International Student Sophomore Internship

Hey guys,

I'm a current sophomore at the University of Virginia and am applying to the McIntire School of Commerce this spring where if accepted, I'll be doing a finance and IT double major. I currently have a 4.0 and excellent extracurriculars (I can include more detail on this if needed).

I'm an international student from Egypt on an f-1 Visa and my aim is to have a junior summer internship at a BB bank or a PE firm. So my question is this: how important is it that my next summer's internship (my sophomore one) is 1) in America?, and 2) at a big name firm/bank?

My decision for wanting to go back home over the summer is because it might be the last summer I'll be able to spend that much time with my friends and family. The one thing making me reluctant is that I would fall behind in the crazy competitive environment here in America in terms of landing a top junior internship. I applied to some internships here and haven't gotten responses it, but I secured an internship at home with Ahly Capital Holding and if I have time, I might intern for a month at EFG Hermes as well. You probably don't know these names since they're in the Middle East but please search them before responding to this thread so you have an idea of the kind of caliber the companies are. Both are primarily investment banking, but I would be working in the PE department of EFG Hermes.

If I do go back home and do an internship at Ahly Capital (and maybe EFG as well), would it be seen as less worthy or whatever you wanna call it than a junior having a sophomore internship at a bank in America? I'm sure that I would learn a great deal at these internships but I'm worried about employers' little knowledge of the big banks in Egypt/Middle East? How do you think I should go about recruitment and securing third year summer internship as an international student?

Thank you so much! Marwan