I haven't had any luck so far. Probably contacted about 15-20 IB or PE firms in the area. Got responses from most of them, but no takers. I always sent an email with my resume, I did not cold call. Large firms generally had structured internship programs in place and said they don't hire pre-MBA people. Smaller ones either said they don't take interns or "no thanks, have fun at school." Made some contacts that seemed interested in staying in touch while I was at school.
I don't have a ton of connections, so it's been tough. I got a few email addresses from friends, or if they're on the company website, or I just guessed at it based on the person's name and the way email addresses look to be constructued at a particular firm (e.g. lastname.firstname@xyzcorp).
Obviously, I could've tried to contact many more firms, but I started getting to the point where I was looking into firms I had never heard of or knew anything about. And when I asked myself, will I work at
any IB/PE shop this summer just to get the experience, I started to hesitate. I'm not sure if it was the allure of having a summer off, or tired of being denied for a spot that may not even be available, or that I'm not as gung-ho as I should be about these careers. Either way, I'm about to throw in the towel and just take it easy this summer and do some other prep for school.
Also, there is a separate thread in the Career Forum:
pre-mba-internship-87881.html