2010-2011 Internship Thread

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Johnson42 said:
21 applications out as of last week. I wish that we could at least get confirmation emails that they have received a completed application. I got one from the University of Arizona College of Medicine, but that's it. With everything being so new, I think everyone just wants to make sure that everything goes through correctly on the other end too.

I hate this process. I did it last year too. Too stressful. I better have a good outcome this year.
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Goodluck to you! (We're in the same boat--reapplying that is). I too wish that the online system had some way of updating the status of the apps, to let us know when they have been received. But, technically, once the e-submit button has been hit, our apps should be at their destinations (let's hope that it all works as it should!)
 
Johnson42 said:
21 applications out as of last week. I wish that we could at least get confirmation emails that they have received a completed application. I got one from the University of Arizona College of Medicine, but that's it. With everything being so new, I think everyone just wants to make sure that everything goes through correctly on the other end too.

I hate this process. I did it last year too. Too stressful. I better have a good outcome this year.
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I was alarmed when I read your post because I didn't get a confirmation from UA. Then I remembered I haven't submitted that application yet :laugh:
 
i submitted 9 applications about a week ago. I know i should apply to some more but I don't really like the other sites in my area. I guess I'll just randomly pick some this week that have November 15th deadlines. I'm applying in NYC so i know i have to have some "safety's," if there is even such a thing.

Is anyone applying to like 10 or 11 places or is everyone applying to at least 15?
 
Just got word that Mass. General is sending out interviews! Really early this year!
 
Wow! you got notice of an interview already?! When was the application due?!
 
Wow, that is fantastic! My heart has been jumping at the couple of e-mails from training directors who were considerate enough to let us know that the application is complete.

Round 2 has to be better for us. Good luck!
 
PSY1358 said:
Wow, that is fantastic! My heart has been jumping at the couple of e-mails from training directors who were considerate enough to let us know that the application is complete.

Round 2 has to be better for us. Good luck!
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Thanks! I know what you mean, for the next month or so I will be checking my e-mail feverishly. Good luck to you too!
 
cmuhooligan said:
Yeah, I know, it's crazy. I think it was due today, but I submitted it Thursday.
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That's really early. I submitted Friday and have heard nothing. Should I consider that to be a "failed" application? 🙁
 
SingingCow said:
That's really early. I submitted Friday and have heard nothing. Should I consider that to be a "failed" application? 🙁
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No, not at all. I recall last year that there was a great range when sites would send out interviews.
 
It's pretty bizarre though, that MGH would send out interview invites when it had not even received all of its applications yet. Most people submit on the last day, so wouldn't they be missing out on a large part of their applicant pool?
 
positivepsych said:
It's pretty bizarre though, that MGH would send out interview invites when it had not even received all of its applications yet. Most people submit on the last day, so wouldn't they be missing out on a large part of their applicant pool?
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It's actually not that bizarre at all. Last year, many in my cohort received invites (at a range of sites) before the official deadline for applications had passed.
 
cmuhooligan said:
It's actually not that bizarre at all. Last year, many in my cohort received invites (at a range of sites) before the official deadline for applications had passed.
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I wonder if it's track specific? I have heard that child tracks send out invites sooner?
 
SingingCow said:
I wonder if it's track specific? I have heard that child tracks send out invites sooner?
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It could be, at MGH, there are 5 different tracks, and I bet that each track is responsible for inviting their own applicants (which I would assume is similar to other sites as well). I'm not a child person, so I'm not sure about child tracks sending stuff out earlier, it's possible though.
 
Did you interview there last year? I ask because they might have been comfortable extending an early interview to a "known entity," who they were happy to interview again.

If this was for the CBT track, they interview a relatively small group of applicants each year. It is unlikely that they use a "rolling" process to offer interviews with the limited number of interview slots they even have to offer (eg, I would think they would want to know all of their options before committing to interviewing applicants).

With all of that said, things might be very different if it's one of the other tracks. But the year I applied, they only interviewed something like 14 people for the 2 available CBT slots. I know this because they said so at my interview.
 
LM02 said:
Did you interview there last year? I ask because they might have been comfortable extending an early interview to a "known entity," who they were happy to interview again.
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Yup. There could be something to that as well.
 
So last year my rejections came early and my interviews all came close to the Dec. 15 deadline. I'm hoping that my email box stays empty for the next month. -- Unless of course they are so blown away by my application this year that the sites know they want to offer me an interview right away.

I need to join a boxing gym or something.
 
cmuhooligan said:
Goodluck to you! (We're in the same boat--reapplying that is). I too wish that the online system had some way of updating the status of the apps, to let us know when they have been received. But, technically, once the e-submit button has been hit, our apps should be at their destinations (let's hope that it all works as it should!)
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So since this post, Karen sent out that email with the Status section. I would have thought that would have been intuitive to have in the first place, but whatever. They have a lot on their plate and I think Dr. Taylor and Dr. Keilin have done a fantastic job.

It's too bad that we have to go through this again, but there are a lot of us. At my current practicum site there are a total of three of us that didn't match last year (only 6 prac students total). Our misfortune is causing other people to miss out on great training sites.

Good luck cmuhooligan. Hopefully this year we'll be able to celebrate on February 19th.
 
I agree. Karen and Greg have been great! I contacted Karen back in July about the character limit for the essays (it was 3000 characters at that point) and within 48 hours, she saw to it that the limit was increased.

I am not sure I would be so patient and accomodating with the same questions over and over again. Reading the listserv makes me wonder if some of are really ready for the independent judgment required of a psychologist.
 
PSY1358 said:
I agree. Karen and Greg have been great! I contacted Karen back in July about the character limit for the essays (it was 3000 characters at that point) and within 48 hours, she saw to it that the limit was increased.

I am not sure I would be so patient and accomodating with the same questions over and over again. Reading the listserv makes me wonder if some of are really ready for the independent judgment required of a psychologist.
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I agree that there has been a lot of redundancy and mostly because people just aren't reading the instructions. I also wonder how some of these people have made it this far in graduate school, but i try to rationalize it by saying that people are just stressed out, they panic and they do irrational things when in a panic. As future psychologists, we should know better, but maybe it is just a bit of learned heplessness. Anyway, I'm sure there are a lot of good candidates that have posted repetitive questions.
 
Johnson42 said:
I agree that there has been a lot of redundancy and mostly because people just aren't reading the instructions. I also wonder how some of these people have made it this far in graduate school, but i try to rationalize it by saying that people are just stressed out, they panic and they do irrational things when in a panic. As future psychologists, we should know better, but maybe it is just a bit of learned heplessness. Anyway, I'm sure there are a lot of good candidates that have posted repetitive questions.
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There are those of us who read before we ask questions. There also are many smart people who are possibly excellent students and interns, but don't want to "waste their time" on reviewing the instructions or downloading a certain form. You see that in every workplace. Whether they can function independently is not a concern, because most of the time, they have many people working under them anyway.
 
Hey Johnson42,

You said last year your rejections came early, how early, if you don't mind?
 
Today I found mistakes in 2 cover letters that have already been submitted. One was just a line break that for some reason didn't translate, so two paragraphs ran together. The other was actually a sentence repeated twice in the same paragraph (I cannot believe I didn't spot that). I was already doubting my chances, but now I'm mortified. It seems that with so many qualified applicants, sites might throw away an application for something as small as a typo. There's nothing to be done about fixing these mistakes now (right?). 🙁
 
bluegirl said:
Hey Johnson42,

You said last year your rejections came early, how early, if you don't mind?
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I know for a fact that I got one rejection as early as November 20th. They may have come sooner, but I found one from that date in my old e-mails. I deleted it as soon as I came across it again 😡.
 
edified1 said:
Today I found mistakes in 2 cover letters that have already been submitted. One was just a line break that for some reason didn't translate, so two paragraphs ran together. The other was actually a sentence repeated twice in the same paragraph (I cannot believe I didn't spot that). I was already doubting my chances, but now I'm mortified. It seems that with so many qualified applicants, sites might throw away an application for something as small as a typo. There's nothing to be done about fixing these mistakes now (right?). 🙁
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So frustrating isn't it? You work so hard on it, you think you've got it just perfect then you submit and re-read and you catch something stupid. I found an extra "an" in a few of my cover letters. It wasn't too out of place, but it annoyed me.

Nothing you can really do now. Hopefully the line break won't cost you given that this new online system has everything so screwy. I don't know about that extra sentence.

Good luck. :xf:
 
Take some consolation in the fact that program directors are reading MANY letters and are quite likely not to even see errors this small--and if they do, may be way more forgiving than you imagine. Repeated errors and badly proofread work will leave a negative impression--but particularly on the first review common oversights are not likely to be the vital factor and will definitely be outweighed by the more important factors of your fit with the site and whether you conveyed a sense of knowing what they do and why it would therefore be a good fit for you. Directors also know that the online process means you could not actually see what you sent as it would look on their screen, so things like line breaks REALLY do not matter.

Also--as painful as it is to get an early rejection--sites are giving you information early enough to make it possible to consider additional sites. The most competitive sites are well-practiced at sorting their flood of applicants and making a first cut to winnow down the process. While it hurts to be cut, it is also just data about a cut-off point on a curve of some criterion that is important to them and not a rejection of you as a person, just as an applicant data set. Hang in there.
 
I would just like to hear *something.* From anywhere. I know it's early yet, and there are many sites with yet-approaching deadlines, but....I hate waiting. I thought I'd be happy once I got all my applications in, but I far prefer the feeling of "I've got X left to do!" than the "I can do nothing but obsessively check my phone and my email."

I even made a list of all the area codes for the sites I'm applying to so if my phone *does* ring, I might have an idea who it is.

Here's a question for people who've applied in the past: did you hear about interviews via email or phone?
 
ClinicalTrainee said:
Here's a question for people who've applied in the past: did you hear about interviews via email or phone?
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Almost exclusively via e-mail, often with a snail mail follow-up with materials. I think I had 8 e-mails and 2 phone calls. It was rather nerve wracking, as a definitely screened my calls because I didn't want to be caught off guard. 😆

I kept a spreadsheet of the sites, and I color-coded if I heard back, invite, rejection, etc. Being able to stay organized helped a lot with the stress. It was scary because I got a couple interviews early, then a waiting period, then a bunch of rejections, and then a bunch in a row.

If at all possible, try and look-up site interview dates (they'll often list them somewhere in the application area), as you will often have an overlap of interview dates. I printed out a January calendar and wrote down all of the possible interview dates, and as I heard back I referenced my calendar and figured out which dates were conflicting. I still had to make a last minute trip 2 days after new years because of a record keeping snafu (on their side). Internship apps are fun times!! Or not.
 
cmuhooligan said:
I heard both ways. In fact, there were some folks who even got invitations via snail mail!
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Ditto. Just one place did snail mail, however. Others were split about 50/50 email vs phone. Definitely prefer email. I think all of my rejections came by email -- the calls were all invites.
 
Hi all - I'm new to this forum but wanted to say good luck to everyone applying for internship. What a stressful process! I applied to 15 sites, including 6 VA's, 7 Psychiatry departments, and 2 university counseling centers. I will update as soon as I start hearing from places. I have gotten 3 notifications that my apps were received and are complete, and one word-of-mouth from a student in my program who is at the site I applied to that saw that I applied.
 
I got an Evite from the McLean Alum Association for some social event. Apparently, they have access to the email contacts of all applicants. Interesting.

It's an open to all type of social event, which has nothing to do with interviews.
 
SingingCow said:
I got an Evite from the McLean Alum Association for some social event. Apparently, they have access to the email contacts of all applicants. Interesting.

It's an open to all type of social event, which has nothing to do with interviews.
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I got something similar from Brown. It scared me for a second, until I realized what it was!
 
I've enjoyed reading everyone's posts. It's nice to feel a sense of community during this stressful time! I just wanted to post that I got an interview at SUNY Upstate Medical University in Syracuse. It's way early so I don't know if they send them out in waves or what, but I just thought that might be useful information!
 
You people and your early interviews are stressing me out. I didn't apply to SUNY or MGH, so my anxiety isn't too bad... but still. This waiting game is the worst.
 
Got an interview at Children's Mercy today. Even though their deadline is still a couple of days away, I was told that several messages had been left today.
 
I was going to submit my second wave of applications today, to sites with a 11/15 deadline. However, I noticed that although in the APPIC directory one of my sites (Oregon Health & Science U.) lists a 11/15 deadline, their website lists a 11/13 deadline. I gather that the 11/13 deadline is right, but I wish I would have noticed the discrepancy yesterday 🙁
Should I bother submitting this application?
 
edified1 said:
I was going to submit my second wave of applications today, to sites with a 11/15 deadline. However, I noticed that although in the APPIC directory one of my sites (Oregon Health & Science U.) lists a 11/15 deadline, their website lists a 11/13 deadline. I gather that the 11/13 deadline is right, but I wish I would have noticed the discrepancy yesterday 🙁
Should I bother submitting this application?
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Submit and email the TD or somebody there about the discrepancy.
 
Do you have to pay to apply to the psych internships?
 
University of Michigan and Vanderbilt have sent out interview invitations.
 
A friend of mine got an interview at Children's Hospitals and Clinics of Minnesota.
 
Well I've heard bad news from San Francisco VA, Long Island Jewish Hospital, and Nationwide Children's.

These neuro sites are competitive and it's quite discouraging. It better work out this year. Ugh.
 
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