APA Membership Application

I applied for APA (American Psychological Association) membership under student status when I was taking a psychology course. I wanted to experience the process and the benefits of membership so that I could convey that to the IRB (Institutional Review Board) for which I was an active member. We had been talking about having students take this membership or have them take an insurance policy upon enrollment so that the school and students were protected from liability in research using human participants. Members on our committee commented that it seemed extraneous to ask students to take an insurance policy, so membership seemed to offer an alternative. I applied and received confirmation from the APA. I did not hear anything more. I assumed I was a member in student status. Later I noted that I was never charged for the membership. Since I was no longer a student and the need for the membership no longer existed, I dropped the interest I had in becoming an APA member under student status.

The following is a screenshot from my e-mail account reflecting my correspondence with the APA concerning membership:

Here are the e-mails listed in the above screenshot. In the first e-mail, I had sent a signed application. The second e-mail is a truncated response I received.

Thank you for contacting us!

Your email has been received in the membership mailbox at the American

Psychological Association.

New member and affiliate applications have a processing time of about

4-6 weeks.  Until the new membership record is entered into our

database, it is not possible to track the status or confirm receipt of

an individual application. 

If there are questions about your application, you will hear from us 

otherwise a membership packet will be mailed to you in about 4-6 weeks.

Thank you for your interest in APA membership.