The Wall Street Journal will take between 20 and 25 interns for the summer of 2012 and will likely receive about 600 applications for those positions, said Deborah Brewster, who oversees the program, on Friday.

Brewster, a deputy managing editor at the paper, said that competition for those slots is tough, and those selected will go through a one-week training program before they begin their jobs.

About five of those interns will work for WSJ.com, the newspaper's web operation. There will also be an intern or two working in its video operation and an in intern working in its graphics department.

One intern will also work in its sports section, and another will write for its metro New York section.

The rest will be reporters working on different desks and in different bureaus, said Brewster. The deadline to apply is Nov. 1.

Of the 2011 internship class, Brewster said that the paper ended up hiring its intern, Jack Nicas, who worked in the Chicago bureau and is close to making an offer for another intern who worked in the Atlanta bureau.

The paper typically hires a handful of interns for entry-level jobs.

She said that students with experience tend to stand out from those who have not worked for their college papers or who had previous internships and are able to hit the ground running faster in their Journal internship.