To further assist you in making a successful application, please address in the cover letter your specific goals for the internship and the ways you believe Purdue's internship will specifically help you meet your goals for training next year.  We are also interested in your current hopes and aspirations for your long-range professional goals and would like your cover letter to address these. We are looking for the highest level of fit between your goals and the training offered at CAPS.

• Background Check. All employees of Purdue University are required to successfully pass the University background check as a condition of employment.

1. Criminal felony/misdemeanor charges in current and previous counties of residence.
2. Social Security number trace.
3. National Sex Offender Registry

While each candidate's background is considered on an individual, job-related basis, any sex-related crime is grounds for non-consideration. If any candidate shows up in the Sex Offender Registry, he/she is automatically not qualified for employment at Purdue. Beyond this stipulation, each candidate's history is considered on an individual, case-by-case basis. The Human Resources department pays particular attention to the type, frequency, the decency of the charge and the sentence of each conviction, as well as whether or not the conviction is job-related. Convictions that may preclude candidates from being considered for counseling positions include crimes of violence (e.g., domestic abuse, battery, intimidation, intent to harm, etc.). However, each candidate's background will be considered on an individual, job-related basis. University regulations require that applicants who match to our program but do not successfully pass this background check will be dismissed from the internship (see APPIC Match Policy 7b).

• Liability Insurance: Interns are required to make arrangements for professional liability insurance prior to the beginning of internship. One option for low cost student liability insurance coverage is available through APA. For more information about acquiring liability insurance through APA refer to: Trust Insurance

CAPS training staff do not complete MOUs, training contracts or additional academic department-specific evaluations. Interns at Purdue University receive written evaluative feedback at three points during the training year at baseline, mid-year and year-end. These evaluations are comprehensive and based on our program's training aims, goals, and profession-wide competencies. At mid-year and year-end, the assistant director for training sends the academic department's director of clinical training a letter summarizing the intern's performance. Upon request, copies of our evaluations can also be sent to an academic department. As such, if you are enrolled in an academic training program that requires additional training contracts, MOUs, and/or evaluations, you need to know that these department specific evaluations or contracts will not be completed by the Purdue University training staff. Your program may choose to use the data from the Purdue University evaluations to complete their own forms if desired. However, you are strongly encouraged to consult with your Director of Clinical Training prior to your application to make sure that Purdue's evaluations will be accepted in lieu of department specific evaluations.

Completed applications arriving by our deadline are carefully reviewed by our intern selection committee for degree of fit with our internship program. Applicants under serious consideration are contacted in mid-December to schedule an early January telephone or video interview.

We welcome interviewed candidates to schedule a visit with CAPS in order to gather further information about our site and to experience our work environment. If we schedule and conduct an interview with you, you may contact the assistant director for training to arrange a visit. Visits do not influence CAPS decision-making process for ranking, though they may give you an opportunity to meet staff and see our locations. We schedule visits to occur after our ranking meeting but before the deadline for applicants to submit their rankings. We want to be clear that whether or not you choose to visit us will not be held against you or specifically for you in terms of our ranking decisions. The stance our training program takes is understanding the expense of the intern application process and we do not intend to increase your financial burden by requiring on-site interviews or open houses where there may be implicit pressure to attend.