Poster submission APA versus ABCT

[voyeurofthemind]

I've submitted a poster in the past to Association for Behavioral and Cognitive Therapies and had it accepted. I have a new project that will lend itself nicely for a poster although it is somewhat exploratory and a post-hoc analysis of a larger data set so I think I will try for ABCT but use APA as a backup.

My adviser said ABCT was much more selective and I've had colleagues submit posters to APA, which in my opinion, were garbage and they had their poster accepted. I'm curious about your perceptions on the level of rigor between the two conferences...

Lastly, do internship sites evaluate poster publications from the conferences they were submitted to in terms of how rigorous and the level of prestige the conference is? I'd welcome feedback on this particularly from individuals who review applicants for internship placements.

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[Ollie123]

Every conference I've been to is filled with posters that are just terrible. Admittedly, APA had the lowest quality posters and talks as a whole by a pretty significant margin. I have yet to make it to ABCT (hoping to next year - its been on the list for quite awhile now!) so I can't comment on it directly. I've heard that some of the ABCT SIG poster sessions can be a little competitive, but I think in general its safe to say that a poster isn't going to impress much of anyone no matter where it is presented. No one is going to be wow'd by an ABCT poster so go to whatever conferences you want to experience and you think will provide the best networking opportunities (this is the real benefit of posters). Focus your efforts on writing up the poster and getting it published in a good journal - that is what is going to count. Any difference between APA and ABCT will have a negligible impact on your CV at best. Get the paper into Abnormal or JCCP (or similar tier) and that will get noticed.

 

[cara susanna]

I've presented posters at ABCT a lot and I can say that I often feel like I'm one in a thousand there with regards to posters. Especially because they often stick me in the back so I don't get a lot of traffic

As Ollie said, a publication will look far more impressive and you don't have to travel for it!

 

[modestmousktr]

If you're doing it for networking reasons, try to look at the CVs of people working at the internship sites you like. If you see they present at ABCT every year, perhaps you'd have a good chance at running into them and it may be worthwhile? I am applying to Ph.D. programs next year and this is my strategy, I have absolutely no idea if it would be applicable to internships.

 

[AcronymAllergy]

As Ollie mentioned, sites really aren't going to differentiate much between posters at similar-scale conferences. They'll possibly break it down by international/national vs. regional vs. local, but that's probably about it.

 

[WisNeuro]

Posters get rejected?

 

[cara susanna]

They do from ISTSS!

 

[MCParent]

I've found APA is a lot more fun if you intentionally mostly do stuff in your division, and occasionally make forays into other areas' interesting talks. This makes it easier to get noticed and feel like a smaller conference than it is; e.g, division 17 has a special student poster session that happens during the social hour in the late afternoon, and gets much more traffic and is usually in a closed space so people don't wander off so much. That's way better for networking than an hour in the main poster room, when people you want to talk to are off at talks or meetings.

 

[hillies]

I've submitted a poster in the past to Association for Behavioral and Cognitive Therapies and had it accepted. I have a new project that will lend itself nicely for a poster although it is somewhat exploratory and a post-hoc analysis of a larger data set so I think I will try for ABCT but use APA as a backup.

My adviser said ABCT was much more selective and I've had colleagues submit posters to APA, which in my opinion, were garbage and they had their poster accepted. I'm curious about your perceptions on the level of rigor between the two conferences...

Lastly, do internship sites evaluate poster publications from the conferences they were submitted to in terms of how rigorous and the level of prestige the conference is? I'd welcome feedback on this particularly from individuals who review applicants for internship placements.

I don't know that there's much prestige difference between the two conferences since they're both national conferences. One approach that I've taken that has helped is to find out if there are division or field-specific incentives for you to attend a particular conference. By doing this, I've received various early-career poster awards (i.e., travel money AND a line on my CV) through the divisions/conferences themselves for nearly every conference I've attended. A side bonus, as others were saying, is that these special poster sessions (especially at APA) are typically better-attended by top names in the field, are more social, usually have food ))...and I'm being paid to attend rather than paying to attend.