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Phase II

Frequently Asked Questions:
Internship Training Directors - Participating in Phase II of the Match

Updated July 18, 2023

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Participating in Phase II of the Match

  1. What is Phase II all about and why does it exist?
  2. When does Phase II of the Match begin?
  3. Which programs, positions and applicants participate in Phase II?
  4. What is the timeline for Phase II?
  5. How will applicants know that I have an unfilled position in Phase II?
  6. What do I need to do if I learn, on Phase I Match Day, that I have unfilled positions from Phase I?
  7. How do applicants submit applications in Phase II and how do I access them?
  8. How does the application "deadline" in Phase II work?
  9. What if I receive a lot of applications in Phase II?
  10. Do I need to notify all applicants in Phase II as to whether or not they are being offered an interview?
  11. How many applicants should I interview for Phase II?
  12. What are APPIC's recommendations regarding interviews in Phase II of the Match?
  13. What if I received funding for a new position that was too late to be included in Phase I? May I include that position in Phase II?
  14. What if I wish to rank some applicants in Phase II whom I did not interview?
  15. What do I do if Phase II fills my vacant position(s)?
  16. What do I do if Phase II does NOT fill my vacant position(s)?

Participating in Phase II of the Match


1. What is Phase II all about and why does it exist?

"Phase II" of the APPIC Match was implemented in 2011 in order to provide a more equitable, organized, and humane process of placing unmatched applicants into internship positions that were unfilled from Phase I. Phase II replaced the process that was known prior to 2011 as the "APPIC Clearinghouse" (a term that is no longer used).

Phase II is a completely separate Match from Phase I, and includes essentially the same steps in an accelerated fashion: submission of applications, interviews, submission of Rank Order Lists, and receipt of Match results. The process will take about a month from beginning to end, and is expected to fill the vast majority of positions that were left unfilled in Phase I.

2. When does Phase II of the Match begin?

Phase II of the Match begins immediately upon the completion of Phase I - i.e., on APPIC Phase I Match Day, Friday, February 16, 2024.

3. Which programs, positions and applicants participate in Phase II?

Sites and programs that were active in Phase I of the Match but have positions that remain unfilled in Phase I will be made active automatically for Phase II of the Match. Sites, programs, and positions that filled in Phase I, or that withdrew in Phase I, will not be carried over automatically to Phase II of the Match.

All positions at an internship site that remain unfilled in Phase I of the Match must be offered to applicants in Phase II of the Match. A site can decide not to offer an unfilled position in Phase II only if it decides not to fill the position in the program for the coming year (e.g., anticipated loss of funding, shifting of funding to other purposes). Removing an unfilled position from Phase II of the Match for any other reason requires APPIC approval. If you wish to remove a position from Phase II, please contact Dr. Greg Keilin at gkeilin@gmail.com as soon as possible.

Additional positions that become available after Phase I of the Match, such as positions for which funding becomes assured after the Phase I Rank Order deadline or newly-created positions, may also be offered in Phase II of the Match.

An applicant who is eligible to participate in the APPIC Match and has not yet obtained an internship position is eligible to participate in Phase II. This includes applicants who (a) did not register for or participate in Phase I, (b) withdrew from Phase I, (c) did not submit a Rank Order List in Phase I, or (d) did submit a Rank Order List but were unmatched in Phase I. An applicant who has accepted an internship position at a program that is not participating in the APPIC Match is NOT eligible to participate in either Phase of the Match.

4. What is the timeline for Phase II?

Here is the timeline for Phase II of the 2024 APPIC Match:

Friday, February 16, 2024
9:00 am Eastern Time
List of programs with available positions is posted on NMS web site
Applicants may begin submitting applications via the AAPI Service
Thursday, February 22, 2024
11:59 pm Eastern Time
Deadline for submission of applications (some programs may continue to accept applications after this deadline)
Friday, February 23, 2024
9:00 am Eastern Time
Training Directors begin reviewing and downloading applications
Wednesday, March 13, 2024
11:59 pm Eastern Time
Phase II Rank Order List Deadline
Wednesday, March 20, 2024
APPIC Phase II Match Day


5. How will applicants know that I have an unfilled position in Phase II?

A list of programs with positions available in Phase II will be provided on the Match web site beginning at 9:00 a.m. Eastern Time on Friday, February 16, 2024. This list will be updated nightly to reflect any new positions that have been added to Phase II (such as those in which funding became assured after the Phase I Rank Order List deadline, or newly created positions) or removed from Phase II (usually due to loss or redirection of funding).

The list is initially sorted by location (state or province, then city) but can be re-sorted on any column. The list may also be searched. Each entry will look something like this (please note that this example shows an expanded entry, including the Training Director name and contact information, which may be viewed by clicking on the "+" symbol to the left of the program name):

    
Training Site / Program(s) APPIC Directory Accreditation Status Location
    
   + Blooming Daisies Mental Health Center Link Accredited California-Anytown
      999901 - Pediatrics  Withdrawn
      999902 - Neuropsychology [1 opening]
      999903 - Adolescent Internship [2 openings]  Added
      Training Director   Jane Smith, Ph.D.
      E-mail   Jane.Smith@BloomingDaisiesMHC.org
      Phone Number   222-222-2222
      Address   Blooming Daisies Mental Health Center
            P.O. Box 10
            Anytown, CA 99999
      APPIC Member Status   Provisional
 

If you have any additional position(s) that become available too late to be included in Phase I, such as positions for which funding becomes assured after the Phase I Rank Order List deadline or newly-created positions, you must (a) inform National Matching Services, Inc. about the new position(s) so they may be included in Phase II, and (b) use the "late-breaking news" service provided by APPIC in order to publicize the vacancy(ies). More information on these steps is provided below.

6. What do I need to do if I learn, on Phase I Match Day, that I have unfilled positions from Phase I?

In Phase II, applicants will have six days (until 11:59pm on Thursday, February 22, 2024) to submit applications. However, you will NOT be able to view any applications, or even know who has applied, during that six-day period. The purpose of this hiatus is to give applicants time to compose themselves after learning they weren't matched, to consult with faculty, family, and friends, to learn more about the sites in which they might be interested, and to compose and submit thoughtful applications, thus eliminating the application "frenzy" that many applicants experienced in the past. Applications submitted to your site during the PMVS will be viewable after 9:00 am on Friday, February 23, 2024.

LATE-BREAKING NEWS: One thing to immediately consider is whether or not you have any information that you would like to communicate to applicants about your vacant position(s) or about your review process. For example, you may wish to establish, change, or emphasize your required or preferential criteria for applicants (e.g., "We require a minimum of 500 intervention hours," "We prefer (but don't require) a minimum of 10 adult integrated reports on the AAPI"). Or, you may wish to let them know about some aspect of the vacant position(s) that may not be immediately evident from your Directory listing or web site.

APPIC operates a "late-breaking news" service during Phase II, allowing participating internship programs to communicate information to applicants. Using this service thoughtfully can help applicants make informed decisions about whether or not to apply to your program, and can reduce applications received from non-qualified applicants. Most Training Directors won't need to use this service, but those who do will find it to be a valuable way of communicating information to potential applicants.

If you participated in Phase I, you may recall that such "late-breaking news" announcements were distributed via the MATCH-NEWS list. For Phase II, those announcements will NOT come via e-mail, and will instead be posted to a "late-breaking news page" on the APPIC web site.

Please note that applicants have been told that the first set of "late-breaking news" items will be posted no later than 9:00am Eastern Time on Saturday, February 17, 2024, and that they should wait to submit applications until they review those news items. Thus, if you wish to submit a news item, it is best to do so by the evening of Friday, February 16, 2024, in order for your announcement to be included in that initial posting. However, if you miss that first posting, you may submit news items throughout Phase II and they will be added to the "late-breaking news" page as they are received. Please keep in mind that announcements posted later in the process will not be seen by some applicants until after they have already submitted an application to your site.

Announcements should be very brief (a few sentences or paragraphs) and focused on the information described above; please do not use this service to post a description of your program or provide information that is already available on your web site. If you want to accept applications beyond the standard Phase II "deadline" described in FAQ #9, below, be sure to tell applicants the specific date (always at 11:59pm ET) through which you will be accepting applications. To submit a news item, send an e-mail to Dr. Greg Keilin at gkeilin@gmail.com with the following information:

  1. Site name
  2. APPIC member number (four digits)
  3. Name of Training Director
  4. Contact information for the TD (phone and e-mail)
  5. Text of the announcement (including the relevant program/track name(s) and number(s))

IMPORTANT: Please note that you may NOT ask applicants to submit supplemental materials, as such materials are not permitted during the application submission process via the AAPI (you can, however, request certain applicants, such as those whom you decide to interview, to provide such materials to you via the AAPI service at a later date).

IMPORTANT: If your program is not yet APA/CPA accredited, please be sure that your announcement (as well as your written materials and any statements that you make to applicants regarding your accreditation status) conforms to APPIC's policy on Public Statements about Accreditation and APPIC Membership.

Another task you should undertake during this six-day period is to consider how you will deal with the applications you receive. For example, you should decide how you wish to review applications and conduct interviews (e.g., telephone, Zoom). The additional FAQs in this section provide useful information to help you with these considerations.

7. How do applicants submit applications in Phase II and how do I access them?

Applicants are required to use the AAPI service to submit their applications, just like they did in Phase I. However, as noted above, you will not have access to these applications, nor will you know who has applied or how many applications you have received, until 9:00am Eastern Time on Friday, February 23, 2024.

In order to access applications that have been submitted to your site during Phase II, you will use the same login ID and password as you used for Phase I. Programs that are participating in Phase II will notice a secondary program titled "Phase II Applicants" listed under the "Program" tab in their Admissions by Liaison account. Applications for Phase II will appear under this tab. If you have any difficulties in accessing your Phase II applications and it is after 9:00am Eastern Time on Friday, February 23, 2024, please contact AAPI Admissions Portal customer service (M-F, 9-5 EST, admissionssupport@liaisonedu.com - 617-221-7838).

You may access, download, and search applications just as you did in Phase I. If you see an application in Phase II from a student who applied in Phase I, it is because that student has re-submitted their application in Phase II.

There are two very important aspects of the AAPI submission process in Phase II:

  1. During Phase II, applicants will be expected to tailor their cover letters to each site to which they are applying, describing the fit between the site and the applicant and highlighting the applicant's interests, background, and experience, just as they did during Phase I.

  2. Applicants have been told NOT to submit any supplemental materials (assessment reports or treatment summaries) in the initial application submission for Phase II, even if a site's application instructions request such materials. This restriction was implemented due to the relatively short time frame of the Phase II application process, along with the recognition that programs will only need to review supplemental materials for the applicants whom they decide to interview.

    Sites are permitted to request supplemental materials from certain applicants at a later date (e.g., after review of applications). If you request such materials from one or more applicants, please tell them that they must submit those materials via the AAPI service and should then notify you once completed.

8. How does the application "deadline" in Phase II work?

The deadline for students to submit applications in Phase II is Thursday, February 22, 2024, at 11:59 pm Eastern. At that time, the AAPI system will automatically shut off the receipt of applications for ALL internship programs that are participating in Phase II. Applicants have been told that all applications should be submitted no later than that deadline.

Internship programs may NOT access or download any submitted applications until the next morning (9:00am Eastern on Friday, February 23, 2024). If that deadline has passed and you determine that you have received an insufficient number of applications, you may request that the application deadline be extended for your site. To do so, you should use the late-breaking news service (see FAQ #6, above) to announce the extension to applicants (please include a new deadline date in your announcement); when APPIC receives your late-breaking news request, your portal will be re-opened. Keep in mind that, if you re-open your site to allow additional applications to be submitted, you will need a system to identify new applications that you receive, since they will appear in your AAPI portal amidst all of your previously-submitted applications.

Applicants (along with individuals acting on their behalf, such as doctoral faculty) are permitted to contact you once Phase II begins to ask questions about your program and the positions you are offering in Phase II, to inquire about your application requirements, etc.

9. What if I receive a lot of applications in Phase II?

Given that the imbalance between applicants and positions has improved significantly in recent years, this is considerably less likely than it was in the past. In Phase II of the 2023 Match, sites received an average of 23 applications (SD = 23, median = 15, range = 1 to 104). In the 2022 Match, the average was 30 applications (SD = 27, median = 23, range = 1 to 118).

Keep in mind that the AAPI service provides a number of convenient search and download options that can allow you to select applicants based on certain criteria.

10. Do I need to notify all applicants in Phase II as to whether or not they are being offered an interview?

No, there is no requirement to do this for Phase II. Notification of interview status is only required in Phase I.

Of course, you are welcome to provide such notification if you wish to do so, and applicants will certainly appreciate receiving this information. One fairly easy way is to use the "data download" feature of the AAPI to download applicants' contact information, which allows quick access to all applicants' e-mail addresses. If you send a mass e-mail to more than one applicant, be sure to protect applicants' privacy by entering their addresses in the "bcc:" field (rather than the "To:" field) of the e-mail.

11. How many applicants should I interview for Phase II?

We recognize that this is a question that many Training Directors will ask, and there is really no "right" answer. A review of the Phase II statistics from the 2023 APPIC Match reveals that programs ranked an average of 4.1 applicants per position offered, while those programs that successfully filled all of their vacancies ranked an average of 6.4 applicants per position.

12. What are APPIC's recommendations regarding interviews in Phase II of the Match?

APPIC STRONGLY recommends that internship programs NOT conduct on-site interviews during Phase II of the Match. Instead, APPIC recommends that interviews be conducted via telephone or Zoom (or something similar). The reasons for this recommendation include: (a) the short timeline for Phase II would likely translate into very high travel costs for applicants (e.g., air fares couldn't be purchased with sufficient advance notice), (b) many applicants have already spent a significant amount of money for on-site interviews in Phase I, and (c) the short timeline for Phase II would make visiting multiple sites difficult or impossible for applicants.

In order to avoid the perception that local applicants have an unfair advantage in your selection process, APPIC further recommends that applicants in Phase II who are geographically close to your internship program be interviewed in the same manner (i.e., via telephone or Zoom) as non-local applicants.

If you decide to require on-site interviews despite APPIC's strong recommendations against doing so, please inform applicants of this requirement by submitting a late-breaking news item immediately upon learning of your vacancy. This will allow students to make informed decisions about whether or not to apply to your program.

13. What if I received funding for a new position that was too late to be included in Phase I? May I include that position in Phase II?

Yes. Additional positions that become available after Phase I of the Match, such as positions for which funding becomes assured after the Phase I Rank Order List deadline or newly created positions, generally must be offered in Phase II of the Match (an exception is possible if the position becomes available too late to participate; please contact the Match Coordinator to consult in these situations). Training sites that were not registered to participate in Phase I are permitted to participate in Phase II.

The deadline for making any changes to positions or programs offered is the Rank Order List deadline for Phase II, March 13, 2024. However, please keep in mind that adding a position in a program that doesn't appear in the NMS list of unfilled positions from Phase I will require a minimum of several days (and probably longer) for the following steps to occur: (i) an announcement must be made to applicants (via the late-breaking news service), (ii) the new program/positions must be added to the Match and AAPI web sites, (iii) applicants must submit applications, and (iv) you must review applications and submit rankings.

If you wish to add one or more positions to Phase II of the Match, you must:

  1. Make an announcement via the APPIC "late-breaking news" service (described in FAQ #6 above) that operates during Phase II in order to inform applicants about the changes in your positions. Please note that using the "late-breaking news" service is imperative in this situation, as it is the only way that applicants will learn of the availability of your position.

  2. If your site was registered to participate in Phase I: Email a request to NMS in writing on your site’s letterhead, signed by the Training Director, with the following information: the name of the training site; the name and Code Number of the program; the total number of positions to be offered by the program in Phase II; and, the reason why the addition of position(s) in Phase II is required.

    If your site was not registered to participate in Phase I: Contact NMS to obtain the instructions for registering your site for Phase II of the Match. In order to obtain a Match Code number for the program, you will have to explain why the site was not registered to offer the position(s) in Phase I, and obtain the information and procedures required to register the program in the Match.

    3.  

14. What if I wish to rank some applicants in Phase II whom I did not interview?

Most sites will only rank those applicants whom they interviewed in Phase II. However, if you wish to rank non-interviewed applicants, you are welcome to do so. Keep in mind, however, that non-interviewed applicants will likely assume that your program won't be ranking them, and thus won't rank your program unless they are given some indication that you are interested in them. Thus, you will need to let these non-interviewed applicants know that you will be ranking them, despite having not offered them an interview.

15. What do I do if Phase II fills my vacant position(s)?

Congratulations! Similar to Phase I, matched applicants and their new Training Directors are encouraged to contact each other after 9:00am Eastern on APPIC Phase II Match Day. Training Directors are also required to send an appointment agreement to the matched applicant(s) with seven days after the Match results are released.

16. What do I do if Phase II does NOT fill my vacant position(s)?

If you find yourself with an unfilled position after Phase II, you may use APPIC's Post-Match Vacancy Service in order to find an unplaced student to fill the position.