First Round 100% Match Sends Psy.D. Students to APA Sites
Regent University’s Psychology Doctoral (Psy. D.) students looking to land an internship at an American Psychological Association (APA) site received good news Friday, February 17. The Association of Psychology Postdoctoral and Internship Centers’ (APPIC) Internship Matching Program released its first round of placements, during which all 16 Regent students were assigned to either their first or second-choice training sites to serve a year practicing clinical psychology in the field. This is a first for Regent’s School of Psychology & Counseling (SPC), and what experts consider to be a significant accomplishment for any Psy.D. program.
“This accomplishment is evidence of the quality of students and the Doctor of Psychology (Psy.D.) program we have at Regent,” said Dr. William Hathaway, SPC dean. “The students matched to accredited internships at a rate well above the national average for all types of doctoral psychology programs, surpassing the national average for even the highly competitive Ph.D. programs.”
These internships will send Regent students to areas all over the United States for a year of clinical psychology internship experience. Some matches included institutions close to Regent like Eastern Virginia Medical School, and across the country like Colorado Mental Health Institute at Fort Logan, the Federal Bureau of Prisons in Tallahassee, Florida, and Casa Pacifica in Camarillo, California.
The APPIC Internship Matching Program is administered by National Matching Services Inc. which matches students in all sorts of doctoral programs in universities throughout the United States. While Regent is accustomed to having 100 percent of its students match for an internship, this is the first time a 100 percent match has been made on the first round. The APPIC conducts two additional matching rounds. Students applied to several sites and were offered multiple interviews before Friday’s first-round match.