You live in a city without a strong internship market. No major corporate headquarters. No buzzing startup scene. The only realistic path to a meaningful summer internship is remote. So you polish your resume, fire off applications, and wait.

Then the numbers hit you: a single remote marketing internship at a mid-size tech company drew 800+ applications on LinkedIn. An on-site equivalent in a major city? Around 200. You are competing against students from every city and every time zone — and your resume looks exactly like theirs.