Google Summer of Code has now opened for student applications, and the R Project has once again been selected as a mentoring organization.  I’ve discussed before that a variety of mentors have proposed a number of projects for students to work on during this summer, but I wanted to emphasize some points about the schedule.

The deadline for student submissions is May 03 at 19:00 UTC.  You have to have a credible application in Melange by this time, or the application will not get a slot.  That’s not a lot of time to create or pick an idea, write an application, identify a mentor, sign up for a Melange account, and post your application.  But students can improve their applications once they are posted, so it is worth putting up an incomplete draft if you need to.

Even after the deadline, students will receive questions and advice for improvements from the mentors once the application is up, and should be responsive to those requests.  All of the mentors are involved in voting about which projects will be funded.

Google has extended the amount of time spent determining slots this year, so the ‘behind-the-scenes’ process will be longer this year than it was in past years.  Accept/reject notices to students will come on May 31st.

Everyone who wants to participate in this year’s Google Summer of Code with R should join the Google Group: [email protected].

Good luck!