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Question 1. What is the APPIC Match all about?
In May of 1998, the APPIC membership (consisting of nearly 600 pre-doctoral internships and post-doctoral programs) voted to change the process by which applicants are chosen for psychology internships. The implementation of a computer-based Matching Program was probably the most significant change to internship selection in the nearly thirty years that APPIC had governed the selection process. This change was effective beginning with the 1998-99 selection process.
A Matching Program provides an orderly process to help applicants obtain positions in predoctoral internships of their choice, and to help internship programs obtain applicants of their choice. For both applicants and programs, it alleviates many of the factors that generate inequities, unfair pressures, and premature decisions in the making of offers by programs and the acceptance or rejection of offers by applicants. Similar Matching Programs have been used for many years in the placement of medical residents in North America, as well as in other professions, including dentistry, law, and pharmacy.
The primary change is the elimination of "Uniform Notification Day" or "Call Day," traditionally the second Monday in February, during which internship sites would tender offers via telephone to applicants according to a pre-defined set of rules. Internship applicants were required to accept or reject their offers on that day. This process was replaced by a Matching Program, in which both applicants and programs submit rank-ordered lists of preferences, and a computer is used to match applicants with positions.
Under the Matching Program, the application and interview processes remain essentially unchanged: applicants apply to the programs of their choice, and participate in any interview processes determined by the programs.
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6 March 2002
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