some are actually mostly child-focused. The sites also seemed to vary in how much child experience (if any) they needed/wanted applicants to have to get interviews. My recommendation would be to talk to people at the various sites/people who have applied to them to get a better idea of what it takes to be a successful applicant.
I did that this year, primarily because I was told all child sites can be more competitive, particularly if your prac experiences aren't completely focused on kids. They might question whether you have the experience needed to do a full year internship with that population. However, the flip side of that that I've noticed is that I was asked at combined sites whether I could work with adults because I had a number of prac sites focused on kids. So it's sort of a double edged sword. I think you both might wanna apply to both to hedge your bets but also make sure you can answer questions about why you want to work with either age group, what experience you have, and be able to present cases from both age group.
espresso_and_puppies
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I second this!
I applied to all three types (adult only, mixed, child only) because my prac experiences were predominantly mixed adult and child. I didn't want to risk going unmatched, so this definitely felt the most safe. I ended up matching with my top choice and the only child only site I received an interview at, so its doable, but I definitely recommend applying more broadly unless you have significant prac experiences in predominantly child settings.
Totally! And to add, as someone else said above, competitiveness has a lot of factors outside of just being with a specialized population. One thing I was told as well was to apply to a range of sites with a range of application numbers. For example, a site that gets maybe 50-100 applications a year and has a couple spots available is going to be less competitive theoretically than those that get 200+ applications a year and also only has a couple spots available. Also, if they are in super desirable locations like major metro areas.
