With internship application season approaching — and grad student anxiety levels rising the closer it comes — it's tempting to want to use every Match resource you can. But think carefully before signing up for anything, internship experts caution.
According to the Association of Psychology Postdoctoral and Internship Centers (APPIC), a growing number of services promise to increase your odds of matching, sometimes for fees as high as $100 an hour. Depending on the amount of help you need, it can be a hefty investment that may not be worth the price. Instead, there are many tried-and-true inexpensive and free resources to help you plan and prepare for the application, the essay, the interview, and perhaps hardest of all, the waiting.
If you are determined to use an internship Match consultant, be sure to be a discriminating consumer and evaluate them closely. Just as APAGS wants students to know what kind of graduate program they're getting into, says Eddy Ameen, PhD, APAGS assistant director, they should also be savvy in choosing an internship placement service.
Questions
He recommends asking yourself and the potential consultant key questions before you sign up.
First, ask yourself:
- What areas do you really need help with?
- What services do you not need?
- Can you really afford it?
- Will there be a refund if you don't match?
- Can you speak to people who have used the service?
- What is the service's success rate, ideally broken down by degree type, site accreditation status, and are the matches good fits or less than ideal ones?
Pros and cons
Also weigh all the pros and cons of not using a service. "Look at what's available through your home program and through APAGS," says Greg Keilin, PhD, APPIC Match coordinator. "There are plenty of free resources out there. Students are often successful with these without having to pay $100 an hour."
To start, ask the director of training at your school, who is "always the best person to advise you," says Nabil El-Ghoroury, PhD, APAGS associate executive director. "He or she really knows the process best, the specifics of your program, and the sites to which students from your program have matched."
Then, talk to recent grads, says El-Ghoroury. Ask them about which sites offered them interviews and which didn't and about the specific questions they were asked in the interview. You may also want to seek the advice of internship directors who are relatively recent grads themselves, since they'll be able to offer advice from both an applicant's and director's perspective.
When it comes to your application essay, instead of hiring help, tap your colleagues and mentors for critiques. "I always [tell] students [to] have four people read your essay," says Jason Williams, PsyD, chair of the APPIC Board of Directors. "One who's known you and your graduate program all along; one who's a peer; one who's a professor; and someone that has no idea what psychology is about."
Having that unfamiliar-with-psychology someone is particularly important because, Williams says, that person can often look at it and say, "This part doesn't make sense." "They can pick up on things that you may miss completely," he says.
Prepping for interviews can be handled in a similar way. Keilin strongly suggests doing mock interviews — and doing enough of them that you feel totally comfortable with how you present yourself and all the questions that might be thrown at you.
"A lot of students get tripped up on the interviews," says Keilin. "I think the blind spot has been that there's this assumption that if you are a grad student who's a terrific student, teacher, clinician, then you assume that you're going to interview well. That's not always the case."
Your doctoral program may also help prep students for internship interviews. If they don't, then reach out to the administration and ask that the interview portion of the preparation be stepped up.
Resources
Students should also consider these low- or no-cost resources to beef up their internship applications:
- Read up on APAGS's advice. APAGS offers internship application advice and an email Listserv on internships (instructions included).
- The APAGS workbook, "Internships in Psychology: The APAGS Workbook for Writing Successful Applications and Finding the Right Fit," has been a mainstay of the application process for years, and has had multiple editions. The book is $27.95; $22.95 for members.
- Find internship-related posts on the APAGS blog.
- APPIC's websiteopens in new window has multiple resources.
- The National Matching Services websiteopens in new window has an extensive FAQs section: Questions largely pertain to the nuts and bolts of the Match, for example, "Can I make changes or additions to a Rank Order List?" and "If I have previously withdrawn a program, how can I reinstate the program in the Match?"
- It's always a good idea to find or form a support group among your peers. You can read each other's essays, do mock interviews, and give each other psychological support throughout the process.
The bottom line is that there are a lot of free and low-cost resources out there. Reach out to as many people as you can.
"There are so many nuances," says Williams. "The APAGS workbook is a good starting place [but don't forget] to reach out to faculty for more detailed help. We know it's a stressful time. If there's anything APPIC can do to help, we're happy to do it."
And once you're done with the process yourself, keep the ball rolling by staying in touch with less senior students and sharing your experience with them.
"Don't forget to pay it forward by sharing what you learn with future students," adds El-Ghoroury. "It will make their internship search that much easier."