Accepted Student Information
GSoC 2011 Accepted Student Information
- GSoC 2011 Accepted Student Information
- Frequently Asked Questions
All students are required to submit proof of enrollment in a school program of some sort, including but not limited to colleges, universities, community colleges, technical/vocational educational programs, high schools, gymnasium, etc. It is highly preferable for your proof of enrollment documentation to be submitted to us in English, as amongst us we have folks who speak English fluently, with some limited proficiency in French and Spanish. That certainly will not cover the languages for our students from all 70 countries, so please send documents in English. If you cannot submit documents in English, please provide a translation along with the document.
Any *one* of following documents is considered acceptable proof of enrollment:
•a scanned copy of your student identification card that shows you were enrolled as of 25 April 2011. This means the card must show the date (a 2011 or later expiration date or some kind of indication of enrollment in the 2010/2011 is fine, but the date you started is alone not enough)
•a transcript or course list (official or unofficial is fine) showing the courses you were enrolled in as of 25 April 2011. Transcript in .txt format is NOT acceptable.
•a letter from your college student affairs or admissions office stating that you were enrolled as of 25 April 2011
•a letter from a college or university stating that you had been accepted to attend on or before 25 April 2011
Rather than ask questions on list about whether or not the document you have is acceptable as proof of enrollment, it is much preferred that you simply send the document to us. If it is not what we need, we will request an alternate document from you.
All students are required to submit a tax form to Google. If you do work on your project in more than one country/location, you are required to pay taxes to the appropriate governing bodies for each location. If you do work on your project in both the United States and another country, you will be required to pay taxes on the full sum of your program payments in both the United States and the other country. Please consult with a tax professional for more details.
While you are welcome to ask for advice on the students list about tax forms, please note that none of this advice constitutes professional advice and it is your responsibility to consult with a tax professional to determine how the monies you receive from the Google Summer of Code program will impact you fiscally. Google cannot ethically nor legally provide you with tax advice, so please save time for all involved and consult with a tax professional regarding your questions. If you are a student studying abroad, your International Student Affairs Office or the equivalent may be able to help you with further information or a referral to a tax professional well versed in these kinds of questions.
You are considered a contract developer doing work for hire for Google. Your dates of employment will be 23 May - 22 August, 2011.
Students Based in the United States
Students based in the United States are asked to complete and return a signed, filled out IRS form W9 (download, PDF). You only need to return the first page. Provided you earn more than 600 USD in program payments, you will be issued form 1099 by Google by the end of January 2012. If you do not earn more than 600 USD in program payments, Google is not legally obligated to provide a tax form to you and will not do so. You would still need to pay taxes on any payments received regardless of whether Google issues you a 1099 form.
If you are a student based in the United States on a visa and you do not yet have a tax payer identification number (TIN), also known as a social security number (SSN), you may wish to apply for one in order to make getting payments most smooth for you. Please check with your International Student Affairs Office for more details. If you are not able to obtain a TIN or SSN, please contact Carol Smith off-list so we can discuss which form you should supply to Google. In some cases, you will need to return an IRS form W8-BEN (download, PDF), which is a real pain in the neck.
If you are a student doing some work in the United States but some in another country, you are required to submit IRS form W9 or W8-BEN to Google. You will not also need to provide us with a Foreign Certification form.
Students Based outside the United States
Students based outside the United States are asked by Google to complete and return a Foreign Certification Form (download, PDF). In order to execute the Foreign Certification form, you are legally stating that you did no work on your project inside the United States and therefore are not subject to paying US taxes for your work. Please see the form for detailed legalese.
If you do not do any work inside the United States, regardless of where else you may do work, only a Foreign Certification Form is required. While your local governing bodies may require other tax related documentation from you, Google only requires the Foreign Certification form. It is your responsibility for making sure you complete any tax related documentation required from your local governing bodies. Please consult with a tax professional if you require assistance in understanding what your local government would require from you.
Students Needing Letters to Establish Curricular Practical Training
If you are a student in the United States on an F-1 or other student visa, you may require a letter from Google to establish Curricular Practical Training (CPT). In order to request a CPT letter, please replace the information in brackets below with the correct information and send the filled in template to Carol Smith at carols@google.com as plain text in the body of your email, with subject "CPT REQUEST - <Your Name>". Carol will send you a copy of the letter as a PDF file. If you are not based in the United States and on a student visa, you do not need a letter for CPT.
If the letter must also be returned by fax or postal mail, please indicate this in your email, along with including the required fax number or address. Please confirm that the scanned copy we email to you, which will include a signature, will not suffice before asking Carol to fax or snail mail a letter for you. Save funds for postage, save fax toner, save trees, save time. :) Please allow 5 business days for return of your letter. If you need this sooner than that, please send a message to carols@google.com.
STUDENTS WHO HAVE SUCCESSFULLY COMPLETED THE PROGRAM:
<----BEGIN TEMPLATE----->
[Date you filled out the template]
[Your Address or Name and Address of Ultimate Receipient of the Letter, e.g. "Student Affairs Office, UC Berkeley"]
To Whom It May Concern:
Google Inc. is pleased to let you know that [Your Full Legal Name as It Appears on Your Student ID] successfully completed the Google Summer of Code™ 2011 program, which was administered from our Corporate Headquarters at 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway, Mountain View, CA 94043. [Your Given name] developed open source software with our sponsorship for [Name of Your Mentoring Organization name]. [Given name>] worked from home on [chose one: her/his] project and was not required to visit either Google or [Mentoring Organization name]'s offices as part of [chose one: her/his] work. [Your Full Legal Name as It Appears on Your Student ID] worked as a Student Developer for [How many? Default is 20] hours per week, beginning May 23, 2011 and ending on August 22, 2011. For this employment [choose one: she/he] was be paid a rate of $5000 for the entirety of the project. More information on [Given name]'s project can be found at <URL for your application abstract linked from http://socghop.appspot.com/program/accepted_orgs/google/gsoc2011>. Should you require any further information, please do not hesitate to contact me via email at carols@google.com. If you need to confirm via phone, please email me to arrange a mutually convenient time to speak.
<----END TEMPLATE----->
STUDENTS WHO WERE ACCEPTED BUT DID NOT COMPLETE:
<----BEGIN TEMPLATE----->
[Date you filled out the template]
[Your Address or Name and Address of Ultimate Receipient of the Letter, e.g. "Student Affairs Office, UC Berkeley"]
To Whom It May Concern:
Google Inc. is pleased to let you know that [Your Full Legal Name as It Appears on Your Student ID] has been accepted into the Google Summer of Code™ 2011 program, which is administered from our Corporate Headquarters at 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway, Mountain View, CA 94043. [Your Given name] will develop open source software with our sponsorship for [Name of Your Mentoring Organization name]. [Given name>] worked from home on [chose one: her/his] project and will not be required to visit either Google or [Mentoring Organization name]'s offices as part of [chose one: her/his] work.
[Your Full Legal Name as It Appears on Your Student ID] will work as a Student Developer for [How many? Default is 20] hours per week, beginning May 23, 2011 and ending on August 22, 2011. For this employment [choose one: she/he] will be paid a rate of $5000 for the entirety of the project. More information on [Given name]'s project can be found at <URL for your application abstract linked from http://socghop.appspot.com/program/accepted_orgs/google/gsoc2010>.
Should you require any further information, please do not hesitate to contact me via email at carols@google.com If you need to confirm via phone, please email me to arrange a mutually convenient time to speak.
<----END TEMPLATE----->
If there are additional statements that must be made in the letter for your school to consider it valid, please add them to the template in the appropriate location.
Students Needing Letters for Other Reasons
If last year is any indication, we will have many students asking for letters of acceptance because they think it's really cool to get a letter on Google letterhead. If that's the only reason you are asking for one, please don't. There are three of us working on running the program and 1,000 of you. You get a certificate at the end of the program showing you completed your project, which is way cooler.
That being said if you really need a letter of some kind, please send Carol Smith the exact verbiage that should appear in the letter. If you do not know what the letter should say, try using the template in the Students Needing Letters to Establish Curricular Practical Training section. Then again, if you don't know what the letter needs to say, maybe you don't really really need one and could just direct the person asking for it to your project page on the Google Summer of Code 2011 site? :)
How to Return Documentation to Google
Please submit your forms electronically on www.google-melange.com. Simply click on your "My Dashboard" link. You will be able to see a new list called "MY TODOS" as the first list in your Dashboard. You should be able to see the items with the names "Tax form" and "Enrollment form" with each of them having the status "Not submitted" in marked red color. Clicking on each of these items, takes you to a page where you can upload the respective documents. You can submit the corresponding forms on these pages. After the submission you will be able to see the name and link to the file you just uploaded. Clicking on this link, will download that file you uploaded, so that you can verify if the file was uploaded correctly. Also, the status on the "MY TODO" list for these items change to "Submitted" marked in green color after the submission.
NOTE: If you have to submit multiple documents on either of these pages, say for instance, if you will have to submit multiple tax forms, please put these forms into a single zip file and upload that zip file.
Please see the Payment Card Info page.
We will accept proof of enrollment and your tax form through 20 May 2011. However, if you do not send in forms in a more timely fashion, your payment will be delayed accordingly.
20 May 2011: Deadline to return tax form and proof of enrollment if you want to be paid as part of the initial program payments
In other words, if you send us your tax form and proof of enrollment on or before 20 May 2011, you will receive your initial program payment of 505 USD on time. If you do not return your tax form and proof of enrollment by then, your payments will be delayed. Be kind - turn in forms on time!
1. I plan to move/take vacation. How does this affect what tax form I need to send in?
You need to submit the appropriate tax form as detailed above for any country in which you reside between 23 May, 2011 - 22 August 2011. Any work you do on your project outside of these dates is considered volunteer work for the Free and Open Source software community, not employment.
2. I would like to visit my mentoring organization's offices. Will Google provide me with a letter so I can obtain a visa for travel?
No. Google is not in a position to accept any legal liabilities that may arise from your traveling in order to work as part of your contract employment. Any travel done to interact with your project community, work with your mentors in person, etc., is considered at your option and takes place outside the scope of the Google Summer of Code program.
3. What address should I use on my forms?
You should use whichever address you are at when filling out the form will be address all correspondences are sent to, so make sure you'll be able to use it!
