How is it going for college freshman getting internships for the summer?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My freshman DS got an internship in cyber security with one of the government contractors because my sister is an SES level with the fed. She called one of the PMs and asked and DS got hired for this '24 summer. It is an eleven weeks internship and the pay is $40/hr.

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You shouldn’t share this. Your sister broke clear federal ethics violations (laws) helping your kid get that internship.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:DS is a CS major in a top 10 CS program. He did internship at a financial institution the summer between freshman and sophomore. I know he applied to lots of companies (like 100) and began the process back in August/Sept his freshmen year. He is not picky on location for the internship and lived out of town for the summer (June-Aug) with two friends in an Airbnb. His paycheck covered his living expenses.

He is going into the summer between his sophomore and junior year now. He’s had several offers and worked extremely hard over the Christmas break. He did lots of applications, coding competitions and interviews. I know he told his sibling that coding competitions are critical and he felt behind in this area compared to his peers. He has landed offers at 1 financial firm, 1 SaaS software firm, 2 Silicon Valley startups, and 1 FAANG. He is most interested in one of the startups and the FAANG.

Honest question, how does a kid handle multiple offers, don't they have to accept or reject an offer when they get it or do they just accept all until they get the best and then go back and reject the ones they accepted before? Wouldn't that be burning bridges at those companies? I genuinely ask this because my kid was faced with a similar situation of where they got an interview call from a more desired place after they accepted an offer, so they politely turned down the interview offer as they have already committed to an offer.

[Anonymous]

You have to choose whether to burn a bridge.
My son has never renegged but had a potential case where he would have because the pay would have been double at 80 at a FANG- but its not a great place to be to make that decision. He did not get that other offer of which were all sort of glad not to have to advise him on that. I dont feel good about renegging on employers who recruit and offer early to lock up talent. I guess as I write this my position is dont do it unless its a BIG alternative opportunity. I wouldnt keep shopping and trading offers. Bad mojo.

[Anonymous]

How did PP's DS apply to "400 internships" while still keeping up with school? Is there a common app for internships? Are most of these applications just uploads of a generic cover letter and resume? Because I couldn't do 400 of anything and still do my day job, and I like to think my executive-function skills are ok.