APPIC Interview Invitation Thread (2021)

[Psyducky]

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Official rejection from Nemours/duPont (a particularly kind email). Saw this coming, but would def rather not have had two early Sunday rejection emails. They stated they had 205 applicants, up slightly from last year and up a lot from the years prior to that.

 

[PSYchedAndStressed]

Has anyone heard from the University of Pennsylvania child/developmental disabilities track? I know their official notification date is Tuesday but I saw some folks on here have heard from their adult track.

 

[reversepsychology]

Rejection from U Minnesota Medical School Pediatrics 11/29

 

[readysetmatch]

I know places have until like mid December to let us know but is there a method to the madness like when you apply and when you hear or like if you haven’t heard anything is that good news hopefully coming or bad news (I’m sure this question has been asked already) I know covid definitely puts a spin on things but just curious, thanks!

 

[ready4internship]

Rejection from U Minnesota Medical School Pediatrics 11/29

Same! Hope you hear positive news from many more places!

 

[GlenCoco1]

I know places have until like mid December to let us know but is there a method to the madness like when you apply and when you hear or like if you haven’t heard anything is that good news hopefully coming or bad news (I’m sure this question has been asked already) I know covid definitely puts a spin on things but just curious, thanks!

I honestly don't think there's a method to the madness, unfortunately. It seems like everyone I've spoken to from previous years has such different experiences in terms of when they receive rejections and interview invites. I'm going on the premise that no news is good news! 😉

 

[reversepsychology]

Wanted to get your opinions, I am a Minnesota Argosy transfer to the Chicago School of Professional Psychology. I have trained at competitive practicum sites (2 colleges and 1 community) in the area. For internship I have applied to a mix of Community Mental Health Centers and University Counseling Centers. I have recently been told that professional schools tend not to do great when it comes to matching at competitive sites. I guess what I am asking is will internships still consider me or will they pass over because of the name of my school? Should I ever address in my interviews (assuming I get some) why I went there?

*(Not looking for comments such as “go do a search” because I have done those).

Thanks and good luck to everyone!

I would imagine that the "We have accepted applicants from these programs" section would be the most helpful resource in answering that question. Sorry I don't have any personal insight.

 

[thetiredgradstudent]

Official Site Name: Saint Elizabeths Hospital
Date Invitation Received: 11/29/20
Method of Invitation (Phone call, personal/mass email, Snapchat): mass email
Specialty Track or Site (e.g., for consortiums): N/A
Interview Dates Offered: will send out dates later this week
If & How you're staying sane: (second post, same coping skillz) playing with my pup and crime docs

 

[Psyducky]

Posting for a friend - rejection from Denver Health (all child and family tracks) 11/25

 

[student9295]

Official Site Name: Saint Elizabeths Hospital
Date Invitation Received: 11/29/20
Method of Invitation (Phone call, personal/mass email, Snapchat): mass email
Specialty Track or Site (e.g., for consortiums): N/A
Interview Dates Offered: will send out dates later this week
If & How you're staying sane: (second post, same coping skillz) playing with my pup and crime docs

I think Crime documentaries and podcasts are great for self-care!

 

[kittenlady]

I would imagine that the "We have accepted applicants from these programs" section would be the most helpful resource in answering that question. Sorry I don't have any personal insight.

Wanted to get your opinions, I am a Minnesota Argosy transfer to the Chicago School of Professional Psychology. I have trained at competitive practicum sites (2 colleges and 1 community) in the area. For internship I have applied to a mix of Community Mental Health Centers and University Counseling Centers. I have recently been told that professional schools tend not to do great when it comes to matching at competitive sites. I guess what I am asking is will internships still consider me or will they pass over because of the name of my school? Should I ever address in my interviews (assuming I get some) why I went there?

*(Not looking for comments such as “go do a search” because I have done those).

Thanks and good luck to everyone!

Some internship sites actually prefer students from professional schools because of the clinical training focus/high number of clinical hours. If you get an interview, they think your training is good enough that they would take you on as an intern. I personally wouldn’t address why you went to a professional school unless they ask ...or unless they have maybe never interviewed a professional school student before.

 

[missplum]

Hope y’all are hanging through this stressful time. I’ve seen different stats on this, but I’m curious about your own personal opinions..how many interviews are you “aiming” to receive? Is there a cutoff point in your mind where you think “if I receive X amount of interviews, I’ll feel confident I’ll match.” If so, what’s that cutoff point?

I think someone posted the APPIC stats on this earlier in the thread if you want to hunt that down, but if I remember the data correctly, 7 - 8 interviews gives you a solid chance of matching (in the 90ish percentage). If someone saved the link, maybe they could repost it on the thread 😛

 

[Katann]

Has anyone heard from Geisinger for the Neuropsych tracks?

Not from neuropsych but when I got my interview offer for the health track they said we had 2 weeks to pick a day or the spot would be gone so my guess is that they are planning on using those same dates for the neuropsych interviews. That was 2 weeks ago so my guess is you can probably expect something this week! Good luck!

 

[intern21]

Hope y’all are hanging through this stressful time. I’ve seen different stats on this, but I’m curious about your own personal opinions..how many interviews are you “aiming” to receive? Is there a cutoff point in your mind where you think “if I receive X amount of interviews, I’ll feel confident I’ll match.” If so, what’s that cutoff point?

Wanting at least 6, but 7-8 would be perfect. These are the numbers my supervisors have told us to aim for and what a 2014 article indicates improves chances of matching.

 

[psykhe]

Quick DM alert before a hopefully invite abundant week for us all!

Official Site Name: VA New Jersey
Date Invitation Received: 11/29
Method of Invitation (Phone call, personal/mass email, Snapchat): personal email
Specialty Track or Site (e.g., for consortiums): n/a
Interview Dates Offered: only 12/18 offered but seemed to allude to the fact that there are other dates

Official Site Name: Alpert Medical School of Brown University, Clinical Psychology Internship Training Program
Date Invitation Received: 11/29/20
Method of Invitation (Phone call, personal/mass email, Snapchat): mass email
Specialty Track or Site (e.g., for consortiums): Health Psychology/Behavioral Medicine
Interview Dates Offered: January 7, 8, 11, and 13

 

[PricelessCare]

Rejection from Stanford Counseling Center. ✌️ Kind and thoughtful letter though...

 

[student9295]

Quick DM alert before a hopefully invite abundant week for us all!

Official Site Name: VA New Jersey
Date Invitation Received: 11/29
Method of Invitation (Phone call, personal/mass email, Snapchat): personal email
Specialty Track or Site (e.g., for consortiums): n/a
Interview Dates Offered: only 12/18 offered but seemed to allude to the fact that there are other dates

Official Site Name: Alpert Medical School of Brown University, Clinical Psychology Internship Training Program
Date Invitation Received: 11/29/20
Method of Invitation (Phone call, personal/mass email, Snapchat): mass email
Specialty Track or Site (e.g., for consortiums): Health Psychology/Behavioral Medicine
Interview Dates Offered: January 7, 8, 11, and 13

I guess I should be expecting a rejection soon.

 

[Doctor Koala]

I think there’s a lot of variability in this. For example, my program (Clinical PhD) primarily produces adult general track clinicians. On average students have received 4-5 interviews and we have a 100% match rate. So my program advises us to aim for 4-5 interviews to “ensure a match.” With that said, there are certain internship tracks that usually have 1-2 positions per site, compared to the 5+ positions for more general tracks. So for those tracks, we were advised to aim for 7-8 interviews (e.g. health psych, neuropsych).

I’m sure program type also influences this, but I don’t know the stats on that. This is all strictly anecdotal.

I think someone posted the APPIC stats on this earlier in the thread if you want to hunt that down, but if I remember the data correctly, 7 - 8 interviews gives you a solid chance of matching (in the 90ish percentage). If someone saved the link, maybe they could repost it on the thread 😛

‘Twas me, your friendly neighborhood koala 🐨 I had cited this research publication by Callahan et al. (2014, pg. 76) where they calculated a cut-off of about 6.92 interview offers that separated matched from unmatched applicants. From their data, they also found that applicants will have a 99% chance of matching if they obtained 12 or more interview offers.

 

[student9295]

‘Twas me, your friendly neighborhood koala 🐨 I had cited this research publication by Callahan et al. (2014, pg. 76) where they calculated a cut-off of about 6.92 interview offers that separated matched from unmatched applicants. From their data, they also found that applicants will have a 99% chance of matching if they obtained 12 or more interview offers.

I thought 7-8 interviews was almost a guarantee for matching?

 

[ccpsych16]

I thought 7-8 interviews was almost a guarantee for matching?

Nothing is a guarantee. The stats are very good, but ultimately it comes down to how students rank sites, how sites rank students, how many spots a site has, and whether a student is a better fit over others who were ranked (which relates to how sites rank students). Moreover, it’s common for students not to rank every site or track after interviews and getting a different impression than what is in a brochure.

 

[WisNeuro]

Some internship sites actually prefer students from professional schools because of the clinical training focus/high number of clinical hours. If you get an interview, they think your training is good enough that they would take you on as an intern. I personally wouldn’t address why you went to a professional school unless they ask ...or unless they have maybe never interviewed a professional school student before.

This isn't true on average. So far, when the stats are released, PhD students have more clinical hours, on average, than PsyD students.

 

[anxioustudent]

Rejection (mass email)
Official Site Name: Manhattan VA
Date Received: 11/30

 

[anxioustudent]

Rejection (mass email)
Official Site Name: Syracuse VA
Date Received: 11/30

TOUGH Monday morning with rejections 😭

 

[HPB2015]

‘Twas me, your friendly neighborhood koala 🐨 I had cited this research publication by Callahan et al. (2014, pg. 76) where they calculated a cut-off of about 6.92 interview offers that separated matched from unmatched applicants. From their data, they also found that applicants will have a 99% chance of matching if they obtained 12 or more interview offers.

While this has been haunting me, I have also been curious about (and looked but not found) more recent updates. I see in the match stats from previous years they provide stats on how many interviews applicants receive but not the correlation with matching. I believe the 2014 report was most relevant to the matching process when there was still an extreme imbalance between # of sites and applicants so I wonder how the more balanced situation that may have shifted the "magic" interview number (or not).

 

[sm89]

I think someone posted the APPIC stats on this earlier in the thread if you want to hunt that down, but if I remember the data correctly, 7 - 8 interviews gives you a solid chance of matching (in the 90ish percentage). If someone saved the link, maybe they could repost it on the thread 😛

 

[Psyducky]

While this has been haunting me, I have also been curious about (and looked but not found) more recent updates. I see in the match stats from previous years they provide stats on how many interviews applicants receive but not the correlation with matching. I believe the 2014 report was most relevant to the matching process when there was still an extreme imbalance between # of sites and applicants so I wonder how the more balanced situation that may have shifted the "magic" interview number (or not).

I was also curious about whether this finding would hold up to the potentially unique COVID impacts. I feel like from my casual observation on here and with peers that some types of sites (hospitals, bigger name institutions, and integrated care) are getting a huge number of apps. Feels like if that's the setting you want you may need to apply to more/get more than 6 interviews/have some backup settings to be safe. It would be interesting to see this study done again for this year with correlations broken down by site type or some sort of a name recognition index.

As someone who is in a program in an area with no real options for hospital-based practicum (though I managed to have inpatient and integrated care placements), the process of trying to get into doing a hospital based internship has been disheartening due to what feels like an especially competitive year.

 

[beardedshrink]

Rejection (mass email)
Stanford University CAPS
11/30/20

 

[chipsychick]

Official Site Name: Iowa City VA
Date Invitation Received: 11/30/20
Method of Invitation (Phone call, personal/mass email, Snapchat): Personal email
Specialty Track or Site (e.g., for consortiums): General
Interview Dates Offered: 12/15, 12/16, 12/18
If & How you're staying sane: Positive coping skills!

 

[dcpsychdoc]

I was also curious about whether this finding would hold up to the potentially unique COVID impacts. I feel like from my casual observation on here and with peers that some types of sites (hospitals, bigger name institutions, and integrated care) are getting a huge number of apps. Feels like if that's the setting you want you may need to apply to more/get more than 6 interviews/have some backup settings to be safe. It would be interesting to see this study done again for this year with correlations broken down by site type or some sort of a name recognition index.

As someone who is in a program in an area with no real options for hospital-based practicum (though I managed to have inpatient and integrated care placements), the process of trying to get into doing a hospital based internship has been disheartening due to what feels like an especially competitive year.

I'd like to chime in about this situation (not having a lot of options to get experience in a given setting). As a TD I understand that there may be limited options for trainees to get the experiences they want. What makes a difference for me when I review an application is how the person communicates their interest in and passion for working with the population at our site. If a letter just says, "I think I would be a great asset to your program because I am excellent at all these skills," that does nothing to convey genuine interest in our site and the people we serve. What I appreciate seeing is "I haven't been able to do X, though it is my long-term career goal. These are the A, B and C ways in which I have prepared myself for work at your site/with the people you serve, and these 1, 2, 3 reasons are why I will do well there." Or something to that effect. Don't count yourself out. But do convey your interest and passion.

Good luck! I know this is hard.

 

[ccpsych16]

Official Site Name: Central Arkansas VA
Date Invitation Received: 11/30/20
Method of Invitation (Phone call, personal/mass email, Snapchat): Mass email
Specialty Track or Site (e.g., for consortiums): General
Interview Dates Offered: Jan 11-15
If & How you're staying sane: enjoying the fall weather

 

[TrailsB]

Official Site Name: Milwaukee VA Medical Center
Date Invitation Received: 11/30/20
Method of Invitation (Phone call, personal/mass email, Snapchat): mass email
Specialty Track or Site (e.g., for consortiums): General
Interview Dates Offered: 12/9, 12/17, 1/7, 1/12
If & How you're staying sane: Walks with my pup and netflix

Neurpsych track too. Mass email and same interview dates.

 

[ready4internship]

Wishing us all good luck this week with interviews coming in (and hoping we have positive ways of coping with inevitable rejections). I know we are all very stressed this week and one of my favorite things to do is stress-baking. If you would be interested in receiving a small package of baked goods to decrease your stress a bit, feel free to message me. I have been very COVID-safe but this is obviously up to your comfort level. I can only spend a certain amount on shipping, so I can't promise to send to everyone who requests, but I will do my best. No pressure either way, just wanted to find ways to spread some cheer if possible 🙂

 

[alice_in_neuro_wonderland]

Official Site Name: Central Arkansas VA
Date Invitation Received: 11/30/20
Method of Invitation (Phone call, personal/mass email, Snapchat): Mass email
Specialty Track or Site (e.g., for consortiums): General
Interview Dates Offered: Jan 11-15
If & How you're staying sane: enjoying the fall weather

Congrats on the interview!! Seemed like a great program. Just got my rejection from them 😕 Ahh this process is hard.

 

[ccpsych16]

Congrats on the interview!! Seemed like a great program. Just got my rejection from them 😕 Ahh this process is hard.

Thank you, and I’m sorry to hear about your rejection. You’re right, it is hard! Rejections sting.

 

[good_juju]

Official Site Name: Corporal Michael J. Crescenz VA Medical Center Psychology Internship Program in Philadelphia
Date Invitation Received: 11/30/20
Method of Invitation (Phone call, personal/mass email, Snapchat): Mass email
Specialty Track or Site (e.g., for consortiums): General
Interview Dates Offered: December 14th (Monday), December 16th (Wednesday), December 17th (Thursday), January 4th (Monday) and January 6th (Wednesday). Interviews will be held either in the morning (8:00am-1pm) or the afternoon (12pm-5:00pm) on each of those dates.
If & How you're staying sane: N/A

 

[pedspsych4life]

Has anyone received an invite from Johns Hopkins All Childrens? I know they sent rejections out last week but has anyone heard of invites yet?

 

[ccpsych16]

Official Site Name: Corporal Michael J. Crescenz VA Medical Center Psychology Internship Program in Philadelphia
Date Invitation Received: 11/30/20
Method of Invitation (Phone call, personal/mass email, Snapchat): Mass email
Specialty Track or Site (e.g., for consortiums): General
Interview Dates Offered: December 14th (Monday), December 16th (Wednesday), December 17th (Thursday), January 4th (Monday) and January 6th (Wednesday). Interviews will be held either in the morning (8:00am-1pm) or the afternoon (12pm-5:00pm) on each of those dates.
If & How you're staying sane: N/A

Congrats! Looks like an awesome site. I debated applying but ultimately other sites won out for me.

 

[relationalpsych]

Official Site Name: University of Virginia Counseling Center
Date Invitation Received: 11/30/20
Method of Invitation (Phone call, personal/mass email, Snapchat): Phone Call
Specialty Track or Site (e.g., for consortiums): N/A
Interview Dates Offered: 1/4, 1/6, 1/8
If & How you're staying sane: Baking Holiday Cookies!!

 

[ha12301]

Wishing us all good luck this week with interviews coming in (and hoping we have positive ways of coping with inevitable rejections). I know we are all very stressed this week and one of my favorite things to do is stress-baking. If you would be interested in receiving a small package of baked goods to decrease your stress a bit, feel free to message me. I have been very COVID-safe but this is obviously up to your comfort level. I can only spend a certain amount on shipping, so I can't promise to send to everyone who requests, but I will do my best. No pressure either way, just wanted to find ways to spread some cheer if possible 🙂

thats so sweet! Good luck this week! hope you get some good news!

 

[inpursuitphdpsych]

FBOP folx, has anyone heard back after completing the USAjobs.gov application?

 

[intern21]

Has anyone received an invite from Johns Hopkins All Childrens? I know they sent rejections out last week but has anyone heard of invites yet?

Still waiting to hear from them...A friend of mine interviewed there last year and told me they called her instead of emailing.

 

[nps128]

Wishing us all good luck this week with interviews coming in (and hoping we have positive ways of coping with inevitable rejections). I know we are all very stressed this week and one of my favorite things to do is stress-baking. If you would be interested in receiving a small package of baked goods to decrease your stress a bit, feel free to message me. I have been very COVID-safe but this is obviously up to your comfort level. I can only spend a certain amount on shipping, so I can't promise to send to everyone who requests, but I will do my best. No pressure either way, just wanted to find ways to spread some cheer if possible 🙂

This is the kindest gesture 😭

 

[spacegiraffe]

FBOP folx, has anyone heard back after completing the USAjobs.gov application?

I haven't yet, wondering the same thing! The site to which I applied said they would be in touch again sometime in December, so probably not unusual that we haven't heard yet (I hope)!

 

[sm89]

Anybody hear about neuropsych track at Philly VA (CMCVAMC)?

 

[hsiren]

FBOP folx, has anyone heard back after completing the USAjobs.gov application?

I have not and am anxiously awaiting responses!

 

[pedspsych4life]

Still waiting to hear from them...A friend of mine interviewed there last year and told me they called her instead of emailing.

I'll be watching my phone then! Fingers crossed that it comes soon, good luck!!!

 

[hsiren]

Rejection (mass email)
Official Site Name: Durham VAMC
Date Received: 11/30

Sad because I loved this site, but Dr. Fulton sent such a sweet message that I truly appreciated and also drew my attention to their post-doc program that I will most certainly be applying to 🙂

 

[Neurogeek91]

Anybody hear about neuropsych track at Philly VA (CMCVAMC)?

no!!! any seeing the interview for general has me on edge!

 

[WesterlyOwl]

Mass rejection email from Durham VA (very thoughtful/kind email)

This is my first rejection so it definitely stings but I know this is all part of the process. Grateful that I have this forum to relate to/normalize these kinds of experiences 😊

 

[clinpsychperson2016]

Rejection (mass email)
Official Site Name: Durham VAMC
Date Received: 11/30

Sad because I loved this site, but Dr. Fulton sent such a sweet message that I truly appreciated and also drew my attention to their post-doc program that I will most certainly be applying to 🙂

Agreed - it was done really well and that helped a lot.