It’s again that time of year when my DMs are filled with people asking about how to crack the upcoming Google Summer of Code, how to contribute to open-source, how to make a place in the org community, and how to get their PR merged.
So, let's cut the fluff and get down to the absolute minimum you need to know about navigating the GSoC organisation selection and getting your proposal accepted. Think of GSoC less as a competition to "crack" and more as a learning opportunity that pays off later. The most important thing you'll learn is not during the project, but during your preparation.
Why You Can Trust This Methodology (My Experience with GSoC)
I first tried for GSoC in 2023 during my second undergraduate year. I was confident I'd get selected, but I failed. I applied again and was selected as a GSoC mentee in 2024. Over those two years, I experimented with multiple strategies across various organizations, which is why I know what actually works.
I worked on the "Development of a UI Kit for the AsyncAPI website using Storybook in Next.js and Typescript" as the GSoC’2024 project at the AsyncAPI Initiative. Crucially, I contributed to AsyncAPI for eight months before GSoC even started. In that time, I tackled major problems, including:
Redesigning and building the Modelina Playground, an interactive tool for live experimentation.
Migrating the Modelina website from class-based to functional React components.
Migrating the AsyncAPI Website codebase to TypeScript and Next.js.
I became a maintainer of the Modelina Website and a part of the Technical Steering Committee—all before being selected as a GSoC mentee. This year, I am currently a GSoC 2025 mentor for the project "Redesign and Redevelopment of the AsyncAPI Initiative website."
In short: I've been on both sides of the fence, so you can follow this methodology without worrying.
The Absolute Best Way to Shortlist GSoC Organisations
Start Early (Now, not March): The surest way to win this game is to start contributing now (October-November). By the time the February-March crowd shows up, you’ll be an established contributor with an intimate knowledge of the codebase, upcoming potential projects and bigger issues to solve, leaving them to fight over the small, trivial bug fixes.
Go to the Source: Visit the official GSoC organisation listing page (even last year's list works for initial research because most of the organisations repeat, their projects are follow-ups to last year's projects, and last year’s mentees will be the upcoming mentors).
The A-Z Marathon: Forget third-party filters or sorting by tech stack—they're often misleading. A machine learning organisation might need a web developer for its project's dashboard, and you'd miss it if you filtered only for ML. The best way is the old-fashioned, methodical approach. Take one to two weeks and go through the list A to Z. Open each organisation's:
Website: What is their core mission? What problem are they trying to solve?
GitHub/Repository: Look at their active projects.
Last Year's Projects: Can you understand what last year's GSoC students worked on? Do they feel exciting to you?
Filter by Interest and Tech Stack: As you go through them, you'll filter out most of them. Keep an organisation if:
The product/problem genuinely interests you.
The tech stack they use aligns with your existing knowledge or something you want to learn.
You can understand the goal of their projects.
The First Shortlist: This method should narrow down the list to about 6–15 organisations.
Most Important: Go through GSoC’s official guidelines for contributors/applicants/students: https://google.github.io/gsocguides/student/. It will be boring, but read all sections thoroughly—it’s a gem that will help you in every part of your GSoC journey.
From Shortlist to Selection: The Contribution Phase
This is where the rubber meets the road. Your final selection will come from doing the work.
1. Get Your Hands Dirty
Join the Community: Find their communication servers (Slack, Discord, mailing list), go through recent chats and channels to get some context (and to avoid sending a message to the wrong channel in future).
Don’t introduce yourself now. You should present yourself with purpose. Instead, first go through the issues of the repos/projects you shortlisted earlier for this organisation, and try to find any issue that you can solve and then ask in the issue discussion if you can work on it.
Target the Easy Wins: Look for "good first issues," "beginner issues," or similar tags in their repositories. Don't be afraid to start small—the goal is to see how the codebase works and make your presence felt to the project maintainers (your potential mentors).
Contribute Aggressively (and Smartly): Start solving these issues and submitting Pull Requests (PRs). You will quickly find that you cannot understand the codebases or relate to the work of a few organisations. You can drop those organisations.
Go for the Jackpot: Now, try to tackle bigger issues or stale issues. Stale issues are often large and were left midway by previous contributors. If you can pick the most important one and fix it, you will earn a +10 aura point.
The Grand Introduction: This is the time to introduce yourself to the community:
No need to write a large paragraph about your background.
Instead, discuss the complex issues you are trying to solve, or ask for a review of your Pull Request. This presents you with a proof of work, giving weight to your words and earning you +100 aura points.
The Final Shortlist: By the end of this process (ideally by early December/late January at the latest), you will be left with 1-2 organisations where you feel comfortable, can understand the work, and can get PRs merged. If you feel that any org’s communication server is not that active or you can filter them out. The remaining 1-2 orgs are where you will apply for GSoC.
2. Communicate and Research
Connect with Mentors: Pay attention to which project maintainers are friendly and active. Attend the organisation's community meetings and participate actively in discussions, asking doubts if you have them.
Search First, Ask Later: Before asking anyone a technical question, search Google/YouTube first. Mentors highly prefer students who demonstrate a clear effort to solve problems independently before asking for help.
Focus on Learning: Your goal right now shouldn't be "GSoC selection." Your primary goal should be to learn the tech and concepts the organization uses. The GSoC selection will follow naturally.
The Proposal: Your Closing Argument
Your success depends on two things: your pre-application contribution and your proposal. Most of the mentors look for two things while selecting their project mentee: 1) How much they have contributed before (in terms of time and PRs), and 2) How well researched and in-depth their proposal is.
Proposal Research: Since you’ve been contributing for months, you’ll have an internal understanding of the organisation's needs and future plans. Use this knowledge to write a well-researched and detailed proposal. Make sure to add references from documentation or external sources wherever needed. And don’t use AI to make your proposal, we can smell that from miles away, by reading the first few paragraphs and reject the proposal at that point (You can use AI to research about your proposal or fix grammatical errors, but don’t use it to generate a whole proposal or sections of it).
Get Reviewed: Treat your proposal like a professional document. Have the project mentors review it at least 2–3 times before the final submission. They can tell you exactly what they want to see.
Most Important: Go through GSoC’s official guideline for contributors/applicants/students: https://google.github.io/gsocguides/student/
Bottom line: Start now, filter methodically, contribute aggressively, be active in the community, and write a well-researched, in-depth proposal (that you wrote yourself, not by AI).
