OK... what's with the current SA recruiting schedule??

Hiya - it's been quite a while since I've been out of investment banking and am currently doing something else that I enjoy.

I wanted to start a thread here because I was grabbing a coffee with a undergrad recently was SHOCKED to find out that internship process now begins in Winter of your sophomore year. In essence, undergrads now are asked to commit to a career path with less than halfway to go in their study and a few intro level courses under their belt? This does not seem to make a lot of sense to me.

I find this change absurd for a few reasons:

First and most obvious, undergrads should be encouraged to take their time in exploring their academic and career interests. You fall prey to the herd mentality at the dumb and tender age of 19 and the world doesn't need more kids learning corporate accounting and valuation in vain. But more importantly on the flip side - this creates cohorts of analysts who were preparing for this path since high school and are extremely alike. Getting into the industry already requires a lot of social capital from applicants; it shouldn't at the very least raise that bar even higher (and presumably the bar to access the opportunities goes even higher once you recruit for HF / PE.)

I am curious about your thoughts (current undergrads or people in the industry) on this change. A few other points that I would be interested in are:

• Is there any positive side in all this?
• What's driving this? Is it just simply the banks starting early and "beating each other" every year or is there more?
• Are exploding offers accepted?
• Are schools concerned / doing anything about this? Similar to what MBA career offices do, this seems like an easy fix if a few top schools would demand that they follow a certain time frame

Thanks guys!