I am just wondering if someone can give me a ballpark estimate of how many publications one might need in order to secure a top notch neuropsych internship? How many first author pubs? I'm trying to figure out how many publications I should be shooting for, per year, in a clinical psychology PhD program to be competitive.
PhD/PsyD How many publications needed to secure internship?
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Asking the wrong question. The mode of pubs is 0. Really depends on where you are applying. I would shoot for at least one first author though, makes you fairly competitive.
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Publications do matter. Although the mode may be zero, I suspect that for the competitive academic medical centers and VAs you should probably shoot for 4-8 quality first author publications. This will keep you competitive all else equal. More is better and a history of funding would also set you apart from the pack.
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Eh, I'd say this is a bit high. 5+ publications, period, puts you in the upper 10% of internship applicants. I'd say 4-5 overall with at least 2 first author pubs would wake you competitive at almost all sites.
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You say tomato- I say 4-8. 🙂 Two first author pubs + an F31 would look mighty attractive as well....
But honestly, I think if you want to put yourself in the sure bet range and MATCH at Brown, Charleston, Palo Alto, Mass General, UIC, UW, Seattle VA, and the like, you should really shoot for more than two first author publications. Again all else being equal (e.g., having solid, well-rounded, training), this is what I would shoot for. This range will def. land you a large number of interviews at the top sites.
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Yeah, 5+ first authors is very high. And yeah, if you want to be at one of the top sites nation and stay research focused, probably a safe bet. I had one first author and a couple secondary authorships and interviewed at several Ivy league sites and other top sites. Publications are great, but I'd focus on fit and well-rounded training more. And, once again, really depends on the site you want.
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From a MUSC Department of Psychiatry document....I also think that the average number of publications for the 2014 internship class was 8. I wouldn't be surprised if these numbers were similar at other clinical science sites.
2013 Psychology Internship Class announced
Another outstanding class of clinical psychology interns has been recruited for 2012-2013. The class of 16 interns was selected from an applicant pool of 293 clinical psychology Ph.D. candidates from major research universities in the U.S. and Canada. The class of 2013 comes from graduate programs in 12 states, located in all regions of the U.S. As would be expected for an internship that is based on a scientist-practitioner training model, our new class members have considerable research productivity as indicated by having 87 publications in peer reviewed journals (n=5.4 per intern) and many more presentations at scientific and professional meetings. I would like to thank the Psychology Education Committee members for all their time and effort.
2013 Psychology Internship Class announced
Another outstanding class of clinical psychology interns has been recruited for 2012-2013. The class of 16 interns was selected from an applicant pool of 293 clinical psychology Ph.D. candidates from major research universities in the U.S. and Canada. The class of 2013 comes from graduate programs in 12 states, located in all regions of the U.S. As would be expected for an internship that is based on a scientist-practitioner training model, our new class members have considerable research productivity as indicated by having 87 publications in peer reviewed journals (n=5.4 per intern) and many more presentations at scientific and professional meetings. I would like to thank the Psychology Education Committee members for all their time and effort.
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That may be, but I've seen that hurt people as well. I've seen applicants with many pubs, but very little in terms of breadth of clinical work. I'd rather take an intern/fellow with broad and diverse clinical work with 1-3 pubs than one with little clinical work and 15 pubs.
*caveat, this cuts both ways. If you have 1500+clinical hours and no research, I will tank your application as well.
*caveat, this cuts both ways. If you have 1500+clinical hours and no research, I will tank your application as well.
These are the exact sites that I will be shooting for so thank you very much for your response! I'm going to be starting my program in September and I think it's important to know what to aim for! I will be attending a very good program with an NP track so it should set me up well clinically, I just wanted to know how productive I need to be research wise!
I have a stupid question about this, but will first mention that I haven't started a PhD program yet, so I am asking for the future since I know being competitive for internship is so important: does it matter if some of your pubs come from research experience before you entered your PhD program? I have 4 and an additional 2 under review, all middle author (I know that's not so impressive), from my time as a RC. I would obviously expect to be productive during grad school and produce some first author ones as well. I am just wondering if those are taken into account too.
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They'll be taken into account if they're related to psych/your research area, although folks will want to see that you've continued that productivity while in grad school.
As for pubs, if you've got 4-8, period (regardless of authorship), you're going to be in good shape. I had 3 or 4 when I applied for internship and landed interviews with some of the aforementioned internship research "powerhouses."
If you're aiming for a research career, I definitely think 4-8 with multiple first authorships would be a solid goal. If you're aiming more for a clinical career, then having a couple (with one first-authored) should be fine. Although as has been mentioned, plenty of folks match with none.
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I had 6 pubs, 2 first author, and also interviewed at Ivy league sites and other top sites. I think my pubs mattered to them, but I also had a wide variety of clinical experiences.
4-8 publications is generally a good number, but 4-8 first authorships seems a bit high even for those places. I interviewed at all 5 of the places on your list I applied to, matched to a similar caliber site and applied with only 2 peer-reviewed first authorships (+2 chapters), another 6 peer-reviewed 2nd-Nth author pubs. Most were in really good journals - right before I submitted applications I had a first author in Journal of Abnormal and an Nth author in a Nature-published journal (not one of the big ones, but still an IF ~10) come out - I think that trumped the number in most people's eyes . Admittedly I also had tons more (grants/awards, solid clinical training, substantive teaching/mentoring experience, etc.), which speaks to the need to be well-rounded. At interviews at those places, it was generally made clear my research background stood out.
Nothing wrong with aiming high, but depending on the nature of your research those numbers may or may not be realistic and I'd hate for that to intimidate anyone. Folks here frequently match at that type of site (probably a majority do actually_ and very rarely have anywhere near that number of first-author pubs. Folks from my lab NEVER have that many first-author pubs. I know very few people even at the sites you mentioned who had that number of first-author publications going in and those who did usually did research more conducive to rapid production. Number matters to some extent, but I think 1-2 first authorships in Abnormal/JCCP (or similar caliber) and some Nth author stuff also in solid journals will be plenty to get you in the door for an interview just about anywhere and after that its just about fit.
