CS Interns - Resist the temptation to email a banker/staff to ask about your internship
As you can imagine, bankers at CS literally have 100 things to worry about, and your internship isn't one. Beyond showing that you are a self-consumed little human with no clue how mergers and acquisitions work, sending that email panicking about your upcoming 2 month internship shows a lack of awareness and sensitivity for the matter at hand. Many of these people are literally freaking out and running scared about their own jobs, and at this point not even the MD who gave you a hard time during super day knows his fate. The best you can do is to back off and wait for news. If you feel inclined, use the sympathy that may arise from this moment to reach out to school alums and bankers elsewhere to hopefully set yourself up for when you need to recruit again.
Everything you said.
Also not only are they facing the possibility of losing their job but many of them are going through a substantial wealth destruction event given CS equity was valued for pennies.
The last thing they care about is the status of the summer analyst / new hire program.
If you have a close friend at the firm, feel free to see if you can get some inside details. It’s what I did in ‘08 but please don’t bother people you interviewed with or networked with once over the phone.
This is a simple decision tree, nobody needs clarification from HR.
1) Your internship is cancelled -> you need to recruit
2) Your internship is still on -> 2a) but there won't be a return offer; 2b) you will get a return offer but it will be cancelled later; 2c) you get a return offer but you don't really want to work there; 2d) you get a return offer and you want to take it.
For 1, 2a, 2b, and 2c, your decision should be to recruit ASAP. And then I have to ask, how likely is scenario 2d) in reality?
I'd say feel free to ask HR because it's literally their job to deal with stuff like this (obviously do so respectfully) but yes, don't harass the actual bankers about it.