Match Statistics - 2022 - Phase I

2022 APPIC Match Statistics - Phase I

We are pleased to report that 3,327 applicants were successfully matched to internship positions in Phase I of the 2022 APPIC Match. A total of 46% of all applicants who obtained a position matched to their first choice internship program, more than two-thirds (70%) received one of their top two choices, and about five-in-six (83%) received one of their top three choices.

A total of 476 applicants were not matched to an internship position in Phase I, while an additional 177 applicants withdrew or did not submit a Rank Order List. A total of 549 positions remained unfilled.

There were 222 internship sites (29%) that had at least one unfilled position. This includes 151 of 649 (23%) accredited sites and 71 of 104 (68%) non-accredited sites.

Internship Supply and Demand: Last year's Match saw an increase in registered applicants and a decrease in available internship positions. This year's Match saw the opposite: a decrease of 159 (-3.8%) registered applicants and an increase of 101 (+2.7%) registered positions. Overall, the number of applicants (3,980) exceeded the number of positions (3,876) by 104.

A total of 3,534 accredited internship positions were in the Match this year, the largest number ever but only a slight increase of 19 positions (0.5%) as compared to the 2021 Match. The number of non-accredited positions increased by 82 (31.5%, from 260 to 342). Since 2012, the number of accredited internship positions in the Match increased 49.7%, from 2,361 to 3,534. However, even with this improvement, there remains a shortage of accredited internship positions, as the number of registered applicants exceeded the number of accredited positions by 446.

The 2022 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 7.9 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: For comparison purposes, last year (2021) 758 sites received a total of 60,027 applications. Mean number received in 2021 = 79.2 (SD = 66.5), Median = 64, Range = 1-438.

NOTE: 32 programs at 30 sites submitted fewer ranks than the number of positions available. As a result, no ranks were submitted for 64 positions, which remained unfilled.

Non-accredited positions represented 8.8% of all positions but 32.1% of unfilled positions.

Included in the numbers for accredited sites shown above are 19 sites that were designated "Accredited, On Contingency". These 19 sites had 80% (49 of 61) of their positions filled in Phase I, with 12 of the 19 sites (63%) filling all of their positions.

Each Registered Applicant Was Ranked by an Average of 7.1 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, 28% were filled with "first choice" applicants (as defined above), 23% with "second choice" applicants, and so on.

Furthermore, 51% were filled with "first" or "second" choice applicants, while 68% 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.