Google Starts Accepting Summer of Code 2007 Applications

Google starts accepting student applications for Summer of Code 2007 today. Google Summer of Code (GSoC) is a program started by Google in 2005, where they offer stipends to students for working on open source projects during the summer months. Think of it as an elite internship. The students who win the stipend will receive $4,500 in cold hard cash, a t-shirt, bragging rights to turn their friends green with envy and a super-cool addition to their resume. If you are not a Computer Science major, fret not. Here’s what Google has to say about the previous years' student participants -

While the majority of past student participants were enrolled in university Computer Science and Computer Engineering programs, GSoCers come from a wide variety of educational backgrounds, from computational biology to mining engineering.

How it works
Between March 5th and 12th, Google accepted applications from several open source projects and organization to become mentors. Google will select about 100 of these mentors and publish the list today. Between March 14th and 24th Google accepts student applications. Students should submit a proposal (more on this below) and choose a mentor. The mentors look through all the applications they receive and rank the students. For each mentor, Google decides a fixed number of slots. Students that rank within the allocated slots for each mentoring organization are accepted. Google pays the selected students $4,500 and the mentoring organization $500.

Stipend Disbursement
Students receive the stipend in three checks: $500 when coding begins, $2000 after mid-term evaluation and $2000 after final evaluation. Mentoring organizations receive $500 after final evaluation.

Program Timeline
March 5-12: Application accepted from mentoring organizations.
March 14: List of accepted mentoring organizations published on code.google.com.
March 14-24: Application accepted from students.
April 9: List of accepted students published on code.google.com.
May 28: Coding begins; Initial payment to students.
July 9-16: Mid-term evaluations; Mid-term payment to students.
August 20-31: Final evaluation; Final payment to students and mentoring organizations.

Application Package
If the mentoring organization offers a specific application template, use it. If not, student application package should include –

1. Project proposal (There is a 7500 character limit, so if your proposal is long, then include an abstract in the application and link to an external site for more details).


2. A short essay on why you chose the project and why you are the one best suited to do it (Remember, other students might pick a similar project too).


3. A resume listing academic, industry and prior open source development experience.


4. An outline of the development methodology.


5. A brief list of deliverables.


6. Optional: Links to an external site for more details.

Additional Info

• Students not required to have prior open source development experience or be Computer Science majors.


• Expected # of mentoring organizations: 100.


• Expected # of students funded: 600.


• Each student can submit up to 20 applications, only one (if any) will be accepted.


• Students are allowed to submit their existing open source projects (if any) and continue working on it through summer as part of GSoC.


• Google Summer of Code is not a recruiting program, but Google will use the program results to identify potential recruits.


• All projects should be individual projects, even though collaboration with others is allowed.


• You must be 18 years of age or older by April 9, 2007.


• You must be a currently enrolled student willing to submit proof of enrollment.


• You may be enrolled as full-time or part-time.


• Students with F-1 visa are eligible as long as authorized to work in US. Google will provide a letter for applying for CPT if necessary.


• GSoC Flier says last year student projects across 90 countries were funded. So I assume you don’t have to be in the US to participate. I could not find more info about this on their site, so check with Google if you are not in the US


• Google Summer of Code website .


• Google Summer of Code FAQ .


• Google Summer of Code Wiki .


• Google Summer of Code discussion group .


• Google Summer of Code announcements .


• Google Summer of Code Flier .

Disclaimer
If there is a conflict between something mentioned here and on Google site, the information here should be ignored. Duh?

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