Jalaun Ross, a pc science main at Central Connecticut State College, knew it might be tough to land an internship at a outstanding tech firm this summer season.

He had chosen to attend an inexpensive native public college, not a high computing faculty, and he didn’t know anybody within the business who may put in a great phrase for him with tech recruiters.

Final summer season, whereas interning at a monetary providers firm, Mr. Ross spent a number of hours each night making ready for the coding exams that tech corporations use to weed out candidates. He in the end utilized to greater than 200 internships, he stated, however he didn’t obtain a single supply from tech corporations.

“School itself is a large workload, particularly for minorities and other people of decrease socioeconomic standing,” Mr. Ross stated. “How can individuals who go to common state colleges compete?”

Like attending an Ivy League college, acquiring a prestigious internship at a outstanding tech firm can confer lifelong benefits. Extremely coveted software program engineering internships at corporations like Amazon or Google have been recognized to pay $24,000 or extra for the summer season, not together with housing stipends. They’ll additionally supply compelling mental challenges, foster invaluable networking connections and result in full-time job provides.

With typically greater than 100,000 college students making use of for simply 1000’s of slots, securing an elite tech internship will be as cutthroat as entering into Harvard.

Critics say the everyday recruitment course of at high-profile tech corporations typically provides a bonus to college students at high computing faculties and people with business connections — similar to elite non-public universities that closely recruit from high excessive colleges and favor the kids of alumni. Wealthier intern candidates may have extra time and alternative to shine their portfolios and sharpen their test-taking expertise.

“Assumptions of privilege are baked into the system,” stated Ruthe Farmer, the founder and chief government of the Final Mile Schooling Fund, a nonprofit group that helps lower-income college students in technical fields full their faculty levels. “It’s biased towards college students who’ve extra free time to dedicate to aspect initiatives, hackathons and learning for technical interviews — traits that conflate privilege with scholar potential.”

(Ms. Farmer’s nonprofit has obtained funding from Google, Microsoft and different tech corporations.)

The intern choice course of underscores longstanding inequities in Silicon Valley recruitment and hiring. This yr, layoffs and cutbacks at main tech firms have solely narrowed intern alternatives, college students say, exacerbating socioeconomic disparities. In response to a callout from The New York Occasions, practically 300 folks — college students, current graduates and software program engineers — shared their experiences making use of for tech internships and jobs, with some describing the method as “brutal,” “unfair” or “disheartening.”

To attempt to compete, dozens of scholars spent hours making use of for greater than 100 internships, training for internship coding exams or engaged on private coding initiatives to attempt to impress recruiters, they stated. Greater than half of the respondents stated they’d by no means heard again from the corporations the place they’d utilized for positions.

Some college students at lesser-known public universities stated they felt at an obstacle in contrast with their friends at laptop science powerhouses like Stanford, the Massachusetts Institute of Know-how, the Georgia Institute of Know-how and the College of California, Berkeley. Just a few college students stated they’d stop part-time jobs or uncared for their course assignments to dedicate themselves to making use of for tech internships — solely to obtain no provides.

Some faculty college students at higher-ranked computing packages reported extra profitable outcomes. Kien Pham, a scholar on the College of Minnesota, stated he had spent a lot of the summer season and fall intensively making use of to greater than 300 internships.

That included making ready for an interview with Amazon, he stated, by spending the higher a part of two weeks writing down episodes from his life that matched the corporate’s guiding values, recognized internally as management rules. He later accepted a software program engineering internship supply from Amazon for this summer season.

Some college students famous socioeconomic disparities all through the appliance course of.

Tech firms like Microsoft and Google have inside referral techniques by which staff might suggest candidates. These referrals can assist distinguish sure college students amongst tens of 1000’s of candidates. However college students at lesser-known colleges typically lack the type of business, household or elite college connections that may result in worker referrals.

One other concern, Ms. Farmer stated: The intern choice course of might overlook or underestimate faculty college students who’ve jobs.

Davita Chicken, a pc science main on the Colorado Faculty of Mines within the metropolis of Golden, has studied half a dozen laptop programming languages. Along with her coursework, she has three part-time jobs: as a instructing assistant for a math course, as an teacher at a science and expertise training program for women and as a college occasion organizer.

Final semester, Ms. Chicken devoted an hour each night over two months to making use of to 40 internships at Airbnb, Amazon, Google, Oracle and smaller corporations. She didn’t hear again from a majority of them, she stated.

“I’m anticipated to be each a full-time scholar, work outdoors of sophistication and spend about 5 hours per week doing a job seek for an internship that may’t even make use of me for 5 months,” Ms. Chicken, who lately accepted a cloud computing internship at an electronics agency, wrote in feedback to The Occasions. “I want firms would at the least give an electronic mail rejection.”

The method could appear opaque to some college students as a result of giant tech firms not often disclose their intern acceptance charges or publish lists of the schools from which they recruit the very best variety of interns.

In a current interview, Vaishali Sabhahit, world head of college expertise at Adobe, stated the corporate sometimes obtained purposes from greater than 100,000 candidates for its summer season internship program in the USA and employed about 600 interns. This yr, the corporate began a separate internship program in cybersecurity with Bowie State College, a traditionally Black college in Maryland.

Apple didn’t reply to questions on its internship program. Microsoft and Meta declined to offer responses for this text.

In an electronic mail, Keyon Younger, director of Amazon’s scholar packages, stated that the corporate took candidates’ training and work experiences into consideration, however that it targeted most on scholar alignment with the corporate’s management rules. Final yr, he stated, Amazon employed the very best variety of U.S. interns from high computing colleges together with Berkeley, Georgia Tech, the College of Washington and Carnegie Mellon College.

“Networking with present Amazonians will not be a requirement for consideration,” Mr. Younger added.

To attempt to broaden alternatives, Oracle, Microsoft, Google, Meta, Amazon and different giant tech firms have over time arrange a wide range of introductory internship or mentorship packages for first- and second-year faculty college students. These packages are meant to offer college students from teams which are underrepresented in tech — together with feminine, Black, Latino and lower-income college students — with hands-on expertise engaged on engineering initiatives.

Google’s effort, the Pupil Coaching in Engineering Program, is designed to arrange college students for skilled internships. This system hosted a number of hundred college students final yr from 143 universities. The same effort at Amazon, the Propel Program, has prolonged return internship or full-time job provides to profitable interns, Mr. Younger stated.

Wealthier college students may have benefits in making ready for coding exams and technical interviews. To gear up for the assessments, many college students follow their expertise on LeetCode, a free check prep web site that gives coding and algorithmic issues, together with detailed options.

The positioning additionally provides premium providers. For $35 a month, it provides members entry to particular issues that firms like Amazon, Google and Microsoft beforehand used — and a few proceed to make use of — to evaluate candidates. To maintain the questions up-to-date, the check prep service stated, it often surveys members making use of for tech positions.

Spending hours training on LeetCode, nevertheless, didn’t find yourself serving to Mr. Ross at Central Connecticut State College. He described the expertise of making use of, and being rejected, for 200 technical internships as “heartbreaking.”

“It made me really feel this subject wasn’t for me,” he stated, “regardless of me having fun with laptop science.”

Nonetheless, Mr. Ross stated he felt grateful for the chance to review and work in computing. He lately accepted a return internship supply from the monetary providers agency the place he labored final summer season.