109 Applicants Per Internship. Start Earlier

The Wall Street Journal reported this spring on a squeeze that every family with a college student should understand. Internships matter more than ever for landing a first job; there are fewer of them, and far more people are fighting over each one.

Internship postings on Handshake were down 16% earlier this year, continuing a slide that started in 2023. Meanwhile, the average internship posted on Handshake during the 2024 to 2025 academic year drew 109 applicants. The year before it was 62. Two years before that, it was less than half of 62.

Recent graduate unemployment sat at decade highs, excluding the early pandemic, so some of those applicants are graduates applying for internships while they hunt for full-time work. Freshmen and sophomores are applying too, trying to improve their odds later on. Everybody moved earlier at once.

Rice University’s career development director told the Journal that they now tell students during freshman orientation week to start thinking about their career alongside their academics. Freshman orientation. That’s the timeline now.

Two things follow for parents.

First, the summer after freshman year is no longer a throwaway. It doesn’t have to be a prestigious internship, and honestly it usually can’t be. A real job with a real supervisor, a research position, a role at a local business: what matters is proof of work and adults who will vouch for it.

Second, in a pool of 109 applicants, the application isn’t the differentiator. Nine of those applicants are qualified. One of them knows somebody. That isn’t cynicism; it’s just how a stack of 109 gets shortened by a human being with other work to do.

The families treating internship season the way they treated college application season are the ones whose students are ready. Start sooner than feels reasonable.