Doctoral Internships in Professional Psychology

Internship year is a particularly exciting, yet daunting time in a doctoral student’s training. It is typically the capstone clinical experience of a doctoral student’s graduate program and serves a gatekeeper function into the profession. In an effort to help demystify the internship process APAGS has compiled a host of resources aimed at aiding students in their internship preparation, selection, application, interview and matching processes. In addition, APAGS is aware that the large imbalance between applicants seeking an internship and the number of positions available has tremendous personal and professional impact on our members. We have thus provided a list of actions and policies that we are working on as a matter of utmost importance to address this internship crisis.

• APAGS produced a video on the internship crisis as well as a number of advocacy, awareness and action steps that students and psychologists alike can take to end the crisis.
• APAGS formed an Internship Working Group in November 2011 to analyze and promote solutions to the internship crisis. In July 2012, APAGS released a policy and expanded response to explain how it will continue to advocate on multiple fronts for graduate students.
• APAGS remains concerned about the internship crisis following the latest internship match. APAGS released this letter to graduate students in 2014 as well as this blog post from the APAGS chair in 2015.
• APAGS has compiled some of its actions since 2000 to mitigate this problem, and further describes its latest actions in a 2014 journal article.

Before the Match

• Webisodes from the authors of "Internships in Psychology: The APAGS Workbook for Writing Successful Applications and Finding the Right Fit" will help you learn some very important tips on the application process.
• We discuss how to rank sites on our blog.

Match Day and Beyond

• Association of Psychology Postdoctoral and Internship Centers (APPIC) Phase II of the Match.
• You've matched! Now what?  — gradPSYCH article
• Moving on  — What happens after not matching — gradPSYCH article
• The bonus year: Thriving when you did not match – blog post

• APAGS members were instrumental in voicing support for the August 2012 approval of an internship stimulus package. Learn more and apply online for grants for internship funding.
• Other funding for internship development and maintenance is also available.