Beginning in the 2017 application year, only students from APA- or Canadian Psychological Association-accredited psychology programs will be eligible to participate in the Match sponsored by the Association of Psychology Postdoctoral and Internship Centers (APPIC). The Match is the primary method by which most psychology students secure internships in North America.
APPIC made the change as an incentive for nonaccredited programs to apply for accreditation. Students in accredited programs can be assured that their training will meet the standards sufficient to prepare them for a career in professional psychology. "Accreditation is the standard for all health-care professions," says APPIC Executive Director Jeff Baker, PhD.
Accreditation is a critical way to ensure quality, adds Catherine Grus, PhD, deputy executive director of APA's Education Directorate. "It's a way to protect students and also to protect the public, since we are training students who will provide services to the public," she says.
Graduating from an accredited program provides other practical benefits, too. The licensing process can be more cumbersome for graduates of nonaccredited programs, and some employers — including the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, the single largest employer of psychologists in the country — only consider job candidates who attended accredited programs and completed accredited internships, says Nabil El-Ghoroury, PhD, APAGS associate executive director.
The change underscores the need for students in nonaccredited doctoral programs to think about how that will affect their career options. APPIC estimates that of the roughly 4,000 students who apply for the Match each year, approximately 300 to 500 students come from nonaccredited doctoral programs.
If you are one of those students, it's not too late to urge your institution to seek accreditation. APPIC may allow students from nonaccredited programs to participate in the Match if their programs have completed the initial steps to earn accreditation, contingent on a review by APPIC's Doctoral Program Association Committee.
"This is your chance to push your program to get accredited," El-Ghoroury says.
Meanwhile, he says, students in nonaccredited programs also should be talking to their program directors about alternative internship options if they cannot participate in the Match. "Find out how they will support you in finding internships in order to complete your degree," he says.
APPIC is also working to ensure that only high-quality internships are offered in the Match. Currently, most but not all of the internship positions included in the Match are accredited by APA or CPA. In 2015, 80 percent of Match internships were accredited, up 16 percent from 2012. Baker says some internship programs don't apply for accreditation because there's so much demand for the positions that internship programs don't need to invest the time and expense of getting accredited to fill vacant slots.
But APA and APPIC are trying to change that. Over the last four years, APA awarded funding to more than 100 internship programs to help them achieve accreditation through the Grants for Internship Program, which is scheduled to end in 2016. Similarly, APPIC and the Western Interstate Commission on Higher Education (WICHE) developed a program known as the Accreditation Assistance Project. In 2015, the program assisted 25 internship programs seeking accreditation. The association is considering the possibility of continuing the program for 2016. The goal, Baker says, is that eventually all internships in the Match will be accredited.
Baker is hopeful that the change will encourage nonaccredited institutions and internship programs to seek the official seal of approval, a move that will benefit both their students and the field of psychology. "Programs have to know that the writing is on the wall, and now is a good time to move forward," he says.