Student Proposal Period

During the Student proposal phase, a Student can create a profile in the program, research projects, and reach out to the Mentoring Organizations they are interested in learning more about.

Creating a Melange Profile

Before you can apply to participate in Google Summer of Code you must create a profile in Melange. Please note: you must have a Google account in order to register and create a profile with the program. If you don't have a Google account, you will need to sign up for one at accounts.google.com/signup.

Once you have a Google account and have logged in, the first step to create a profile is to press the Create Profile button. (If you don't see the Create Profile button, you haven't logged in to your Google account yet.) Be careful to register as a Student, not a Mentor.

This will bring you to the Create Student Profile page. This is where you create your profile by registering. You will need to fill in your name, email address, home address, and other information. 

IMPORTANT: you should only create one profile for the specific program year. Having multiple student profiles in one year will result in your removal from the program. 

Important Points About How to Enter Your Information

Make sure that your Public Name and User Name are professional and consistent with the name or handle you may already be using online. For example, if your name is Jane Chow and you go by "jchow" on your project mailing list, you might choose "Jane_Chow" or "jchow" as your "Public Name". If you have registered for Google Summer of Code in previous years it will be helpful to the program administrators if you use the same spelling of your name, school, etc as in years past. Please do not choose a Public Name or User Name that is potentially offensive, such as "cerealkiller".

"Usernames" can only be used once in Melange but do carry over from one year to the next, so if you have registered before, please use your old username.

For "Public Email", please enter an email address to be used by Organization Administrators or Mentors seeking additional information. Please use the email address associated with the Google Account information you provided during the application process. This email will be used as the primary mode of contact by Google throughout the program, e.g. the email address which we will use to subscribe you to the Google Summer of Code Students-only mailing list.

Your "Residential Address" should be your legal address; for example, where you are registered to vote. Your Shipping Address may be different. If you want your tee shirt, etc sent to a different address, please check the box to reveal more fields to be filled out.

IM Handle and Home Page and Blog URL: please note that these are not required text fields. If you do not use IM, blog, etc. or you prefer not to share that information, leave the fields blank. 

Your School Name refers to your college or university, not your department or program. For example, if you are studying at the "Institute for Software Design in the College of Engineering at BITS Pilani", your School Name should be entered as "BITS Pilani", not "Institute for Software Design", or "College of Engineering".  Please review the school names in the dropdown list before entering your school name as text.

Similarly, your School URL should be the top level domain for your school, not that of your department or program. 

Press Submit at the bottom of the page. 

If you do not fill out a required field or put invalid data in the form, fields with errors will be highlighted in red.

If you have successfully completed your profile, the top of the form will now be labeled "Edit Profile" instead of "Create Profile". 

When your profile is saved you will see two new options in your sidebar - My Profile and My Dashboard. 

You can visit My Profile at any time to edit your personal information. My Dashboard is where you will find links to your Proposals page, a list of Important Documents and a list of Shipments sent to you. If you are accepted it will eventually display links to your evaluations, and more.

Submitting your Proof of Enrollment

You have one last important step to complete before you can submit a proposal to Google Summer of Code - submitting your proof of enrollment in an accredited institution of higher learning. Begin by returning to the homepage.

Click on Submit enrollment form, choose the file to upload it into Melange, and hit Submit. Be sure that your file image is is legible before you upload it! You should see a green "Data Saved successfully" bar across the top of the page.

The Proposal Process

Submit a Proposal

Now that you've created a profile, you can apply to participate in Google Summer of Code by submitting at least one proposal to a participating organization. (You should have already browsed through the list of accepted organizations that interest you, searching by relevant tags (such as C++, HTML, Python, etc.) that may help you make your decision about which organization(s) to apply to.)  On the GSoC homepage, click on Submit Proposal: a list of participating organizations will appear. 

When you click on an organization, you will be taken to a "Submit a new proposal" page. Please fill out all the required information in as much detail as possible.

Special Notes Regarding Saving Your Proposal:

• There is no automatic save for drafts in Melange. If you want to save your proposal to come back to it later you should click Submit. But please note, when you click Submit, your proposal is immediately visible to the organization. Proposals in an incomplete state are acceptable (and expected) as it is better to have an incomplete proposal in the system than to miss the deadline entirely in case of emergency or poor connectivity. You can continue to edit your proposal until the submission deadline.
• You may choose whether your proposal is to all the other students or public. The default is that your proposal is only visible to the Organization you submit it to. A public proposal can be viewed by anyone who has the URL, but the URL is not publicized by Melange. If your proposal is accepted, certain details of the project will be publicly visible; this public/private setting only applies during the proposal period.
• After you click on Submit, you'll be taken to a read-only view of your proposal. To edit you must click on Edit Proposal under the title. If your submission is accepted into the system, you will see a green bar across the top of the form which says, "Data saved successfully". If you do NOT see this green bar, your proposal has not been saved and you MUST click Submit again.

Do not wait until the deadline to submit your proposal.

Editing a Submitted Proposal 

To access and edit your submitted proposal before the deadline, visit My Dashboard and click on Proposals. This will display the list of all the proposals you've submitted. Please note that there is a limit on the number of proposals that can be submitted, so please refer to the FAQ related to the current year of Google Summer of Code for the proposal limit. Click on the proposal you want to edit to pull up an edit window.

Submit Multiple Proposals

To submit multiple proposals for the same or a different organization, click on Apply from the Organization page on the Google Summer of Code website, as described in the "Submit a Proposal" section in the chapter. 

Withdraw Proposal

You cannot delete a proposal, but you can withdraw your proposal before the application period deadline by moving the Withdraw slider on the left side of the page to display Yes or No. 

Please Note: there is a limit to the the number of proposals you can submit, but if you withdraw a proposal you will be able to submit a new one in it's place.

Once the deadline has passed you won't be able to change your proposals visibility, or withdraw it. If you need to make changes to the proposal after the submission deadline, email the contact listed on the organization's main page and request a later edit. They may not allow this, so don't count on being able to make changes.  

Comments on your Proposal

Mentoring Organizations have the ability to make comments on your proposal.  If a new comment is made, you will receive an email from Melange notifying you. Visit the link provided in the email or click on the My Dashboard link on the Melange homepage, then Proposals and select one of the proposals. From that page, you can see the organization's comment.

From the same interface you can answer the comment and edit your proposal if necessary. You cannot edit or delete submitted comments.  Please note that the comments you make are visible to all Mentors and Organization Administrators from that organization, but are not visible to others.

Tax Forms

Detailed instructions for obtaining these documents will be sent to the private students' mailing list. Completed forms should be saved as PDFs and uploaded to Melange by:

1. Visit My Profile and scroll to the bottom of the page to where it says 7. Forms. 
2. Your Proof of Enrollment form that you uploaded before submitting your proposal(s) will be shown first. If you need to re-upload a fresh copy you can do that here. 
3. Below that you will see Tax Form. The option to upload will only be available to you at the appropriate time during the program, so don't be concerned if you don't see an Upload button - just come back later.
4. If the Upload button is available, choose the file you'd like to upload and press Submit.

Withdrawing from Google Summer of Code

If for some reason you cannot or do not want to complete Google Summer of Code, please contact your Organization Administrator.