The obscure location approach to internship apps

[moveablefeastings]

Hi guys,
I wanted to get your thoughts about a certain strategy for getting an internship. Let’s say you have no geographic limitations. If you know what type of site you want (e.g. a college counseling center or a prison, etc), and you have fewer hours than a typical applicant (under 400). You search for sites that fit the category you want, and where you meet the hours requirement all across the country, and you apply to the ones in more obscure locations (like the Dakotas, Alaska, or rural Kentucky).

Do you think this would help guarantee an internship placement, assuming you can make a reasonable case for good fit at each site?

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[WisNeuro]

Might increase your chances slightly. But, if they are not good fits for your prior experience/future goals, won't move the needle much. It's really going to come down to how much you can sell that reasonable fit. I wouldn't blow all my apps with this strategy, I'd still make the majority of my apps based on the absolute best fits first, regardless of competitiveness.

 

[AcronymAllergy]

I might add a few sites based on their being an a "less-desirable location" if I was also a good match with them broadly, sure. But I wouldn't drastically change my entire list based on that. If there's a site you love that happens to be in, say, SF or NY, I say apply for it.

At the end of the day, there's really no way to guarantee a match. But at the same time, with the current balance of spots to applicants, the odds are more in your favor now (overall) than they have been in probably over a decade.

 

[WisNeuro]

To piggyback on AA's point of many more internship spots than applicants. The spots open in Phase II of the match have included some very good training programs in recent years. So, chances of getting a pretty quality spot that is also a good fit is pretty high, comparatively.

 

[PsyDr]

I tried this for grad school the second time around. The interviewers saw straight through it. Basically meet with with screening questions about why I applied to this particular place, if I had any sort of social support in the area to see if I was moving to be near family or something, etc.

 

[cara susanna]

If it's a research-based site, definitely not. I applied to ones in some pretty middle of nowhere locations and still didn't get interviews.

 

[BuckeyeLove]

Did this with about 4 internship applications/sites, because so many people in 2012 were saying how horrible the "crisis" was and catastrophizing. I didn't get any interviews at them though. I did get interviews at all of the heavily competitive ones. Why? (as noted above...) it's all about fit.

 

[DynamicDidactic]

Do you think this would help guarantee an internship placement

No guarantees, the advice is similar. Apply to a mix of places (competitive vs. less competitive) and those that make sense based on your experiences/goals.

 

[Sanman]

Did this with about 4 internship applications/sites, because so many people in 2012 were saying how horrible the "crisis" was and catastrophizing. I didn't get any interviews at them though. I did get interviews at all of the heavily competitive ones. Why? (as noted above...) it's all about fit.

I did this for 2 sites on my application list way back when and was rejected from both without interview. I still got 7 interviews in the NYC metro area. So, figure that out.

 

[Mindfulpsych22]

Ditto that fit seems to matter significantly more than anything. I applied to some very non-competitive sites (per the numbers) in rural areas and all of my interviews came from popular site that got fairly large numbers of applications in large metro areas. I was surprised to not get interviews at some of these places but my mentors brought up that even at the height of the imbalance, sites were competing for the best interns that they would reasonably end up getting. Sites are unlikely to want to waste their interview slots on applicants that were not likely to match to their program (because the training they offered was not a great fit for the applicant’s background or career goals). Therefore, a clinically-focused rural site who primarily takes PsyDs is unlikely to want to interview a stellar applicant from a research-heavy Ph.D. program because they assume that the latter candidate simply won’t be that into them.

 

[EmotRegulation]

Agreed with what everyone else said....though if you are really interested in rural sites with fewer applicants AND a good fit for them, mentioning the appeal of the area in your cover letter might be helpful. I know I did this for applying to internships only for the smaller locations and I know people read those pieces because they mentioned them on interviews, repeatedly. So if you can legitimately talk about how living in a smaller town or different area of the country might be valuable for you professionally (e.g., working with rural populations, training in telepsych if it's offered, sometimes access to culturally unique populations to expand your cultural competence) or personally (e.g., enjoying hiking in your spare time), feel free to mention it!