Ok so..I got an intership from Grant Thornton. However I am still interested in going for the big 4. So MY QUESTION is....I've heard that summer internships are A LOT more competitive than winter internships. This is because all the college students are free in the summer, and everyone wants to a chance to intern with the big 4. However, Summer is a slow season for the big 4 and they aren't looking to hire too many interns because theres no demand for it. So theres a large supply (of applicants) but very little demand.

But internships in the winter seem easier to get into. Firstly, most college students are unwilling to take a semester off their school work to intern (which is required for winter internships since it begins in january) so theres less competition. Secondly, as we all know winter internships are in the busy season, and so the big 4 are probably looking for additional interns and man power to help them with meeting deadlines and everything. So less supply, more demand.

This is just something I thought of, and witnessed so far. A lot of my friends couldnt get internships for the summer, but they got internships for the winter.

Since I will be interning for Grant Thornton during either the summer or winter (they gave me the chance to pick), I want to apply for the big 4 internship which I would be most likely to be accepted. So what do you guys think, winter or summer? Is my theory correct or incorrect? Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated.

there are many problems with your reasoning, but the biggest issue is the failure to consider the size of the intern classes in the summer and winter, and the overall purpose of the internship from the perspective of the firms. the summer intern classes are significantly larger than the winter intern classes (about 4-5x larger). the majority of big 4 new hires were summer interns as the big 4 firms specifically use their summer internship as a recruiting tool and have no concerns about barely utilizing the summer interns for work purposes. the winter intern classes are much smaller, and the interns during that time are used for more practical and functional purposes. at the end of the day, it might seem easier to land a winter internship, but there are also far fewer spots. on a side note, it is 100x more fun to intern during the summer than the winter. trust me, you have your whole life to work, and getting paid to be a summer intern where you barely work and have 0 stress is awesome.

I'm not sure what your specific situation is (are you heading into your junior or senior year??), but your main goal should be to land a full-time offer from GT following their internship, and then delay accepting and participate in on-campus recruiting with the big 4 firms for full-time spots (if you don't end up interning with the big 4). the big 4 firms do give offers to people who did not intern, and with solid experience from GT on your resume, i feel like you would have a good shot at landing one of those spots.