In addition to the above, I would also look at how robust the clinical services offered are at that program. More volume, more subspecialty clinics, more unique rotations offering training in a specific disorder or modality is probably better for training unless you know you want to do a specific thing (research, private practice, etc.) and don't care about the rest.
- Some examples of the variety in rotations include eating disorder inpatient vs outpatient vs RTC, OCD, inpatient/residential ASD, learning how to do ADOS/ADI-R for ASD, strength of the children's hospital, early psychosis clinic, mood disorder clinic including seeing pediatric bipolar patients, adolescent addiction clinic vs inpatient vs residential, seeing young children under 6 years of age, school-based rotations, integration with the juvenile justice system, integration with child neurology and developmental-behavioral pediatrics, how young the inpatient units will take patients (some admit patients as young as 3 years old) if there even is an inpatient unit, if fellows rotate or cover emergency psych cases, the integrative/collaborative care models with primary care, how much forensic exposure you get, exposure to patients with rare genetic abnormalities, if there's a trauma clinic.
- You also want to gauge the strength of the psychotherapy program at the fellowship: training in CBT, play therapy/psychodynamic, parent management training or parent-child interaction therapy for ODD/Conduct Disorder, true DBT (rather than just DBT principles), Comprehensive Behavioral Intervention for Tics and Habit Reversal Therapy, exposure and response prevention for kids with OCD, and maybe even some exposure to Applied Behavior Analysis/Pivotal Response Training for ASD.
- Location is also a big factor as it determines what types of patients you might be seeing and where you'll be practicing afterwards usually. Access to private practice psychiatrists as adjunct/volunteer faculty is also helpful in having exposure to a different practice model.
- Call is obviously important for both training and lifestyle. Some programs have as little as no call to some being extremely call heavy.
- If you care about research finding a program that has an established T32 would be nice (none of this "we are working toward it and you can be the first!" nonsense).
There's going to be lots of debate because the "best" or "top" programs are subjective. The fit into your career goals is what is most important. The best programs in general are probably NYU, Columbia-Cornell, any of the Harvard programs (MGH/McLean, Cambridge Health Alliance, Boston Children's Hospital, etc.), Yale, Stanford, UCLA. Other notable programs include UW, Mt. Sinai, Brown, UCSD.
