Internship Match Rates

[psychgeek]

Hey everyone. I just learned that APPIC has posted internship match rates broken down by program. I thought those who are applying this year might be interested.

Here is the link

http://www.appic.org/match/5_2_2_match_about_statistics.html

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[LM02]

Hey everyone. I just learned that APPIC has posted internship match rates broken down by program. I thought those who are applying this year might be interested.

Here is the link

http://www.appic.org/match/5_2_2_match_about_statistics.html

Very interesting - thanks for posting. Just wanted to remind people to interpret with caution, and discuss match rates with the DCT when you interview for grad school.

For example, my program has an excellent match rate, but there was one problem student who applied for internship 4 years in a row without matching. The way the data are reported, it is as though she represented 4 separate people over those 4 years, rather than 1 person who just couldn't pull it together.

Also, people often don't match because they applied in a geographically-limited area. This doesn't necessarily reflect the quality of the graduate program (or the applicant), but rather just a poor strategy for the match.

 

[bigmood]

My program just sent the link out to students, and I was very pleased. I was also surprised at some of the stats for those "benchmark" schools that one would expect to have crazy high rates.

 

[edieb]

What do you mean by "problem student"? Did he have his disseration done? My school (APA accredited, clinical) always matches everyone but this year 4 out of 7 did not match.

 

[psychanon]

I agree that you should be careful about reading too much into these.... usually when somebody from a good school doesn't match, it has more to do with how they applied (applying to a limited number or to internships that are not a good match for the applicant, etc.) than with the program itself. I don't think that having a 100% match rate vs. an 80% match rate means much. What is alarming, however, is these programs with <25% match-- those are definitely schools to stay away from!

 

[LM02]

What do you mean by "problem student"? Did he have his disseration done? My school (APA accredited, clinical) always matches everyone but this year 4 out of 7 did not match.

The problems were a combination of personal and professional issues. It was a very unique situation, so I wouldn't worry.

I was just using that as an example of how specific situations can skew the stats posted by APPIC. This is especially true for programs that have small classes. For example, if only 4 people apply per year, and 1 of the four has a specific issue arise, the match rate of 75% for that school might not reflect the actual quality of the program/students.

 

[Psyclops]

Anyone able to shed some light on how we should read drop out rates?

 

[Sanman]

Are these the match rates not including the scramble? It seems that way, but I wasn't sure.

 

[psychgeek]

Anyone able to shed some light on how we should read drop out rates?

Though there are a lot of possible reasons why someone would drop out of the match, I believe the most frequent reasons involve failing to complete comprehensive exams or failing to receive any interview invitations. All personal reasons (i.e. sickness, financial problems) should be pretty randomly distributed throughout the sample so I'd interpret a higher than average drop-out rate as a bad sign for a prospective student.

Also, while I'd agree that there are problems with using this data as the only source of information about a program's clinical training, I also think it is an extremely helpful piece of information that has not been available before. Any program with a really high match rate (like 90% +) is going to be a pretty good bet. Any program with a low match rate (less than 50%) should be concerning. THe programs in the middle will explain themselves on interview day I'm sure.

 

[Neuro-Dr]

I guess I'm in the minority, but I did not find this resource helpful at all. The one interesting point was the growth rates of several of the programs and getting an idea about class size.

As for the match data, all APA-approved programs are required to keep and submit data on the match for APA and APPIC and so any school you apply to should be able to quickly tell you their match rates. I have not found so far that when consulting colleagues regarding these numbers that the match is very good. For one, it must not count any clearinghouse folks, just match day and that would throw off the numbers since over 50% of the clearinghouse folks would match at APPIC or APA. It also doesn't seperate out by choice or APA, which they could have easily done and this is often more useful than APPIC alone. Just my two cents

 

[Psyclops]

ND, while it is true that clinical programs are required to provide this data in addition to many other data, and most do on thier websites etc, they rearely provide the most recent data. A source of frustration for me, and I would imagine many other an applicant. I would rarely find a school that provided data that was newer than 2 years old. Granted, it would be unlikely that the last two years would elucidate anything that wasn't already evidet. Nevertheless, changes to occur an the student consumer would like the most recent data, and it isn't like programs can't privide it easily in today's data friendlly world. my .02

 

[Neuro-Dr]

ND, while it is true that clinical programs are required to provide this data in addition to many other data, and most do on thier websites etc, they rearely provide the most recent data. A source of frustration for me, and I would imagine many other an applicant. I would rarely find a school that provided data that was newer than 2 years old. Granted, it would be unlikely that the last two years would elucidate anything that wasn't already evidet. Nevertheless, changes to occur an the student consumer would like the most recent data, and it isn't like programs can't privide it easily in today's data friendlly world. my .02

Well, they are required to include that data yearly in their report to APA, even in those years that are not a site review. They should be able to give you that data whenever you ask. Whether it makes it to the website is probably another story. Just remember that APPIC has less investment in the overall accuracy of the data in the same way that APA has less investment in the accuracy of their data on placement, GPA, GRE. I see your point in the potential value to applicants though