I’m a junior and I’m currently completing a paid internship for a big non profit company in DC (as of now the internship is from January 2016-August 2016). I am the web designer for the analytics team and one of my bosses is nationally known and works for the National Science Foundation.
How would colleges (specifically top/selective colleges) feel about this?
I’m trying to get my one boss to write a letter of rec for me.
It doesn’t really matter what your boss does.
I think that it shows a great EC…that you have web skillz, you were proactive in looking to use these in a non-profit company.
Internships are not necessarily good. If your family has a high socioeconomic status, adcoms might think you used family connections to get the internship. Otherwise, it’s a nice activity that will definitely be considered.
If your internship is consistent with your prospective major, then most colleges will look at it very fondly (i.e. as an activity with a lot of push).
“It doesn’t really matter what your boss does.” Right, it matters what you do. Are you doing more than web design, somehow experiencing the core work of the firm?
For my son I felt like things like this helped more for being the in the mix for highly competitive scholarships more than they helped for admissions.
Colleges value any productive things done over the summer. An internship, particularly if it is an area of interest, is a fine use of your time. But no internship will get you into a college that you are not academically qualified to attend.
Kids with web design skills and internships in that area are not particularly rare these days. To make yourself stand out write an essay about a something non technical that you learned.
From what I’ve seen internships carry very similar weight to conducting research. They can be a strong EC, especially if the internship is aligned with your intended major, but you have to have been a reasonably productive intern. I would even argue that working as an intern in a family member or family friend’s company can be a strong EC if you actually were a productive employee and learned something.