The Student View 

Updates from the Student Programming Committee

The Student View

Updates from the Student Programming Committee

By Katie Moskowitz, MA & Annika Quam, MS
SCCAP Student Representatives

The SCCAP Student Programming Committee aims to bring together students in Division 53 through engaging educational and training opportunities. The purpose of these events is  to foster community among members and provide valuable insight and professional development for the attendees. Our annual webinar on pre-doctoral internships returned this summer with a panel of training directors and recent applicants who shared their perspectives on every stage of the internship process.

Our panel included Dr. Colleen Byrne, Psychology Clinic Training Director at the University of Maryland, College Park, who brought 25 years of experience supporting students through the internship process. She completed her own internship at a VA hospital in Tampa and a child postdoctoral fellowship in Atlanta, and works closely with clinic directors and training sites across the region.  Dr. Sunita Lay, Training Director of the psychology internship program at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center, also participated in the panel and offered the perspective of someone who reads hundreds of applications each cycle. Dr. Lay earned her PhD in Clinical Psychology at Brigham Young University and practices as a pediatric psychologist.

We were also joined by two trainees who recently navigated the process. Dr. Hannah Grassie earned her PhD from the University of Miami, where her work focused on treatment effectiveness and mechanisms of change. She completed her internship at the Institute of Living in Hartford, Connecticut, and is continuing there as a postdoctoral fellow in the Anxiety Disorders Center. Hong Bui, a doctoral candidate at the University of Maryland, College Park, recently began her internship at Boston Children’s Hospital/Harvard Medical School.

Key Insights and Takeaways

There was one common theme throughout the entire conversation. Applicants should tell their own story rather than leaving programs to piece it together. Panelists encouraged students to think of the application as a narrative of where they have been, where they want to go, and how a particular site can help them get there.

Panelists recommended beginning formal preparation about a year before applications are due, noting that many program websites are not updated until August. A useful first step is deciding on a general population of interest, then setting aside time to browse sites in the APPIC Directory, review program brochures, and ask students in older cohorts to share their lists. Applicants were encouraged to start with their long-term goals in mind and ask what they could learn at a site that they could not learn elsewhere.

When preparing materials, applicants should make their foundational child and adolescent competencies explicit, even when applying to specialty tracks. Training directors also look for consistency between the cover letter and letters of recommendation. Applicants should speak with their letter writers in advance to make sure they know the applicant’s current goals and which experiences to highlight. Gaps in training, whether from limited access to placements, leave, or a nonlinear path, can be addressed directly and framed as areas for growth, rather than leaving it to the program to fill in the gaps.

For interviews, panelists reminded attendees that an invitation means the program already wants to get to know them. Applicants were encouraged to balance confidence with openness to learning, ask questions that go beyond what is on the website, and speak authentically rather than from memorized scripts. Keeping brief notes after each interview day can help when finalizing rankings weeks later.

Panelists emphasized that the Match algorithm favors applicants’ preferences, so applicants should simply rank programs in the order they would most like to attend. For those who do not match, Phase II offers many strong opportunities, and an additional year of training can strengthen a future application or allow time to complete the dissertation before internship begins.

Additional Insights

Quotations edited for length and clarity.

“When I was a trainee, I just wanted the site to like me and think I was a good fit. But really, we’re a part of your journey. Can we help you in your journey or not? If not, we’re not a great fit… Oftentimes we have to piece the story together, and you don’t want us to piece the story together. You want to be in charge of the narrative.” – Dr. Lay

“Your letter writers don’t need the encyclopedic volume of your life, but it is really helpful if you can specify for them: here’s what’s important about me that I hope you can share. Your letter writers are going to know you from a very narrow standpoint.” – Dr. Byrne

“I remember feeling like I didn’t have a lot of experience in higher acuity settings, and that it would be so obvious from my application. But I realized I was drawn to sites that had some of that exposure, so I thought about these gaps as potential growth areas and areas of fit, and then about what skills I did have that could set me up well in that setting.” – Hong

“Your final rankings could be due a month or six weeks after your first interview, and it can be hard to remember your gut reaction or your connection to a site. So after every interview day, I jotted down things I liked, things I didn’t like, and any red flags or green flags, and referenced those when I was ranking.” – Dr. Grassie

“Stay off of the listservs. Trust what you see on the websites, and trust the folks who have been there before you… It’s okay to feel stressed, but there’s no secret and there’s no conspiracy either.” – Dr. Byrne

Thank You

We are grateful to our panelists for taking the time to share their perspectives and for their encouragement to attendees at every stage of training. As Dr. Lay reminded us, internship is one year in a long career, and there are many great opportunities ahead.

Students preparing to move for internship may also be interested in the National Register of Health Service Psychologists’ travel scholarships, which Dr. Byrne shared during the webinar.

If you were unable to join us for the event, or you would like to re-watch the session, a recording of this webinar will be available on the SCCAP website. Last year’s internship webinar, featuring a different panel, is also available for viewing.