<p>Some of this seems like it's a chicken and egg situation. Companies may choose to hire applicants with internship or coop experience, however, you first must be attending college and are more likely to get an internship if you are a superior student. The only thing I found interesting is the occupation which ranked grades the lowest was the one where they would be grading others .. education.</p>
<p>A student with an internship on his or her resume has already been pre-selected by an employer, making a company’s hiring decision that much easier. To me, the article confirms that the accessibility to internships should become an increasingly important factor in college selection. </p>
<p>Seems like employers often set some sort of minimum standard for academic degree, major, and GPA as a cut-off point to determine which people to recruit/interview. I.e. either you meet that standard or not – beyond that, it is not very important compared to other things like internships, work experience, etc…</p>
<p>If the internships that you are looking at are mainly unpaid, take that as a warning that the type of job is likely to be very competitive to get hired into, since the entry-level market-clearing pay rate for that type of job is $0.</p>
<p>I told my daughter to stop the non-paid internship jobs. It turned out to be right decision, she had stellar relationship with the producer and interned there twice but when she graduated and contact him, there was no help whatsoever.</p>
<p>Indeed. Unpaid internships just aren’t worth it, IMO. If someone doesn’t value your services enough to pay you, then be entrepreneurial and tried to get paid through your talents by creating stuff.</p>