Internship Site Reputation and Ranking (Neuropsych-Focused)

[rainedallnight]

I am a neuropsychology-focused applicant and am currently putting together my internship rankings. I've recently started driving myself crazy thinking about the "reputation" of various sites, and I'm hoping neuropsych-savvy SDNers can provide some information or maybe just talk me down.

My partner and I are geographically flexible for iternship, but for family and career reasons, it is really important to us that we *ultimately* end up in NYC or Boston. So one factor (among others) we are considering in making my rankings is how competitive each site will make me for neuropsychology post-docs (i.e., to increase my chances of landing a post-doc in one of those cities). I know a lot of my competitiveness will be determined by my own abilities and training experiences. However, it seems to me (1) that the reputation of my internship site also plays a role in how competitive I will be, and (2) reputation is probably not perfectly correlated with my perception of the actual quality of training at that site. e.g., if I really like the training at both Site A and Site B, but Site A has a big-name, well-connected neuropsychologist involved in training and Site B does not, then other things being equal, I should probably rank Site A higher - right? or, if Site C is in a better city for my partner job-wise, but I have a vague sense that Site D has a better reputation as a neuropsych internship, should we rank Site D higher because that will be better for both of us in the long term?

Am I correct in my thinking here? Am I getting too hung up on this "reputation" bugaboo - maybe it's not as big of a deal as I think? If reputation IS important, how can I go about getting a clearer sense of what the reputations of these various neuropsych tracks actually are? Aside from a couple sites I know have very good reputations, I feel kind of clueless about that.

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[Existenz]

You should rank where you really want to go and of course how the interview went. Ultimately, it's not about WHERE you are but WHAT you do.

 

[WisNeuro]

It's more about the training opportunities that you get on training sites really. You can work at a "prestigious" site, but if all you do is see all memory disorders patients, you're not getting a whole lot out of it. Also, neuropsych is a small world. We know where the good training is, regardless of name brand.

 

[Therapist4Chnge]

You should rank where you really want to go and of course how the interview went. Ultimately, it's not about WHERE you are but WHAT you do.

This.

Your goal should be to land at a place that offers the best training for what you need (e.g. specific pt population or setting), so when you go to apply to fellowships your application looks strong. I ranked based on where I thought I'd get the best training. For full disclosure, my first approach involved creating a spreadsheet and weighted scoring system to compare sites across 6-8 different areas. My match site ended up being very high for both, even though name recognition wasn't on par w. the Browns and Boston Consortium of the internship world. It is indeed a small world, as my internship mentor made a number of calls on my behalf and that really helped. I ended up w. a well-rounded C.V., glowing letters, and interviewed at all top-tier fellowships.

From the other side now…when I review applications I am most interested in:

1. The applicants program, the program's reputation, and their mentor(s).
2. The applicants involvement in the field. I don't care if they were the student rep for neuropsych students who like to fish, but I would like to see them present some posters at conferences and be active w. Div40, D22, or similar at the state level. Those kinds of experiences matter because the people you meet will often stay in touch years later.
3. I want to see they are involved in scholarly pursuits: publications (peer-reviewed articles, book chapters, abstracts…in that order), invited talks, manuscript review for other writers, consultant for stats, etc. I want them to appreciate the role of research and how it impacts clinical practice.
4. Their training experiences (which can include name, but more often is type of experiences).
5. The LOR of the most applicable supervisor from internship. I give the most weight to the most recent person because they are speaking about the person presently, though there are cases when someone has continued working w. their grad school mentor, and that helps me better understand a person's development and progress.