Re: Withdrawing after selection
Mashiat Sarker Shakkhar
> Hi all,
>
> I am going to apply to some projects of GSoC. I have all the
> requirements needed and I am still enrolled at my university, even
> though I will graduate at the beginning of May. The problem is that I
> have also applied for a job that could start either in June or in
> September: in the first case I could not take part to GSoC anymore,
> while in the last case I would be free for the summer and able to
> participate. They will let me know around the third week of April.
> Therefore, my question is: if you are selected for a project by GSoC,
> is there a certain amount of time during which you can decide to
> confirm or not? Any "penalty" related? I've read outcomes are
> published by 23rd April, but there's no clue in the FAQ about an
> eventual refusal after being selected.
The actual coding period doesn't start before May 23rd. If you are
selected for a project then the mentors are required to report if you
are keeping in touch before Google makes the first payment. So even if
you get into the program, and find out that you can't continue it -
inform your mentor and he will fail your project. No penalty whatsoever.
But do make yourself clear to your mentor beforehand about this possible
schedule conflict. May be he'll want to select another student who has
no time-commitment during Summer.
Shakkhar
Libav
Matthew Wilkes
On 2012-03-26, at 1058, Azzurra Chinzer wrote:
> Therefore, my question is: if you are selected for a project by GSoC,
> is there a certain amount of time during which you can decide to
> confirm or not? Any "penalty" related?
Applying means you're committing to complete the project. You can drop out if you have to, but that is equivalent to quitting your Summer of Code job. The organisation won't get to select someone else, the project will be abandoned. If the organisation is participating for the first time that may well mean they lose their involvement in GSoC for the year, as they have no other students to mentor.
There is no chance to change your mind after the chosen students are announced, at that point the other potential students have been rejected and either your project is completed or it is abandoned. If you have another job lined up it is *not* appropriate to use GSoC as a backup that you can then discard.
If you have existing commitments that are likely to cause you not to be able to complete your project do not apply for GSoC.
Matthew
Kevin Smith
<mashiat...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On 3/26/2012 3:58 PM, Azzurra Chinzer wrote:
>>
>> Hi all,
>>
>> I am going to apply to some projects of GSoC. I have all the
>> requirements needed and I am still enrolled at my university, even
>> though I will graduate at the beginning of May. The problem is that I
>> have also applied for a job that could start either in June or in
>> September: in the first case I could not take part to GSoC anymore,
>> while in the last case I would be free for the summer and able to
>> participate. They will let me know around the third week of April.
>> Therefore, my question is: if you are selected for a project by GSoC,
>> is there a certain amount of time during which you can decide to
>> confirm or not? Any "penalty" related? I've read outcomes are
>> published by 23rd April, but there's no clue in the FAQ about an
>> eventual refusal after being selected.
>
>
> The actual coding period doesn't start before May 23rd. If you are selected
> for a project then the mentors are required to report if you are keeping in
> touch before Google makes the first payment. So even if you get into the
> program, and find out that you can't continue it - inform your mentor and he
> will fail your project. No penalty whatsoever.
This is very much not true. There is a significant penalty for the
org, who will lose the code you would have done over the summer, will
lose the chance for someone else to do the work, will have wasted all
the time they spent selecting you, and interacting with you and with
anyone else who could have had the slot. There's a significant penalty
for the other, not selected, students, who lose out on $5000 and on
the chance to do something great during the summer. There's a
significant penalty for the users of the software, who don't get the
new feature you committed to providing.
There is a cost for the org associated with every application, but I
suspect some, or most orgs, will be happy with you applying when you
also have other prospects for the summer, as long as either a) GSoC is
your first choice and you won't accept another job unless you fail to
get into GSoC or b) if GSoC is not your first choice that you will
withdraw your application significantly before the orgs need to decide
on which students to select. There's a little bit of leeway where the
org can probably recover, but this mostly means withdrawing before the
end of the application period. If you are applying for other jobs, you
should certainly discuss this with the org before applying.
/K