GSoC 2018 - Tips and Questions on Student Proposals

With the GSoC 2018 student application period opening next week (12-27 March), students should be busy preparing for this by introducing themselves to the community, onboarding and working on introductory tickets, discussing project ideas, and beginning to think about their proposals. With this in mind:

  • Are there any tips from former GSoC students or mentors on how to write a great proposal, and/or suggestions for getting a proposal accepted?
    • Former students are welcome to share their proposals from previous years, but this is at the discretion of each student.
    • See this thread for some great advice from previous years.
  • Are there any unanswered questions from interested applicants that you think are missing from the guidelines for students, proposal requirements or the GSoC Student Guide?
4 Likes

I’d like to share my proposal for my GSOC 2017 project. Project Proposal.pdf (932.0 KB) They key points for a good proposal in my opinion are :

  • Length of the proposal should be around 10-15 pages. Anything less than 8 pages shows that you haven’t researched everything well.

  • Include a timeline. Give a timeline showing how you are going to achieve the milestones / deliverable as you progress through the summer.

  • Follow the project requirements properly and respond to each one, so we don’t have to send your proposal back without review for edits.

  • Give detailed UI Mockups and diagrams depicting event flow. Including a UML diagram or a flow chart or some mock-up of the UI in your proposal is a plus. This shows your mentor that you have thought out even the minute details well.

Also, as @danfuterman mentioned don’t forget to go through the proposal requirements

5 Likes

@danfuterman @mavrk Thank you for the valuable advice. There is a proposal that I have been working on. How can I make it reviewed by an expert? Is there a place to submit the draft proposal.

The GSoC student application period opens later today. Once this has been announced, I will post on Talk with details on submitting draft and final proposals.

3 Likes

A few sample proposals (these date back to 2010, and could benefit from the inclusion of supporting mockups and diagrams):

3 Likes

My last year’s proposals:

1 Like