Do PsyD Grades Matter for Internship?

[FirstYearPsyD]

I'm a first year PsyD student trying to get the lay of the land regarding grades. I keep hearing from countless faculty members and alumni that "grades don't matter" in grad school, but I have also heard they are part of the "point system" for APA internship applications.

My goal is to obtain an APA internship, so how much will my grades matter? All I can find on here is comparisons, so I understand grades don't count anywhere as much as the clinical experience I gain through practicums and additional clinical experiences, but how much do they matter?

Obviously I don't plan on letting myself fail any classes, but if I get a B instead of an A average, (how) does that hurt my chances of securing an internship? In other words, if I secured all the other things on the internship application (great clinical hours/placements, essays, and recommendations...), would having an A rather than a B average help me or can I really trust that grades don't matter as long as they're in the A or B range?

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[pediatric_psydoc]

I am a PsyD student about to start an APA accredited internship in the summer. My GPA is 3.94.

I will speak bluntly. You should want to obtain the highest grades possible. You are just starting a doctoral program, and your goal should be to do as well as possible. I am not an internship training director (maybe you will get a response from one of them), so I cannot attest to how they think. However, it is my view that grades have a cascading effect as far as internship goes. For example, if you do well in your classes, you are more likely to get practica at impressive places (e.g., hospitals, VA's, inpatient psychiatric hospitals). With a CV full of impressive practica, you are more likely to obtain a good internship. In addition, you get good grades, and likely understand the concepts presented in class, you are more likely to pass comps and be able to apply to internship. You get good grades, faculty are impressed by you and you get good letters of recommendation for internship. Good grades are the starting point to things that lead you to be more likely to obtain a good internship.

If you look at the data APPIC publishes, you will see that PsyD students obtain less APA accredited internships than PhD students. So honestly, speaking as a PsyD student, you will want to stand out on paper so you get good interviews.

I also suggest you seek out research experiences. I was able to get research experiences (6 publications, and 3 of which I am first author) because I got a good practicum at a site that did a lot of research, made connections, and got more responsibility through that. I honestly think it was because of my good grades that I even got placed there; it was my first clinical experience ever. I hope this info helps you and demonstrates my point.


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[singasongofjoy]

Maybe it depends on other factors, but at my program (which was a PhD, not PsyD, if that matters in how you perceive my answer) I can tell you that in my cohort, those that had solid B averages got as many interviews and, at least in my lab, interviewed at a lot of the same reputable programs as the 4.0 students. At a certain point, if you are maxing out your functional waking hours and you can either put 5 hrs week to an A in a particular class versus putting that 5 hours towards a good publication or upping the ante at your practicum, the latter is likely to bring you a higher yield. If you've got the time to make As, great. Do it. If you honestly don't have the hours to spare without something else (e.g., clinical work) suffering noticeably, then be comfortable with a B. Sometimes you honestly have to make those kinds of choices. If it comes down to that, the classes almost always matter less (provided you still get a B). That being said, the classes seemed to get easier the further along I got in the program; probably not true everywhere but fortunately for me the hardest classes were first year when there was the least amount of clinical work.

 

[FirstYearPsyD]

I am a PsyD student about to start an APA accredited internship in the summer. My GPA is 3.94.

I will speak bluntly. You should want to obtain the highest grades possible. You are just starting a doctoral program, and your goal should be to do as well as possible. I am not an internship training director (maybe you will get a response from one of them), so I cannot attest to how they think. However, it is my view that grades have a cascading effect as far as internship goes. For example, if you do well in your classes, you are more likely to get practica at impressive places (e.g., hospitals, VA's, inpatient psychiatric hospitals). With a CV full of impressive practica, you are more likely to obtain a good internship. In addition, you get good grades, and likely understand the concepts presented in class, you are more likely to pass comps and be able to apply to internship. You get good grades, faculty are impressed by you and you get good letters of recommendation for internship. Good grades are the starting point to things that lead you to be more likely to obtain a good internship.

If you look at the data APPIC publishes, you will see that PsyD students obtain less APA accredited internships than PhD students. So honestly, speaking as a PsyD student, you will want to stand out on paper so you get good interviews.

I also suggest you seek out research experiences. I was able to get research experiences (6 publications, and 3 of which I am first author) because I got a good practicum at a site that did a lot of research, made connections, and got more responsibility through that. I honestly think it was because of my good grades that I even got placed there; it was my first clinical experience ever. I hope this info helps you and demonstrates my point.


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Thank you SO much for your frank, thorough response, Sabine. I really appreciate it.

I have a similar GPA so far, but it is frustrating to put so much time and effort into acheiving straight A's and continuously hear that "grades don't matter" or "there's no difference between an A and a B anymore". I have a number of publications (also 3 first author) under my belt as I took time off before beginning grad school and worked as a research assistant, so I'll keep working hard at that and get a few more before internship application time. I'm really just wondering how much grades matter, because the advice I have received so far tells me everything else on the app matters more but that doesn't really indicate how important the GPA itself is.

Also, I attend a Christian grad school, so we have to take a handful of theology courses too. These DO contribute to my overall GPA, but I don't plan to apply to strictly christian internship sites, so do you think GPA matters or were you suggesting specific (psychology) course grades are what they will look at?

Thank you again for your advice!

 

[FirstYearPsyD]

Maybe it depends on other factors, but at my program (which was a PhD, not PsyD, if that matters in how you perceive my answer) I can tell you that in my cohort, those that had solid B averages got as many interviews and, at least in my lab, interviewed at a lot of the same reputable programs as the 4.0 students. At a certain point, if you are maxing out your functional waking hours and you can either put 5 hrs week to an A in a particular class versus putting that 5 hours towards a good publication or upping the ante at your practicum, the latter is likely to bring you a higher yield. If you've got the time to make As, great. Do it. If you honestly don't have the hours to spare without something else (e.g., clinical work) suffering noticeably, then be comfortable with a B. Sometimes you honestly have to make those kinds of choices. If it comes down to that, the classes almost always matter less (provided you still get a B). That being said, the classes seemed to get easier the further along I got in the program; probably not true everywhere but fortunately for me the hardest classes were first year when there was the least amount of clinical work.

You have no idea how much hearing that the classes may get somewhat easier means to me, that's great news because I only have two clients now in year one and I can't imagine keeping up straight A's with 10 next year. I also want to make sure I don't give up all semblance of a life this year (when I do not even have the option of taking more clients on until September) if it does not make a difference for internships whether I get straight A's or the occasional B+... Thank you, thank you for your advice!

 

[pediatric_psydoc]

Thank you SO much for your frank, thorough response, Sabine. I really appreciate it.

I have a similar GPA so far, but it is frustrating to put so much time and effort into acheiving straight A's and continuously hear that "grades don't matter" or "there's no difference between an A and a B anymore". I have a number of publications (also 3 first author) under my belt as I took time off before beginning grad school and worked as a research assistant, so I'll keep working hard at that and get a few more before internship application time. I'm really just wondering how much grades matter, because the advice I have received so far tells me everything else on the app matters more but that doesn't really indicate how important the GPA itself is.

Also, I attend a Christian grad school, so we have to take a handful of theology courses too. These DO contribute to my overall GPA, but I don't plan to apply to strictly christian internship sites, so do you think GPA matters or were you suggesting specific (psychology) course grades are what they will look at?

Thank you again for your advice!

I can't tell you for sure how much the internship sites look directly at grades; just that in my experience the good grades led to opportunities, and those opportunities directly impacted the type of internship sites at which I interviewed (IMO). That being said, I don't think secular internship sites will pay much attention to the theology course grades. But that is assuming they look beyond the overall GPA and actually look at the individual classes on the transcript. Hopefully a DOT will see your post and will weigh in on that.

Do you know what types of internship sites you'll consider applying to?

I do have to commend you for planning ahead. It is excellent that you're thinking about internship so early on and asking others for information.


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[voyeurofthemind]

I have reviewed internship applications. At my site they were a part of the consideration but not as heavily weighted. That being said you should shoot for mostly A's but there are many other factors that would override that portion as a piece of data for selection (i.e., number of publications, scope and depth of practicum training experiences, fit with the program). All things being equal however if one applicant had straight A's and the other straight B's, I would think that candidate with a higher GPA would be selected. An occasional B is fine.

 

[PsychPhDone]

I was directly told to de-prioritize coursework. Ended up with a 3.8something. However, I was in a clinical science PhD program. Straight-As meant you could be doing more research.

 

[MCParent]

I am a PsyD student about to start an APA accredited internship in the summer. My GPA is 3.94.

I will speak bluntly. You should want to obtain the highest grades possible. You are just starting a doctoral program, and your goal should be to do as well as possible. I am not an internship training director (maybe you will get a response from one of them), so I cannot attest to how they think. However, it is my view that grades have a cascading effect as far as internship goes. For example, if you do well in your classes, you are more likely to get practica at impressive places (e.g., hospitals, VA's, inpatient psychiatric hospitals). With a CV full of impressive practica, you are more likely to obtain a good internship. In addition, you get good grades, and likely understand the concepts presented in class, you are more likely to pass comps and be able to apply to internship. You get good grades, faculty are impressed by you and you get good letters of recommendation for internship. Good grades are the starting point to things that lead you to be more likely to obtain a good internship.

If you look at the data APPIC publishes, you will see that PsyD students obtain less APA accredited internships than PhD students. So honestly, speaking as a PsyD student, you will want to stand out on paper so you get good interviews.

I also suggest you seek out research experiences. I was able to get research experiences (6 publications, and 3 of which I am first author) because I got a good practicum at a site that did a lot of research, made connections, and got more responsibility through that. I honestly think it was because of my good grades that I even got placed there; it was my first clinical experience ever. I hope this info helps you and demonstrates my point.


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I completely disagree. You don't want to fail anything, and you do want to do well in classes that are especially relevant to your internship goals (e.g., assessment for an assessment-heavy internship). But if the difference between a B and an A is ten hours of studying a week, take the B and go do research.

 

[NeuroLady]

I completely disagree. You don't want to fail anything, and you do want to do well in classes that are especially relevant to your internship goals (e.g., assessment for an assessment-heavy internship). But if the difference between a B and an A is ten hours of studying a week, take the B and go do research.

agreed.

 

[AcronymAllergy]

To an extent, grades will matter. If you get all or nearly all B's, particularly if you don't also have significant research experience to essentially explain why, it's likely to look bad. But if you get a few B's here and there, it's not likely to matter.

 

[Justanothergrad]

Think about your testing theories coursework. One reason people don't care about grades as much is because of the variability. You have a group of people who all are high achievers and you have a limited scale (basically, a binary metric 1-0 because a C is failing). The smaller the scoring range, the less the variability. The less the variability in a scale, the more difficult it is to determine significant differences when testing. What percentage of people make all A's? What percentage make all A's except for 1 B? etc. Its a skewed distribution and because of that trying to interpret what it might mean is difficult if not impossible. You only see grades start to matter when someone falls on the left (most/all B) side of the distribution and that is because it is so rare. Thus, no one cares about a few Bs. Beyond that, schools and instructors grade differently. I've been part of competitive grading courses (half make As/half make Bs), had friends take courses from other areas of psychology who will not give applied fields an A (and they are very open about this on day 1), and known of instructors who say blatantly "I'm giving you an A for the course because grades dont matter, but I expect you to do your work" on day one. Reading too much into an A or a B doesn't demonstrate the situation in any of those cases.

Then add in all the other outcome factors. Other things are more predictive. If you want a research career, your publication record will be a better marker of future research performance than your grades in classes. If you want a clinical career, having worked with specific populations or done extensive training and being highly competent in various treatments will be more indicative of your capacity in that line of work.Like MCParent said, spend time researching or building and implementing the skills you learned. That's what gets you jobs and future opportunities.

 

[Therapist4Chnge]

Get more A's than B's, which yields a 3.5 or higher. The rest of the time should be spent on research, practica, and some teaching.

 

[WisNeuro]

A quick summarization. Grad GPAs only matter if they suck. It's heavily skewed towards the top, so only people at the bottom (mostly B's) are noticeable.

 

[smalltownpsych]

I am not sure what my GPA was for grad school, about 3.85 maybe. Everyone in the cohort was getting mostly A's with a B here and there for various reasons. If they weren't, that was indicative of a problem. We tend to be the straight A types of students so those B's can be tough to handle. This was also at a PsyD program so our research productivity was likely lower than the PhD programs. If I was evaluating this, when someone was closer to 3.5 which would be half and half, that would be when I would take a closer look.

 

[Sanman]

A quick summarization. Grad GPAs only matter if they suck. It's heavily skewed towards the top, so only people at the bottom (mostly B's) are noticeable.

This...grades in grad school are a highly skewed distribution to the point where they really matter unless you are an outlier in the distribution. Anecdotal point, in my cohort, I graduated with the lowest GPA of the group (N=9). However, my gpa was somewhere between 3.75-3.8 (who remembers anymore). Hence, grades played little role in deciding between myself and a 4.0 and other factors mattered more. Apply with a 3.0 and it may well be what knocks you out of contention. Stay the in the dense region of the scatter plot and no one cares.

 

[Therapist4Chnge]

I had one internship tell me that I should have spent more time doing research bc no one cares about grades. I don't recall my GPA...3.8ish?

Just have a 3.5 or better and no one should care....class material was less than half of what I actually learned in training.

 

[FirstYearPsyD]

I can't tell you for sure how much the internship sites look directly at grades; just that in my experience the good grades led to opportunities, and those opportunities directly impacted the type of internship sites at which I interviewed (IMO). That being said, I don't think secular internship sites will pay much attention to the theology course grades. But that is assuming they look beyond the overall GPA and actually look at the individual classes on the transcript. Hopefully a DOT will see your post and will weigh in on that.

Do you know what types of internship sites you'll consider applying to?

I do have to commend you for planning ahead. It is excellent that you're thinking about internship so early on and asking others for information.


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Do you know what types of internship sites you'll consider applying to?

I'm not sure what type of sites I'll be considering yet, because I haven't picked an area of specialization. I want to have a private practice and I'd like to work in conjunction with a hospital (I'd love to assess patients in the E.R. or help run a psychological department (be on the board, etc.), so getting experience as a supervisor and maybe expanding on my clinical experience in hospital settings are goals during practicums) but those are all vague goals at this stage! I just know I want to work with adults (high school age at youngest, as I'm interested in identity formation) but definitely not exclusively children/families.

Any advice you have is so appreciated - it's such early days that the more guidance I get now the more I know which practicum sites and ACE's to look for along the way. My practicum will be at a college counseling center next year that sees college and graduate students and locals from the community so I'll get a lot of hours and great supervision, but I have no idea what to look for as a clerkship in assessment next year!

 

[FirstYearPsyD]

I have reviewed internship applications. At my site they were a part of the consideration but not as heavily weighted. That being said you should shoot for mostly A's but there are many other factors that would override that portion as a piece of data for selection (i.e., number of publications, scope and depth of practicum training experiences, fit with the program). All things being equal however if one applicant had straight A's and the other straight B's, I would think that candidate with a higher GPA would be selected. An occasional B is fine.

Thank you for this information, that's great to know. How much do interviews weigh into the process, in relation to clinical hours and sites, research, essays, and grades?

Also, when you say "depth of practicum training expereinces" - should I prioritize having varied sites or crafting a narrative that clearly points towards the internship site I hope to be placed in (which is hard, since I don't have one in mind yet).

 

[FirstYearPsyD]

I was directly told to de-prioritize coursework. Ended up with a 3.8something. However, I was in a clinical science PhD program. Straight-As meant you could be doing more research.

I have heard that too, even that straight-A's means a student wasn't practicing enough self-care... It's just hard to know what to do for this and next quarter, since I can either put all my time into getting straight A-s or have a life/even travel a bit in the summer since this is the last year I will ever only have 2 clients.

 

[FirstYearPsyD]

I completely disagree. You don't want to fail anything, and you do want to do well in classes that are especially relevant to your internship goals (e.g., assessment for an assessment-heavy internship). But if the difference between a B and an A is ten hours of studying a week, take the B and go do research.

Thank you for this information. Does this mean that I should massively under-prioritize my theology course grades? (My grad school is Christian so we are required to take a handful of theology courses - I plan to take mine online this summer - but my ultimate goal is not to obtain a Christian internship placement, so am I correct to say internship sites I apply to won't care if my grades in these religion classes are B's, or will they just look at my overall GPA...which these classes contribute to?)

 

[FirstYearPsyD]

To an extent, grades will matter. If you get all or nearly all B's, particularly if you don't also have significant research experience to essentially explain why, it's likely to look bad. But if you get a few B's here and there, it's not likely to matter.

Okay, so if I get B's in the theology courses my school requires but mainly A's in all my psych courses and do not intend to apply to Christian internship sites then that will likely not count against me? As in, do internship sites actually look at my individual grades or just my overall GPA, period?

 

[FirstYearPsyD]

If you want a clinical career, having worked with specific populations or done extensive training

Thank you for this helpful post! I definitely want a clinical career (certainly including a private practice), so are there any specific populations you recommend I work with, since I do not have a desired area of specialization in mind yet? All I have narrowed out so far is I do not want to work exclsively with children, families, or in community mental health.

 

[erg923]

Okay, so if I get B's in the theology courses my school requires but mainly A's in all my psych courses and do not intend to apply to Christian internship sites then that will likely not count against me? As in, do internship sites actually look at my individual grades or just my overall GPA, period?

Internship training director here (VA):

Not really. We generally don't have time. **** happens. It should NOT be a pattern though.

Your GPA in a doctoral program should definitely not be below 3.5 given that typically occurs. Failing and or retake of a class might be noticed. Failing a practicum would be noticeable.

Earning a "B" in a statistics class (or really any class) in your 1st or 2nd year would not be notable, for example.

 

[Justanothergrad]

Thank you for this helpful post! I definitely want a clinical career (certainly including a private practice), so are there any specific populations you recommend I work with, since I do not have a desired area of specialization in mind yet? All I have narrowed out so far is I do not want to work exclsively with children, families, or in community mental health.

If you can do something and choose not to, thats a choice. If you can't do something, thats ignorance. Test the waters for everything. It all offers you material which can be applied, with a bit of thoughtfulness. I'm a fan of generalist training models.

I had one internship tell me that I should have spent more time doing research bc no one cares about grades. I don't recall my GPA...3.8ish?

Just have a 3.5 or better and no one should care....class material was less than half of what I actually learned in training.

Yup. I don't remember the last time I even looked at my GPA after the semester ended. It was usually just when I was doing my annual reviews that I had to record it.

 

[FirstYearPsyD]

While I'm asking about the importance of various factors, will agreeing to be a TA look good on my application? I've heard both extremes of it being a total waste of time and that it will look bad if I don't have that on there so I'd love your advice.


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[smalltownpsych]

While I'm asking about the importance of various factors, will agreeing to be a TA look good on my application? I've heard both extremes of it being a total waste of time and that it will look bad if I don't have that on there so I'd love your advice.


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I was a TA and it made me extra money which was nice and gave me some extra practice in the subject matter as it was cognitive assessment, but probably not a big deal since many students TA.

 

[AcronymAllergy]

While I'm asking about the importance of various factors, will agreeing to be a TA look good on my application? I've heard both extremes of it being a total waste of time and that it will look bad if I don't have that on there so I'd love your advice.


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Unlikely to significantly help or hurt your application. If you plan to do any teaching after graduating, it's certainly worthwhile, as would be leading your own class(es). If not, like smalltown said, the extra money is nice.

 

[Justanothergrad]

Yup. I don't recall even looking at classes taught by applicants during internship review.

 

[Ollie123]

While I'm asking about the importance of various factors, will agreeing to be a TA look good on my application? I've heard both extremes of it being a total waste of time and that it will look bad if I don't have that on there so I'd love your advice.

TAing isn't really a big deal either way, unless you are looking at academic jobs. I taught a clinical course (Behavior Modification), so that gave me something to talk about at more behaviorally oriented sites, but I would be shocked if it made more than a micron of difference in anything.

Really, I think people get too bogged down in the details on these things. The reason people say GPA doesn't matter isn't because the magic formula is to have "X" of "Y" other thing. There are probably a dozen sites around the country that will seriously scrutinize your publication record and given you are in a PsyD program, I'm guessing you wouldn't be applying there anyways. Internships want engaged graduate students who demonstrate a trajectory towards becoming a busy, successful professional. So yes, get good grades, teach, excel at practicum, publish, serve on committees and do other things too. But its not like teaching 2 classes with 5 publications is better than 1 class with 6 publications. The further along you get, the more it becomes about the "gestalt" of the person and less about the specifics. If I'm hiring a sophomore undergrad as a research assistant, I'll look at their GPA because there really isn't going to be much else to differentiate them at that stage in their career. By the end of graduate school, you need to have a lot more to offer.

 

[Fan_of_Meehl]

I am a PsyD student about to start an APA accredited internship in the summer. My GPA is 3.94.

I will speak bluntly. You should want to obtain the highest grades possible. You are just starting a doctoral program, and your goal should be to do as well as possible. I am not an internship training director (maybe you will get a response from one of them), so I cannot attest to how they think. However, it is my view that grades have a cascading effect as far as internship goes. For example, if you do well in your classes, you are more likely to get practica at impressive places (e.g., hospitals, VA's, inpatient psychiatric hospitals). With a CV full of impressive practica, you are more likely to obtain a good internship. In addition, you get good grades, and likely understand the concepts presented in class, you are more likely to pass comps and be able to apply to internship. You get good grades, faculty are impressed by you and you get good letters of recommendation for internship. Good grades are the starting point to things that lead you to be more likely to obtain a good internship.

If you look at the data APPIC publishes, you will see that PsyD students obtain less APA accredited internships than PhD students. So honestly, speaking as a PsyD student, you will want to stand out on paper so you get good interviews.

I also suggest you seek out research experiences. I was able to get research experiences (6 publications, and 3 of which I am first author) because I got a good practicum at a site that did a lot of research, made connections, and got more responsibility through that. I honestly think it was because of my good grades that I even got placed there; it was my first clinical experience ever. I hope this info helps you and demonstrates my point.


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I think one needs to make a distinction between the goal (as a graduate student) of (a) actually mastering the material and achieving as broad and deep a knowledge regarding the subject area as possible vs. (b) devoting all of your resources, time, and energy to get an "A" in every course so you can end up with a 4.0 at the end of it all (but less actual knowledge/mastery of the subject area, because you were 'chasing grades' rather than 'chasing mastery.')

I am going to argue that a student who 'chases mastery' of the material (and who ends up with a transcript full of a mixture of A's and B's (but still a respectable 3.75, say) might be better off in the long term compared with a student who 'chases grades' (and who ends up with a transcript of 'all A's' for a perfect 4.0, but who didn't sample the literature outside of the prescribed coursework and actually try to master the domain of study (vs. expending all of their effort toward trying to get an "A" in that instructor's course, at all costs).

It's anecdotal, but I remember having a conversation about this with a fellow grad student when I was in training and we had opposite opinions on it. He was all about 'chasing grades' (and ended up with a 'perfect 4.0') by strategically focusing on the particular language/slant of the instructor in their lectures (and 'regurgitating' this back to them, say on essay responses in an exam context) which he was able to do because he took detailed notes during their lectures and studied these notes over and over again for the purpose of 'getting a 4.0' in the course. I would argue that, by doing this, he was sort of 'wasting' time/energy that could have been devoted to reading additional (even non-required) sources of information on the same topic, thus broadening his ACTUAL knowledge/expertise beyond that of the particular slant that was being presented by that particular instructor (and, thus, being more likely to impress future instructors/interviewers/colleagues due to his superior actual knowledge of the material).

There's also the issue of grade inflation that appears rampant at the undergrad level and is probably also seeping into the graduate level of education as well. And a 4.0 at one program of inferior quality may be equivalent to a 3.4 at a higher-quality program...those people interviewing you in a post-graduate context are some pretty sharp cats and will be more impressed by your ability to answer their questions meaningfully, articulately, and with depth than they will with your pointing to your transcript ('but, but...I achieved a 4.0 at XYZ University...therefore, I know all I need to know about X topic").

 

[MCParent]

I'll also add that, even if you are the kind of person for whom Bs are really aversive and you feel like you really really need and "A", the idea that would should "do as well as possible" is especially risky for being a hindrance if you are viewing it at the micro level. By that I mean obsessing over getting "only" a 90 instead of a 100 in a class where a 90 makes an A. There's literally no difference between a 90 and a 100 at that point, but some people obsess over it. Similarly, in grad school I knew a grad student who wanted to "do super super well and really rock" her quals. Complete waste of time.

had friends take courses from other areas of psychology who will not give applied fields an A (and they are very open about this on day 1)

Personally, if I heard this as a grad student, I'd draw a line on that one and probably make an official complaint to the chair and dean. That is nonsense and bad pedagogy. Probably not the best fight-choosing, really, but things like that really tick me off.

 

[Justanothergrad]

Personally, if I heard this as a grad student, I'd draw a line on that one and probably make an official complaint to the chair and dean. That is nonsense nonsense and bad pedagogy. Probably not the best fight-choosing, really, but things like that really tick me off.

When I wrote that I had blanked out entirely that I had a professor (major R1, full prof. in non-applied field) was the closer he got to retirement the more blatantly disrespectful he got of applied fields and just in general. He would mock applied fields as "not real psychology", etc. The final semester before he left he would make all sorts of insensitive remarks ("your paper should be the length of a woman's skirt- long enough to cover the topic but short enough to keep me interested", direct quote.. and that was all the direction of the paper). Everyone knew about it. People had complained, but he was on his way out and they didn't want to stir up anything so it got white washed. Horrible handling all around. I can't even remember the more insensitive stuff he said.

 

[Fan_of_Meehl]

When I wrote that I had blanked out entirely that I had a professor (major R1, full prof. in non-applied field) was the closer he got to retirement the more blatantly disrespectful he got of applied fields and just in general. He would mock applied fields as "not real psychology", etc. The final semester before he left he would make all sorts of insensitive remarks ("your paper should be the length of a woman's skirt- long enough to cover the topic but short enough to keep me interested", direct quote.. and that was all the direction of the paper). Everyone knew about it. People had complained, but he was on his way out and they didn't want to stir up anything so it got white washed. Horrible handling all around. I can't even remember the more insensitive stuff he said.

Agreed. But, it cuts both ways. Had a female supervisor who in group supervision said (in relation to a male patient getting a DUI), "Well...testosterone *is* the root of all evil." LOL...good times.

 

[ClinicalABA]

Back when I was on faculty at an APA internship, we weighted applicants on the following factors, in order of importance:

1. Worked with a training mentor who sent us successful interns in the past, with a good rec from that mentor. Chances are that mentor has already introduced you to us (e.g. At a conference)

2. Similar clinical work with similar population as internship major rotation (with supporting recommendations), with some experience (or assurance from a known/trusted mentor that you'd be able to at least get by) with the work of a minor rotation. (We had a major/minor system, where'd you'd spend the whole year in two placements- major 3 days per week, minor 2 days per week. Some rotations were very different- such as elementary school consult and adult outpatient. If you could do both, that made our job MUCH easier, thus your chances much better)

3. Research, pubs/presentations in a related clinical field and/or with a related population

-at this point, we generally had plenty of applicants, with no need to look at additional factors-

4. Similar clinical work with different population

5. Different clinical work with similar population

6. Maybe grades? If you came from even a mid tier university based program, we generally trusted that your TD and mentor allowing you to apply meant you were in good enough academic standing. I don't remember ever having to consider GPA.

7. Stupid things that have nothing to do with your ability to be a successful interns, but that, nevertheless, a faculty couldn't move past (e.g., appearance or behavior at interview)