Oops, I realized there is a typo in my post above, so want to clarify. Because my s declined the “we want you back next year but we also want you to commit to working with us after graduation” and he declined the specialty job opportunity after his internship with the second company, it could have looked to the uninformed other interns that he was not offered the opportunity to return after the first internship, and it could have looked to the other interns like he was NOT (that’s the omitted word) offered a job after the second internship when in fact not only was he offered a job, they offered him a spot in their specialty program. We respected his decision to know what he did and did not want, and he declined each offer after each internship, but he was quiet about it to his fellow interns as he didn’t want to sound like he was bragging that he was given each of these offers (and I don’t know if anyone else was selected for the specialty job opportunity from the second company). So who knows what the other interns thought, as really, it was none of their business what decisions he made, and he certainly didn’t want to brag about offers he received from the companies, especially since he declined them. So he was appropriately quiet about both.
My point is, apply to and choose the school that seems to be the best affordable fit, and see if you can find a list of companies that come to campus fairs to look for interns. That is a much easier way to get an internship than blindly throwing out internship applications on Indeed or Linked In. Not saying one can’t get one that way, but they may or may not be the ideal or caliber of company you might want to intern with. Good luck.
**eta some info as an example from Duke’s career center: