<p>I'm curious how Internships with major companies (such as Microsoft) compare with some of the prestigious summer programs in terms of impact on admissions.</p>
<p>I think only an admissions officer could really answer this question, but I'll chip in my two cents anyway. I'd view an internship as a form of employment. If the student pursued the internship because of his/her desire to learn about a particular career path, that would reflect well, I imagine. On the other hand, some schools routinely place students in internship positions, and some well-connected parents easily place their own children in their own companies or those of their friends, so in my opinion, landing an internship is not comparable to landing a research opportunity in RSI or some other prestigious organization where entry is highly competitive and meritocratic. But you know --- it would probably all depend on the individual situation: what the student wanted out of the internship, and what he or she learned and achieved there.</p>
<p>While just any internship might not be too difficult to get (and may be more a reflection of who you know), gettiing an internship at a place like Microsoft is actually highly competitive and not something that you get through connections.</p>
<p>Sure a internship from Microsoft looks good, but what is more important is what the student learned from it, and what the experience meant to the student.
Sometimes at more prestigious/big companies the less the interns can/ is allowed to learn and actually do. So the name don't matter as much as what you've done.
I think about 100% of last year's RSI students got into MIT and Caltech, most also got into Harvard. I am not saying that RSI = college acceptance, but the fact that they got selected for RSI shows how much merit they've gained.</p>