PhD/PsyD How to pick what pre-doctoral internships to apply to?

[NeuroJaguar]

Hello! I am starting to build a list of APA-accredited internship sites I am interested in applying to... but my list is now about 40 sites. I am not geographically limited. I am interested in gaining neuropsych experience with children on internship -- that is my main training goal. I have read through the brochures for the programs and have made sure that the experiences offered align with my training goals. How do I go about narrowing down this list? Thanks for your insight.

*Sorry for grammatical error in title

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[PsyDr]

Go find THE textbook on pediatric neuropsych that isn't authored by Reynolds. Then find more. Cross reference chapter authors and book editors with sites.

 

[EmotRegulation]

First of all, be prepared to review the brochures again in September after they are updated, since things change. Second, what OTHER kinds of experiences do you want on internship? (If you're doing neuro, that'll be 50% of the time, but that's only half your year.) Do you want protected research time? Do you want a place with a post-doc pipeline? Do you know people who've interviewed or attended those sites, and what do they say? Does your program have connections at some sites? What is the cost of living? You might not be geographically limited, but there are also places you might prefer to live or prefer to avoid (I, for example, preferred a smaller city and I didn't want to go to California because it seemed like everyone wanted to go there, so I just avoided CA sites). You need to figure out what your criteria are, and SOME of them won't be evident from the brochures (e.g., true work-life balance can't really be gleaned until you see how haggard the current interns are during the interview day) but there are ways to cut it down.

 

[Justanothergrad]

One of the most important things you'll need to get used to from this point forward is picking what sort of life you want. Others may view internship as too soon and prefer focusing on career related choices only. That's fine. That's a choice. I value work life balance a lot so I picked things that appealed to me personally. Like EmotRegulation said, what do you want in life BEYOND that specific neuro training (location near family, other training, cool location for a year, saving instead of moving far, post doc on site, etc etc)

 

[temppsych123]

Lots of sites will say they have neuropsych training, and lots of sites will say they have training in kids, but you DEFINITELY want to make sure there's a pre-existing track, rotation, training option, or something in the program's brochures and websites that makes it clear that you will have ample experience to do neuropsych with kids, since that's a more specialized area than either one separately. That, in and of itself, may narrow down your list. Also, pay attention to which sites say they have rotations to do neuropsych "with adult and children" or "across the lifespan" because that may translate to actually having lots of experience with different age groups, or it might mean you do 90% adults with a few adolescents thrown in the mix.

 

[NeuroJaguar]

Thank you all so much for the insight!