A growing bottleneck: The internship supply-demand imbalance in 2007 and its impact on psychology training.

This article provides a comprehensive analysis of the growing imbalance between the supply of predoctoral internship positions in psychology and the demand for such positions by graduate students. Data from the 2007 Match sponsored by the Association of Psychology Postdoctoral and Internship Centers (APPIC) are provided along with the results from several surveys of applicants from that year. An overview of applicant and program participation for the nine APPIC Matches that occurred between 1999 and 2007 is also provided. Implications of the increasing supply-demand imbalance for applicants, graduate and internship programs, and the profession are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Getting in and getting money: A comparative analysis of admission standards, acceptance rates, and financial assistance across the research–practice continuum in clinical psychology programs.

The diversification and proliferation of doctoral programs in clinical psychology call for their periodic comparative analysis to inform prospective applicants, their advisors, and the entire field. The authors surveyed directors of the 232 American Psychological Association (APA)–accredited doctoral programs in clinical psychology (98% response) regarding application numbers, acceptance rates, financial assistance, and credentials of incoming students. Results are summarized for all clinical programs and then separately for 6 types of programs along the practice–research continuum: freestanding PsyD, university professional school PsyD, university department PsyD, practice-oriented PhD, equal-emphasis PhD, and research-oriented PhD. Lower acceptance rates and higher Graduate Record Examination scores were strongly associated with programs oriented toward more research training; for example, research-oriented PhD programs admitted far fewer applicants (7% vs. 50%) than did freestanding PsyD programs. Freestanding PsyD programs awarded significantly less full financial assistance to incoming students (1% vs. 89%) and required 1 less year to complete than did PhD programs. Overall, PhD-level students were more likely to secure an APA or Association of Psychology Postdoctoral and Internship Centers internship than were PsyD students. The authors conclude with observations about the historical changes and heightened differentiation of doctoral training in clinical psychology. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The graduate student viewpoint on internship preparedness: A 2008 council of university directors of clinical psychology student survey.

To better understand the graduate student viewpoint on quality of preparation provided by graduate programs in terms of the internship application process, the current study surveyed students enrolled in member programs of the Council of University Directors of Clinical Psychology (CUDCP). Six hundred seventy-four students completed a questionnaire designed to assess perceptions regarding preparation for the internship application process, relative prioritization of individual application components, and faculty behaviors that contribute to student anxiety related to the application process. Results demonstrated that student subgroups based on internship status (i.e., those who have not yet applied, current applicants, and current interns) significantly differed on many issues related to internship preparation. The findings suggest that graduate programs are not placing enough emphasis on the conveying of internship-related information early in a student's training. Furthermore, the findings highlight training techniques and faculty behaviors that can be adopted by programs to increase preparedness and reduce anxiety among applicants. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Clinical and counseling psychology doctoral trainnees: How students perceive internships.

The authors examined applicants' perceptions of internship site types by specialty affiliation (clinical and counseling psychology). Multidimensional scaling analyses suggest that clinical psychology students focus their attention on internship site prestige, future job opportunities, opportunities for research, degree of client psychopathology and physical illness, and their overall comfort in working with the client population associated with the site type. Counseling students focus on fewer attributes, including site prestige, quality of supervision, degree of client physical illness, and comfort in working with the client population. Specialty affiliation also accounted for systematic differences in internship site preferences. Results are discussed with regard to internship supply-and-demand issues, and implications are offered for student applicants, academic training directors, and internship training directors. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Internship placements: Similarities and differences between clinical and counseling psychology programs.

Internship matches among students within clinical (n = 2,130) and counseling (n = 450) psychology doctoral training programs were examined for a complete cohort of intern applicants. The overall rates of successful internship matching, as well as the rankings of those matches, were similar for the 2 specialties. The settings of those internship matches revealed significant differences, however. Clinical psychology students matched at higher rates to a range of medical facilities, for example, whereas counseling psychology students matched at higher rates to counseling center settings. These and other differences were examined in relation to the historical and enduring differences between the 2 specialties and their implications for education, training, and practice within the field of professional psychology. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of Internships in Psychology: The APAGS Workbook for Writing Successful Applications and Finding the Right Match.

The aim of the text is to help internship applicants navigate the application process "in a careful, systematic manner" in the hopes that they focus less on the cumbersome aspects of the experience and more on finding the "right match" in an internship placement. It was intended to be "practically oriented" in order to provide some "direction, comfort, and a little humor" to the beleaguered student applicant. Throughout this review, the current author would like to underscore her appreciation to the editors and contributors for meeting that goal. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Examining the balance of internship supply and demand: 1999 Association of Psychology Postdoctoral and Internship Centers' match implications.

Over the past several years, students, academic program faculty, and internship training directors have become increasingly concerned about the inequity between the demand for predoctoral internship slots and the limited supply of those placements. This article presents data from the 1999 Association of Psychology Postdoctoral and Internship Centers' (APPIC) Match, along with the results of 2 studies conducted by the authors. Results indicate that the number of internship positions available in the U.S. and Canada may be nearly balanced with the number of first-time internship applicants and that the current imbalance may result, in large part, from a carryover of unplaced applicants from previous selection processes. Furthermore, approximately ? of unmatched applicants are able to find internship positions subsequent to the conclusion of the matching process, although many of these positions are in non-American Psychological Association-accredited and non-APPIC-member programs. Implications of these findings for the profession and for student applicants are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The internship supply and demand issue: Graduate student's perspective.

The increasing gap between the number of internship applicants and the number of students applying for internship is of great concern for psychology graduate students and the American Psychological Association of Graduate Students (APAGS). APAGS sees this concern as multifaceted and has been involved in a variety of efforts to address this imbalance since the early 1990s. This article outlines in greater detail APAGS' view of the internship supply and demand concern, how this problem affects students, and how APAGS has worked to address the issue. It also presents APAGS recommendations for advancing psychology's collective efforts to address this concern. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Full disclosure data on clinical psychology doctorate programs.

The purposes of this article was to examine the rates at which Council of University Directors of Clinical Psychology (CUDCP) doctoral programs provided full disclosure information on their respective Web sites. Additionally, consistency of full disclosure data was examined using internship match rates, and summary statistics are provided for a normative basis. Of 153 programs, at least some data were located for 111 programs. Large discrepancies were found when comparing internship match statistics reported by programs with match statistics listed by Association of Psychology Postdoctoral and Internship Centers (APPIC). The mean profile of a CUDCP program includes about 160 applicants per year, of which the program admits eight new graduate students. These eight new graduate students have a GRE verbal score of 590, a quantitative GRE score of 650, an undergraduate GPA of 3.63, and take 6.5 years to complete their doctoral degree (including internship). These programs reported an average match rate of 93%. Given the Committee on Accreditation's (CoA's) new mandate for reporting program disclosure variables, the article concludes with recommendations for how best to report these data. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Counseling psychology perspectives on the predoctoral internship supply-demand imbalance: Strategies for problem definition and resolution.

The authors discuss the internship supply demand situation from the perspectives of counseling psychology (CP) training programs by incorporating the viewpoints of CP training directors (TDs), garnered through an online survey. Survey results indicated relatively lower match rates for the preceding year (2007), increased stress among students, and TD concerns about decreased emphases on science training. The authors offer strategies regarding the resolution of this difficult situation, including increased mentoring and individualized practicum planning (program level), the development of captive internship sites and slots, particularly in underserved areas (subspecialty level), and data collection and sharing techniques (field level). (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

"Does the model matter? The relationship between science-practice emphasis in clinical psychology programs and the internship match": Correction to Neimeyer, Rice, and Keilin (2007).

Reports an error in "Does the model matter? The relationship between science-practice emphasis in clinical psychology programs and the internship match" by Greg J. Neimeyer, Kenneth G. Rice and W. Gregory Keilin (Training and Education in Professional Psychology, 2007[Aug], Vol 1[3], 153-162). The biography for the third author was incorrect. It should read as follows: GREGORY KEILIN is an Assistant Director at the Counseling and Mental Health Center at the University of Texas at Austin and a former Chair of APPIC. He received his doctorate in Counseling Psychology from Colorado State University. His current research interests include supply and demand issues in professional psychology. (The following abstract of the original article appeared in record 2007-12635-001.) Academic training programs in clinical psychology vary in the emphasis that they place on science and practice, and this paper examines whether these differential emphases are linked to distinctive internship outcomes. In a study of 2,130 internship applicants from clinical psychology programs, differences were noted among practice-oriented programs, balanced science-practice programs, and science-oriented programs. Against a backdrop of some similarities, a differential emphasis on science and practice within academic training programs was related to significantly different internship match rates, as well as to successful matching in qualitatively different internship settings. Results provided qualified support for future work that might further address the relationship between academic training programs and outcomes in the field of clinical psychology. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Does the model matter? The relationship between science-practice emphasis in clinical psychology programs and the internship match.

[Correction Notice: An erratum for this article was reported in Vol 1(4) of Training and Education in Professional Psychology (see record 2007-18975-009). The biography for the third author was incorrect. It should read as follows: GREGORY KEILIN is an Assistant Director at the Counseling and Mental Health Center at the University of Texas at Austin and a former Chair of APPIC. He received his doctorate in Counseling Psychology from Colorado State University. His current research interests include supply and demand issues in professional psychology.] Academic training programs in clinical psychology vary in the emphasis that they place on science and practice, and this paper examines whether these differential emphases are linked to distinctive internship outcomes. In a study of 2,130 internship applicants from clinical psychology programs, differences were noted among practice-oriented programs, balanced science-practice programs, and science-oriented programs. Against a backdrop of some similarities, a differential emphasis on science and practice within academic training programs was related to significantly different internship match rates, as well as to successful matching in qualitatively different internship settings. Results provided qualified support for future work that might further address the relationship between academic training programs and outcomes in the field of clinical psychology. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Applying for the predoctoral internship: Training program strategies to help students prepare.

The predoctoral internship signifies the culmination of applied training in professional psychology. With the increasing supply and demand gap, securing an internship has become competitive and has resulted in many students employing a wide variety of steps in an attempt to ensure a successful internship application. However, little is known about how academic training programs assist students in applying for an internship. The purpose of this study was to describe what activities training programs engage in to prepare their students for the internship application process, and to better understand students' perception of their preparedness to apply as well as to understand their experience applying. The results suggested that training programs prepared students well for general aspects of the process but did not adequately prepare them for the more specific tasks related to the application process. Results also suggested that while the students didn't find the application process confusing or difficult they found it stressful and anxiety provoking. Suggestions for programs to inform and assist their students in preparing for applying are presented as well as recommendations for future research. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The internship supply–demand crisis: Time for a solution is now.

This article reviews the ongoing supply–demand crisis in internship availability and the models that have been proposed as solutions. “Restraint of trade” has been the chief argument used by regulating agencies to dampen solutions aimed at the demand side of the supply–demand crisis. We offer a legal analysis of the restraint of trade argument and offer a solution to the crisis through utilization of the Association of Psychology Postdoctoral and Internship Centers (APPIC) match program, accreditation of programs by the American Psychological Association, and/or development of internship programs by doctoral programs. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The internship supply as a common-pool resource: A pathway to managing the imbalance problem.

The shortfall in internship positions available through the Association of Psychology Postdoctoral and Internship Centers' matching process has left doctoral students in professional psychology in a painful bind: take an internship outside the match, or fail to graduate. The quality of education suffers, as does the quality of the profession as a whole. This crisis has worsened as the years go by, and no effective remedy has been found. A widely celebrated literature on the management of scarce but renewable resources has developed over the past 25 years, and it offers a path toward understanding and solving this problem. This literature points to the need, and helps conceptualize the methods, for the educational community in professional psychology to take greater responsibility for the quality of the internship in particular, and for the quality of our graduates' education and competence more generally. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

A critical analysis of systemic problems with psychology pre-doctoral internship training: Contributing factors and collaborative solutions.

The concern in professional psychology about the growing disparity between the numbers of available internship positions and applicants prompts reevaluation of the contributing factors and potential solutions. The problem is more than the "supply and demand" metaphor implies and involves issues of funding, a disconnect between internship and doctoral programs, and need for innovation in training. Solutions include creation of internship positions, advocacy, and a national conference for changing the infrastructures of training, reimbursement and credentialing in psychology and in other systemic forces. Changes requiring a paradigm shift in psychology training are envisioned in order to address systemic problems. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of Internships in psychology: The APAGS workbook for writing successful applications and finding the right match.

Reviews the book, Internships in psychology: The APAGS workbook for writing successful applications and finding the right match edited by Carol Williams-Nickelson and Mitchell J. Prinstein (see record 2003-06355-000). The purpose of this book is to provide up-and-coming psychology interns with the resources needed to help guide them through the internship application process. Given the daunting and meticulous nature of the application process, this is by no means an easy task. As such, a navigation tool, such as this book, could be very useful for graduate students applying for internship. The book is well written and is presented in an encouraging manner to help ease the stressful nature of the application process. The book is well laid out and should prove useful for burgeoning psychologists applying for internship. Though primarily intended for senior graduate students, the book's contents are relevant to all graduate students who will be applying for internship. As a result, this book would be a valuable addition to the library of any such graduate student in clinical psychology. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Geography and internship match rates: Quantifying competitiveness and discussing implications for the internship imbalance.

In response to the internship supply/demand imbalance, the field of psychology recognized a crisis and proposed solutions. With each passing year, however, graduate students face the real possibility that they may not match. Using four years worth of site match rates, competitiveness is quantified and analyzed with respect to implications for the field, APPIC, internship sites, graduate programs, and prospective interns. Results suggest geographic differences in match rates are less meaningful for applicant strategies than monitoring competitiveness using site match rates and submitting 10 to 15 applications. Discussion includes implications for students and how they may use match rate data to improve their site selection strategies and chances for a successful match. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)