Match Statistics - 2019 - Phase I

2019 APPIC Match Statistics - Phase I

We are pleased to report that 3,237 applicants were successfully matched to internship positions in Phase I of the 2019 APPIC Match. Nearly half (49%) of all applicants who obtained a position matched to their first choice internship program, more than two-thirds (71%) received one of their top two choices, and about six-in-seven (85%) received one of their top three choices.

A total of 446 applicants were not matched to an internship position in Phase I, while an additional 164 applicants withdrew or did not submit a Rank Order List. A total of 625 positions remained unfilled. There were 282 internship sites (36%) that had at least one unfilled position. This includes 27% of accredited sites (171 of 638) and 76% of non-accredited sites (111 of 146).

The number of registered applicants (3,847, an increase of 68 or 1.8% as compared to 2018) was nearly identical to the number of internship positions offered (3,862, a decrease of 44 or 1.1%). These registration figures represent a change from recent trends: the increase in applicants ended a five year trend of decreasing applicant registration, while the reduction in registered positions was the first decrease since the 2003 APPIC Match.

The rapid increases in accredited internship positions that have been seen in recent years slowed dramatically this year. From the 2012 to the 2018 APPIC Matches, accredited internship positions increased by 1,022 (from 2,361 to 3,383) or 43%. In the 2019 Match, the number of accredited internship positions increased by 16 (0.5%) as compared to 2018. Overall, the number of registered applicants in 2019 exceeded the number of accredited positions by 448 (compared to 396 in 2018, 752 in 2017, and 1,020 in 2016).

The 2019 APPIC Match statistics are provided below, in four sections:

• Applicants
• Internship Programs
• Doctoral Program Participation and Results
• Summary of Program Rankings

APPLICANTS

Each Position Was Ranked by an Average of 7.2 Applicants.

INTERNSHIP PROGRAMS

NOTE: A "training site" can offer more than one "program" in the Match. Each "program" was identified in the Match by a separate 6-digit code number.

NOTE: 41 programs at 40 sites submitted fewer ranks than the number of positions available. As a result, no ranks were submitted for 76 positions, which remained unfilled.

Non-accredited positions represented 12.0% of all positions but 43.2% of unfilled positions.

This table is new for 2019.

Each Registered Applicant Was Ranked by an Average of 6.6 Different Programs.

DOCTORAL PROGRAM PARTICIPATION AND RESULTS

SUMMARY OF PROGRAM RANKINGS

The following report contains additional statistics on how successful programs were, on average, in matching with applicants during Phase I of the APPIC Match.

There are several important issues that must be considered in attempting to analyze program success based on the rank numbers of matched applicants.

DEFINITIONAL PROBLEMS: Because each applicant submitted a single Rank Order List in order to match to a single position, it is easy to identify his or her "first choice," "second choice," etc. However, for an internship program, determining first or second choice applicants is a far more difficult and complex task. First, many programs attempt to fill several positions; if a program has three positions to fill, an applicant ranked third by that program can in effect be considered a "first choice" for purposes of the Match. Furthermore, a significant number of sites submitted multiple Rank Order Lists for a single program, sometimes ranking the same applicant on different Lists with different rank numbers. Also, the reversion of unfilled positions between lists adds a further complication to this analysis.

We worked closely with National Matching Services in an attempt to resolve these difficulties and to develop a reasonable method of presenting this data.

STANDARDIZED RANKINGS: For the purposes of this analysis, we converted each site's rankings to a "standardized rank." This is best explained by example: if the number of positions to be filled from a Rank Order List was three, then the first three applicants on this List were considered to be "first choice" applicants and given a standardized rank of 1. The next three applicants on that List were defined as "second choice" applicants and given a standardized rank of 2. And so on.

PHASE I MATCH RESULTS BY
STANDARDIZED RANK NUMBER ON INTERNSHIP PROGRAM LIST

To interpret this chart: Of all positions that were filled in Phase I of the Match, 30% were filled with "first choice" applicants (as defined above), 24% with "second choice" applicants, and so on.

Furthermore, 54% were filled with "first" or "second" choice applicants, while 71% were filled with "third choice" applicants or better.

Of course, comparing these numbers to applicants' Match statistics should be done with extreme caution, given the significantly different ways in how "first choice", "second choice", etc. were defined in each analysis.