The road to Match Day


	Alan Bodnar, Ph.D. is the Co-Director of Psychology Training at Westborough State Hospital, Mass. and a consultant in the field of leadership development.

By Alan Bodnar, Ph.D.

T'was the night before Match Day / And all through the land, / Students and programs had already planned / Whom they would choose and where they would go. / Tomorrow would tell if it would be so.

Remember when all February meant was a few holidays celebrating presidents, Cupid and a groundhog named Phil? If you do, either you are not a psychologist or you are reaching back to the time before Match Day, when prospective psychology interns and training programs throughout the country hold their breaths and log on to their computers for important news about the next training year. I write these words on the eve of the first of five days of interviewing internship candidates throughout the month of January. By the time you read this, the important decisions will have been made by programs and students and we will all be eagerly and anxiously awaiting the results of the matching process.

The process is an efficient one and a good deal less messy than the former practice of making and receiving telephone offers, stalling or being stalled for time to see if a better deal materializes and eventually giving or receiving the news that you are the fifth alternate. Those of you who have been doing this for a while may share my own sense of wonder that all of the steps in this series can be accomplished so quickly. Like a steam train building up momentum, early sporadic requests for program information come faster and more steadily throughout the summer and fall. Then, in a surprisingly short window of time, applications are read, preliminary selections made and interviews scheduled in a series of steps no less precise for the brisk pace at which they are accomplished. When program faculty and prospective interns finally sit down to talk, both parties might begin with a deep sigh of relief and satisfied acknowledgment that we have come this far. The lives of candidates and program staff intersect at this particular time and place and all both parties have to do is to figure out whether or not it would be useful to travel the same road together for another year.

At the first moment of face to face contact, the relationship between applicant and staff begins to take on a more personal dimension that with some of these individuals will become bonds of students, teachers and colleagues. Yet, even before this first meeting, humanizing moments of self-disclosure penetrate the formal dialogue that takes its shape from the nature of the application process itself. Most often, these moments come in the form of exchanges of information by telephone or email. Centuries from now an archaeologist trying to decipher the meaning of Match Day from evidence gathered from a dig at the site of our hospital might find fragments of email exchanges including the following real, apocryphal and totally bogus statements.

"I would be most excited to learn more about the amazing opportunities offered at your site, for which I think you will agree, I am uniquely qualified…"

"Thank you for your interest in our training program but we are an inpatient facility for adults and would not be able to offer you the experience you are looking for with preschool children."

"Would you prefer my application to be fastened with staples, paper clips, a three-ring binder or perhaps just collected loosely in a cardboard box?"

"You decide."

"I am writing to inquire about whether or not you have received my application, which I sent last week by a special courier service."

"While we applaud your diligence in sending your application by special courier, we have had better luck with the U.S. Postal Service. Your choice of Desert Wind Delivery was especially unfortunate and I am sorry to report that hospital security turned away their tan camouflaged vehicle at the gates."

"No, Virginia, we do not think it impertinent or irrelevant for you to have included your nomination for a Nobel Prize on your internship application."

"Yes, Virginia, we do understand that you were not nominated for your work in the field of psychology. Nevertheless, we believe that any Nobel nomination indicates the presence of personal and professional qualities that are relevant to performance as a psychology intern."

"Thank you for explaining that the envelope containing your application is made of titanium reinforced fiber. You will be happy to know that it reached us safely, but we have been unable to open it using conventional methods. Any suggestions?"

"Whoops, Virginia, you are absolutely right. We do have two different program addresses listed in the Directory. Send your application to the first one and thanks for catching our mistake."

Questions, answers, embarrassing mistakes, unforeseen obstacles and ingenious solutions mark the trail from the anonymity of "Dear Director" and "Dear Applicant" to recognition of the real people on both sides of the process. Match Day is both an ending and a beginning, dispelling suspense and ushering in a year of new challenges, opportunities and relationships.

The road to Match Day (February 2008 Issue)

By Alan Bodnar, Ph.D.

The road to Match Day
(February 2008 Issue)