Off-Cycle internship recruiting!

Hey all,
We just finished up our off-cycle internship recruiting (http://lgo.mit.edu/manufacturing-operations-mba-internships/) last week. This means that the group of us who recruited for off-cycle internships will start our internships in February of 2014 (ending in August). People have various reasons for choosing to interview for off-cycle internships:

• Location: Some of us are trying to go (or stay in Boston) to specific places for our internship. For instance, a lot of those with significant others (SO) that work in Boston would like to stay in Boston for their internship because moving for six months would be disruptive for their SO. 
• Company: A few of us are targeting certain companies for internships because they would like to work their post-MBA (or at least would like to try it out). 
• Timing: Some of my classmates have specific timing concerns because of classes or conferences. For instance, a few of my classmates opted out of recruiting for off-cycle internships because they want to take part in some conferences this February (I think the tech conference and sports analytics conference are both in February). 
• Internship content: I think a few of us were motivated by the specific problem statement in the various internships. 

The internship recruiting cycle was supposed to be from the 21st of October to the 1st of November, but some of the interviews have spilled over into this week (due to some company scheduling issues). LGO only allows up to 15 (at least this year) of us to go on off-cycle internships, so a few of us will be disappointed by the matching of internships to students. If you all do not know, internships are matched to students similarly to the Medical Student residency match. Students rank the preference of their internships and companies do as well. The internships are then matched to optimize happiness of the student and company. 

We should know whether or not we are matched at the end of this week. The match for off-cycle internships is faster than for on-cycle because a smaller number of us apply to off-cycle, and students are a lot more exclusive about which internships they apply to (so the match is less complex). The reason we are more exclusive is because if we do not match this cycle, we always have the on-cycle internship to try again. 

This year we had a great selection of internships from our partner companies (http://lgo.mit.edu/partner-companies/partners/). Amazon, Amgen, Beth Israel (Boston area hospital), Boeing, Mass. General Hospital, Nike, Pfizer, Sanofi, UTC-Sikorsky, and Verizon all offered internships for off-cycle internships. I am in the Engineering Systems Division (ESD), so most of the internships worked for me (a few of the biotech companies strongly prefer Chemical Engineers). Depending on the engineering department, students had a smaller list of companies they could recruit for because the internship forms the basis of our thesis. This thesis is a requirement for graduation so our engineering department must approve the internship to ensure it has enough appropriate engineering content for an engineering professor in that department to sign off on. It seems like the most lenient engineering department in terms of engineering content is ESD because it is, arguably, the most inter-disciplinary engineering department that LGO partners with. 

If I match I'll be pretty excited about the internship, but a bit sad at leaving Boston. Also, the thought of moving so soon is daunting. If I don't match, my wife and I will be happy to have some more time in Boston before possibly moving in June. I'll keep you all posted on the results!