Are Match Rates truly indicative of a program's quality??

[psi123]

As I've been narrowing down my list of schools to apply to, I started noticing that I've been crossing schools off of my list for the sole reason that their match rates are low (+/- 50%). These schools were on my list to begin with bc their programs fit my interests and preferences--was/is it wise for me to cross them out purely bc of match rates? Do low match rates mean that the training is just inadequate? or just that half the students did not try hard enough...?

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[irish80122]

I don't know that it means that the school is inadequate, but at the same time I wouldn't strongly consider a school with less than a 75% match rate, but that was just me. Internship is so important, you have to have it, so you don't want to risk getting to the end of your degree and not being able to get it. Because of that, I won't say that you get an inadequate education at those schools with lower match rates, but at the same time they may not get you where you need to go.

 

[JockNerd]

It's not the best measurement tool in the world, but it's not bad. Like Irish said, internships (and I mean APA-approved internships) are important. 100% is hard to achieve--there's almost always going to be someone with average qualifications who restricts himself/herself geographically. But I think it definitely does say something about program quality if they consistently fail to place half their students.

I wouldn't even look at anything with <60%, and it should be above 80%.

 

[Ollie123]

Agreed. Its not perfect by any means, but its functional. Its not like an 85% match rate school is better than an 83% match rate school. However I think its perfectly reasonable to cut out schools that have a 50% match rate, which is actually just kind of embarassing for the school.

As others have said, you need an internship. Yes, many of those unmatched students may have just been lazy, awful grad students, or people who were only willing to go to a few sites. But the school really should have stepped in sometime before internship to help these people address those problems.

 

[Therapist4Chnge]

The 75% figure is the overall match rate shown in the 2000-2006 APPIC study, and I think it was around that for 2007. Many people use this (myself included) as a rough gauge of what to consider. Like Ollie said, there probably isn't a difference between a 78% and 81%, BUT you have to wonder if a program is consistently in the 60%'s, compared to a program that is consistently in the 80%'s.

Internship is very competitive (I'm going through the application process now, and it sucks and is stressful, and I'm a solid applicant), so although %'s don't predict the quality of a program, they definitely are in the mix. When I was in your shoes looking at programs, I kept hearing how placement was really important, and now that I'm there now, I can definitely vouch for that.

-t

 

[LM02]

Obviously, a school with a better match rate is going to carry some weight. Even if we can't predict with certainty how we will do in the match, you want some comfort in knowing that people from your program generally do well.

But just like any statistic, you really need to interpret the numbers in the context of the other data available to you. For example, if a program is small, the numbers could be very skewed. If there are only 3 people applying for internship, and one doesn't match - you have a 66% match rate. It doesn't look great, but the reality is that the N is so small, it's hard to really generalize beyond that specific circumstance. Such a program could be an excellent program, but perhaps that one particular student was limited in other ways (family issues limiting sites that they could apply to, etc.).

 

[psi123]

Thanks everyone, these replies are really helpful. I think I knew all this in the back of my mind but I guess I just started feeling so limited in my choices that I was trying to deny the importance of these match rates.

But, here I have another question then. I know that Argosy schools don't have the best reputation, but if you look at their match rates, specifically Argosy - Atlanta's (aka Georgia SOPP) clinical psychology, their 2000-2006 average match rate is 85.9% with an N=248. Does this mean that Argosy--the professional school that usually gets bashed as being a diploma mill or more of a business rather than an academic institution--is a "better" program than most other funded/nonfunded schools in the nation (considering the average was ~75%?)??

 

[Therapist4Chnge]

Some of the more clinical programs have an advantage over the research ones because there are more clinical spots available for internship, and the academic/research applicants cannabalize each other. 86% is quite good, I would have thought it would be lower, based on the other Argosy campuses. I think the chicago one had a decent rate too...though don't quote me on that, but I think it came up a few months ago on here.

-t

 

[psychanon]

But, here I have another question then. I know that Argosy schools don't have the best reputation, but if you look at their match rates, specifically Argosy - Atlanta's (aka Georgia SOPP) clinical psychology, their 2000-2006 average match rate is 85.9% with an N=248. Does this mean that Argosy--the professional school that usually gets bashed as being a diploma mill or more of a business rather than an academic institution--is a "better" program than most other funded/nonfunded schools in the nation (considering the average was ~75%?)??

Most certainly not:
1) You can infer that if a program has a really dismal match rate over several years, they're probably not too good, but you can't do the opposite and infer that something with better match rate is a better program.
2) 85.9 isn't really a great match rate, it's only adequate. Good is 100%-- really everyone should be matching except for fluke circumstances.
3) Most funded programs with lower match rates have them because of said fluke circumstances-- someone only ranks programs in a specific geographical area; someone is a really poor interviewer; someone decides they'd rather wait another year than go to a bad internship, so they only rank a couple; or someone just has really miserable luck. With a small N (3 per year), this happenstance can really drag the percentage down. 248, however, is a huge N, meaning that the percentage is unlikely to be due to chance, meaning this program regularly doesn't match around 14% of their applicants-- not as bad as some, but not great either.

 

[psi123]

Most certainly not:
1) You can infer that if a program has a really dismal match rate over several years, they're probably not too good, but you can't do the opposite and infer that something with better match rate is a better program.
2) 85.9 isn't really a great match rate, it's only adequate. Good is 100%-- really everyone should be matching except for fluke circumstances.
3) Most funded programs with lower match rates have them because of said fluke circumstances-- someone only ranks programs in a specific geographical area; someone is a really poor interviewer; someone decides they'd rather wait another year than go to a bad internship, so they only rank a couple; or someone just has really miserable luck. With a small N (3 per year), this happenstance can really drag the percentage down. 248, however, is a huge N, meaning that the percentage is unlikely to be due to chance, meaning this program regularly doesn't match around 14% of their applicants-- not as bad as some, but not great either.

Thank you! These posts have been so very helpful. The last one especially makes so much sense. I think I'll be able to better interpret match rates now, now that I understand to look much more carefully at the size of the N's of each school. Thanks so much!!