Not sure if he’s tried Goldman Sachs. Programs and Internships | Goldman Sachs
I’m sure some of these are very competitive. My D did the Virtual Insight series, which is remote and I think not competitive. She also interned at an accounting firm. She is a campus tour guide and does some good networking with parents of prospective students.
If he hasn’t done it already, he might consider the Midwest. For example, the Twin Cities have a lot of engineering companies either as primary locations or as outposts, e.g. Medtronic, Boston Scientific, Abbott etc. The Twin Cities are a fun place to spend the summer and are less expensive than the coasts.
Thank you.
Yes, it’s true that MIT is not one of the feeder colleges.
But some great companies came to the MIT Fall career fair, like Jane Street and Hudson River, etc.
But son had already been rejected from those internships before the Career Fair.
He’s gotten no feedback from any company, so he doesn’t know what he’s doing wrong.
Great GPA. Great transcript. Good experiences/internships Fresh/Sophomore years. Great on the math/quant online assessments. Good HireVue interviews (he spends a lot of effort preparing for them).
(Not so great on the timed coding HackerRank - speed coding is not his strength, thus, he doesn’t want to be a coder).
He may not be doing anything wrong.
MANY of his classmates are experiencing the same difficulties/struggles.
There are just so many rounds for each internship.
He recently had a great 1.5hrs zoom interview with a VP for a great company. Got great feedback on the technical interview/vibing with the VP.
But there’s another round (simulated trading - which he’s never done) that he would have to do, IF he makes it to that round.
Keep the suggestions coming. Appreciate it all.
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@Mom270 : he’ll look into those, thanks.
although he’s been rejected by GS for a few internships
BOMBed the GS HireVue in March 2024 (for summer2025 internship), since he was totally unprepared: it was his 1st one while he was on Springbreak in FL w/ his frat bros: no suit/crazy hair, etc. Has gotten his act together since then.
MIT is definitely a feeder for quant type firms, but the positions are very limited and the competition fierce. @hebegebe knows more about the quant hedge fund world. My impression is though that PhD’s are entering at a different level than undergrads and really are not competitive with undergrads.
Has he applied for internships in traditional sales and trading or asset management, including at second tier regional firms?
Maybe have a friend in the industry conduct a mock interview. If he is getting rejected at an early stage but he has good objective attributes (GPA, rigor of courses) something else is tripping him up that is more subjective.
This is correct. But unfortunately, all the IB, trading and quant internship roles for summer 2025 have already been filled by now at all the well known financial firms (the recruiting period at most firms is typically May through August).
@huango, if your son is interested in CS/tech jobs there are plenty of those that are still being recruited for. And many firms will still be recruiting in spring.
They are hired for different roles. Math focused undergrads are hired for trading and CS focused undergrads are hired for software engineering roles. PhDs are usually hired for research, although some companies also hire for research with master’s degrees.
The quant firms I know also had considerably fewer interns in summer 2024 compared to summer 2023. I think it’s a combination of many companies losing money in crypto, and new hires using AI to become more efficient, thereby requiring fewer new hires. Don’t know the outlook for interns next summer.
So you wouldn’t recommend pursuing a MS Finance or Economics?
Many of his HireVue questions are about cost analysis, FICC variables, and son doesn’t have a clue, even though the job posting said something no finance experience required.
@BKSquared:
Yes, he’s applied for Trading/Asset Mgmt internships for all types of companies (1st, 2nd, 3rd tier, etc).
Not into Sales; he’s not a salesman.
He’s done 2 mock interviews but none with investment/hedge fund experience (1 with MIT career center, 1 with a professional financial advisor).
→ Help: where/how to find an investment/hedge fund VP who could help him do mock interviews?
Maybe this could be an actual ASK he can write in his LinkedIn messages with his connections.
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Yes, he’s applying to tech companies.
But it’s kinda futile because the 1st thing after they receive his application is an automated HackerRank. He’s a math whiz who uses computer science stuff; not a coder.
He’s working on it; he’s doing all sorts of sample tests and example quizzes, timed, etc, but since he can’t get past the HackerRank round, he never has the opportunity to show how great he really is.
“many firms will still be recruiting in spring.” Good to know that this pain will continue (this process is just depressing).
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Yes, in 2 of son’s rejections, the companies shared that their 2025 internship program is extremely small, and they strongly suggested for son to apply for a full-time job there after graduation.
My friend works for a very small investment company that is not hiring any interns for this summer, focusing their efforts on hiring full-time analysts.
Sorry for these depressing posts,
and I should take this off-line (my own thread), but thought other students struggling may learn something/that they’re not alone.
Thank you.
My kid has not yet looked for internship in social sciences, so it is not too late in general.
Your son’s experience shows that for competitive industries or particular employers, it could be too late.
Good luck to him and all.
That’s right for most financial firms as far as summer 2025 internships for juniors. S was just on campus recruiting for summer 2026 internships. I also think AI might impact future recruiting classes as a lot of what analysts do can be made more efficient through AI.
S22 is doing great. It’s all about grad school plans and research for him. He took subject test GRE (math) in September and did great, so he is all done with that. His group just put together another paper and he is looking forward to a math conference. He is on some kind of departmental committee as one two undergraduate students. He will again apply to summer REUs which even with their low single digit admission seem to be easier than internships these days.
This. Many students are having hard time finding internships. I hear it from our friends and also from S20. Please make sure your child understands that it isn’t them. If you can, try to help them by asking your friends if they know of any internships.
S20 is finishing his MS in CS and will graduate in December. (MS in machine learning and artificial intelligence, BS in CS and math). While companies may prefer MS to BS what they actually really want is a MS with work experience and by that they don’t mean internships. Looking for a job has been quite an exhausting experience - so many applications, getting ghosted, being contacted and then ignored, etc. Luckily, S20 got a verbal offer to join the company where he did his summer internship, but I sure feel for everyone who is going through this process be it for an internship or job.
I hope the job market will be better next year than what it currently is.
Its been a deadly internship cycle for sure. S22 had a very similar experience - lots of OAs, many many interviews with basically no response. Sometimes he felt like he was simply screaming into a void. I had told him not to take things personally but sometimes it was just hard to deal with.
Things have turned around though - he has 2 SWE intern offers both in Fintech, and one of them from a company where he naively rejected their offer last year. Both offers came in the last 3 weeks, so I would encourage everyone to keep the faith and hiring will pick up next year as employers become more comfortable with the macro.
@huango Quant specifically is very tough, more than even in prior years. S22 went all the way to the final round at JS and had a poor interview where he didn’t click with the hiring manager. That one haunts him still. He also has an options trading offer from a commodity trading firm (think big oil) but unsure if that’s a good substitute for quant or whether it will help him with full-time quant recruiting.
I feel this. Even with perfect OAs, there is no guarantee of passing on to the next round. Many of the companies where people only had to solve “Easy” level questions in prior years now expect mid-professional level perfection on OAs with “Hard” questions.
Hope you guys will keep discussing everything here, instead of breaking off to a separate thread. My S22 isn’t applying for anything similar for his internship (he’s in film and media) but I still find it very interesting and informative to hear how all your kids are doing and what is going on in different career fields. Fingers crossed for every one for this summer internship cycle!
I agree with Evie800, I find it interesting to see the different fields and internship scenarios. D22 wants to get a research job at her university for next summer after she returns from her study abroad semester.
Congratulations to your son! 
My son has been dragging his feet about an internship. We are meeting up for Thanksgiving week and hopefully I can get him motivated again. I know he’s busy, but he needs to do a better job of carving out time to get more applications in.
I’m looking forward to seeing him next week!
Good luck! Perhaps over winter break he’ll have time and energy. He may have other priorities to finish the semester strong.
It takes time to look, just like a job or another class. Will be having a talk with my kid, too.
It does take a while. I’ve helped some with the looking when I can. But he has to narrow that down and get the apps in. He does have a long winter break, even with football playoffs. Hopefully he uses that time to do applications.
It’s been a while since I last post here, and I am sort of back to CC for my D26 for another journey. D22 finally landed an internship at Accenture as Strategy & Consulting Analyst.
She was really hoping for an internship from MBB after she made to the final round at BCG, but I am really happy where she will be. Also, she will graduate in Dec 2025.
Congrats to her!
Son had some weird glitch with McKinsey’s application portal, where son basically became their beta tester for McKinsey. The glitches got aggravating.
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“she will graduate in Dec 2025”
can we talk about this?
I know other students are doing this.
What is the benefit of this?
Son can graduate in Dec, even with his Minor.
I had plenty of available slots in my senior year, so I took MBA classes (for the exposure, knowing that I was going to get my MBA in a few years after graduation).
Son is planning to take a few finance classes, for the exposure.
If you already have a job offer you are planning to accept from junior summer, then that company may be happy for you to start early. Then you start earning money and stop paying for college. That can be a $50K+ net benefit for your kid that they could put towards an MBA. Even going on vacation for a few months would potentially save money compared to paying for an extra semester of college.
My S18 had a return offer and they said he could work 20 hours per week during the year or start in Jan. He declined (and didn’t start until the following July) as his sophomore and junior years had been disrupted by Covid and he wanted to have fun in senior year, but if he’d had a full college experience already then he likely would have chosen one of those options.