1. Council of Counseling Psychology Training Programs
Thank you to CCPTP for extending an invitation to conduct this session at your mid-winter meeting. A brief note on the learning objectives for this session: There will not be a live demonstration of the back-end analytics of PSYCAS today so that we can spend more time having a discussion related to some of the issues and challenges that have come about in recent weeks. So for Objective #3, attendees will be able to describe customized admissions workflow solutions as opposed to gaining the knowledge to construct solutions.
Daniel Michalski, PhD
February 21, 2015

2. Agenda Why a centralized application service? Goals.
The PSYCAS student portal: Streamlining the application process
Data analytics and workflow for psychology programs
Discussion
Briefly, our agenda for today. I anticipate the first half of the hour I will be speaking and demonstrating, but the remainder of the session will be open to your questions and to have a dialogue. I see this as an opportunity to learn what is important to your organization and to solicit any suggestions or ideas that can help us move forward with a service that is beneficial to our profession and discipline.

3. Call for a Common Letter
Building on the ‘common letter,’ are there other common elements that students enter?
Transcripts
Courses/GPAs
Test Scores
Basic demographics & contact information
Essays
The genesis of the centralized application grew out of a call from some constituencies to have a common recommendation letter to ease the workload on faculty who write multiple recommendation letters and have to create accounts on multiple websites to upload letters. In having these conversations, we also identified that there were additional opportunities to streamline the application process for applicants by utilizing current technology to capture many of the other common elements that are components of a student’s application: transcripts, courses/GPAs, test scores, demographic and personal information, and essays.

4. Expanding Beyond a Common Letter
Building on the ‘common letter,’ are there universal procedures and workflows that all departments share?
Monitoring application statuses
Organizing applicant pool
GPA calculations
Assigning applications to reviewers
Communication with applicants
In expanding beyond the common letter we also identified universal procedures and workflows that are consistent regardless of the type of psychology program and that a centralized service could augment.

5. Goals for a centralized application for psychology
Allow programs to maintain their unique application and review processes
Utilize current technology
Cloud-based
Real-time
Adhere to best practices for data security
Data back-ups
Third-party access and PII
Internal APA access
Thus bringing us to four high-level goals that the APA had for creating a centralized application service: Flexibility for programs to maintain their current and unique processes; Capitalize on the current technology that is used in other professions and disciplines; Data security is key and we sought a platform that would adhere to best practices with appropriate back-ups…as part of this we also thought it was key to ensure that applicants’ personally identified information was not obtained. Yes, we would want to identify individual behavior of applicants but have the PII stripped. Also, it was important that third-parties not have access to our psychology data and finally, these data are collected for their intended purpose to provide data and resources to our discipline and profession; not shared with membership or accreditation.

6. Goals for a centralized application for psychology
To provide data for meaningful reports and statistics to the discipline and profession.
Nascent workforce that emerges from graduate level psychology
Gather data across the entire discipline
Gather data at both the master’s and doctoral levels
Finally, there was an opportunity to gather large data about the graduate application pool for the discipline at national level. This is a significant gap in understanding or nascent workforce. Collecting these data would enable APA to provide profiles and descriptive statistics back to participants in addition to the real-time access programs will have at their fingertips with their own applicant pools.

7. Progress to date Selection of the core application items;
Creation of a common recommendation letter;
Established program eligibility criteria;
Fee waiver program;
January soft launch
Since we held our first meeting with an advisory panel, we have accomplished the following. The moratorium was called due to finding out that certain aspects and functionality were not to the level that the APA believed was required for a successful product that our constituencies expect.

8. Demonstration
Skip to slide 17 following the demonstration.

9. This is the main login and welcome page
This is the main login and welcome page. There are links to resources on the APA webpage providing useful information and instructions to students. Also, a FAQ and instructions are available to guide students through completion of their application.

10. Application homepage. Focus groups prior to the release of this version 3.0 asked for more visuals. You can see the gas tank navigation.

14. Just another example of how PSYCAS renders on mobile technology.

15. Prerequisites
Short response questions
Application essay(s)
Other documents (e.g., CVs, certifications, etc.)

17. Example Review Steps
What are some of the functions available to departments in PSYCAS?
Sort and separate complete from incomplete applications
Select review criteria (e.g., courses, GPAs, etc.)
Assign applications to committee members for review
Export
Students have now completed their application, so how does this information convey over to programs. WebAdMIT is the back-end tool with PSYCAS and I want to give you a brief tour of some of the universal functions that are available. I will note, however, that there is an extensive range of options and applications in the platform that we don’t have time to cover today, but it is important to note, that there is maximum customization possible so that you can match up your current workflow and manage applicants from submission to matriculation and then export necessary data to your institutional database.

18. WebAdMIT also features the ability to sort and select applicants on a number of criteria. For example, let’s say that you are looking for those students who have started yet not completed applications for your program and attended schools in Pennsylvania. WebAdMIT allows you to identify target groups for follow-up or outreach campaigns.

19. This is the prerequisite GPA list that allows users to set threshold GPA levels for prerequisites and generate real-time reports to assist with the workflow. In consultation with our advisory panel, we created several automatic GPA calculations: Undergraduate, Graduate, and Behavioral Science. You can also set custom GPA calculations on psychology courses, last 60 credit hours, prerequisites, etc. You determine and configure based on your needs and adjust when desired.

20. Finally, applications can be assigned to groups or particular faculty members for review. You can set due dates and faculty can enter remarks and their decisions directly into WebAdMIT under their login credentials. This can be done from anywhere; no need for paper files and the risk of loss or misplacement. WebAdMIT can really help with workflow and enable more meaningful time with applicants.

21. Similarly, the interview tools allow you to set parameters for applicants who you may wish to invite for interviews.

22. Encountered Hurdles Cost to students Data integration
Talk about the first hurdle. APAGS, resistance, seeking to obtain buy-in and feedback from constituent groups

24. Discussion