Re: Student application process

[Janek Warchoł]

On Sun, Mar 18, 2012 at 11:06 PM, Thorsten <address@hidden> wrote:
> Andy Wingo <address@hidden> writes:
>
> Hi Andy,
>
>> On Sun 18 Mar 2012 17:31, Thorsten <address@hidden> writes:
>>
>>> Is that a two stage process:
>>> 1. Students apply for proposals from indivuduals GNU projects, directly
>>> communication with the project maintainers
>>> 2. The maintainers of those projects select some students for their project
>>> ideas and then transfer the student list to the GNU organisation that
>>> decides about the final allocation of student slots
>>
>> Just as a voice from past SoC events:
>>
>> Students without a GNU project mentor will not be considered.  As such
>> (1) is a necessary step.
>>
>> Input from maintainers is most important.  If Lilypond (for example)
>> says "we want this project, then if we have space these other two", that
>> consideration will be honored.
>>
>> The final slot count is pretty random and capricious.  A couple of years
>> ago we had a lot of slots.  Last year we had very few.  This year will
>> probably be in between; who knows.  Last year was quite painful as there
>> were many good students who we couldn't accept because of the low slot
>> count.
>>
>> I think the thing to do is to keep your hopes up, expectations low, and
>> your proposal quality and relationship with your maintainer good.
>
> So, besides some direct student applications on this list, students
> should contact projects, and projects will then contact GNU with their
> student/project preferences (as I thought).

Hmm, shouldn't applications be made via Google Melange website or something?
I thought it works in this way:
1) students contact individual GNU projects and discuss they
proposals, make sure that mentors are available etc.
2) students submit polished applications officially using GSOC website
3) when all applications are submitted and all mentoring organizations
(in our case GNU) get student slots, GNU discusses with project
maintainters who gets how many slots.
?

cheers,
Janek