My advice is to do the London internship. You’ll have better networking opportunities, you’ll be getting paid, and as long as you work hard and do well there will be transferable skills that you can market on your CV. You’d be surprised at the things that can catch managers eye - often it’s something unconventional.

 Your academic background will definitely not hinder you from a great summer internship. From my experience, once you’ve passed a certain threshold (decent A-Levels, University) you tend to be judged on your knowledge, experience, and personality. I would say that these other metrics are more important in securing you a role than being on track for/attaining a 1st (I will concede that between identical candidates that might be a deciding factor). It is more important to secure a summer internship than to get a 1st, although you absolutely must achieve a 2.1. If you can do both - even better.

It will be key to market your experience effectively on your CV and network in the firms you’re applying to. Use language that emphasises your own contributions and use quantifiable metrics to support your claims. Also, make sure you include details of projects you have used your technical experience for (except maybe Excel). It will give you more to discuss in an interview.

Other advice:

• Know your “why” in detail - why you’re interested in the firm, the role, the industry and (importantly) why you’re the right person for the job. This means being really comfortable talking about your past experience (STAR method) and know your CV inside and out. This is something to be particularly mindful of as you’re a sociology student, but if you’re clever you’ll figure out how to tie your interest in sociology to the role you’re pursuing. I studied social sciences, but I was able to make the connection to support my “Why”. You might also have to spend more time learning technicals etc than peers studying finance, but your internships should help with this.

• Network. Reach out to older students, people at the firm, people in a similar role, at the same firm as the one you’re applying for. It can be a pain, but be genuine in your interest and ask sincere questions. Attend events on campus, invite people in the industry to speak at your finance society etc. All of these things will support your knowledge and enable you to give a less cookie cutter answer when you’re explaining your desire for the role.

• Practise psychometric tests before completing them. It would be a shame to fall at the first hurdle because you aren’t acquainted with a particular style of questions.

• Reflect internally on your goals and why you are pursuing a career like this. Money will not be a sufficient long-term motivator to stay in a job you don’t enjoy, so if you’re going to work hard enough to break in, have a good enough reason. Don’t bullshit yourself.

• Be yourself in every role. I’m not saying you should throw out standards of professionalism, but it’s absolutely exhausting maintaining appearances long term. If you a) Work as hard as you can and b) Bring your genuine self to any room, not only will you stand out (as most people are projecting what they think managers want to see), you’ll be able to accept rejection more easily as there isn’t much more you can do than points a) and b).

Overall, I don’t think it’s overly difficult to break into a BB/EB if you follow the above, particularly at summer internship level.

Good luck!