eFinancialCareers: A European bank has more exclusive internships than Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan

If you thought internships at US banks were the only ones with hundreds of applicants per role in New York, you’d be mistaken. BNP Paribas, which had a rather successful second quarter, has been trying to establish itself as the tier one European bank, and its internship application figures reflect that ambition.

A spokesperson for BNP Paribas informed eFinancialCareers that BNP’s 2024 Americas summer internships had more than 37,000 applications for just 168 positions. This gives the French bank an acceptance rate of 0.4%, or an average of around 220 applicants per position. 

Globally, Goldman Sachs has an application acceptance rate of 0.95% for 3,000 internships, while JPMorgan has an acceptance rate of 0.81% for 4,000. Figures are not known for the two banks’ acceptance rates for Americas internships specifically.

It’s also worth noting that applications per role, may not necessarily mean applicants per role, as individual students can apply to more than one internship. Trackr data suggests that students looking for internships in banking make 68 applications each on average, though it’s not clear how many applications they make per company.

BNP says that, including off-cycle internships, it had 39,490 applicants for 173 positions. This would mean its winter internships had roughly 2,490 applicants for just five roles, a 0.2% acceptance rate. Take that as a warning if you think missing summer intern application deadlines will be fine because ‘there’s gonna be off-cycle internships anyway.’

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