Update 19-selecting_students_and_mentors.md

contributor ranking proposals

Author: stephanietaylor

pages/mentor/19-selecting_students_and_mentors.md

@@ -12,7 +12,7 @@ A key activity for org admins is setting up and supervising the process by which
 
 Conceptually, the process of selecting GSoC contributors and mentors is simple. In practice, the process of prioritizing proposals and assigning mentors can be difficult and contentious.
 
-During the GSoC contributor application period, organizations prioritize the GSoC contributor proposals, discard proposals unworthy of consideration and investigate proposals further. The organization administrator will reach out to the mentors and together they will prioritize the proposals and rank them. Then the organization administrator will submit their organization's requested number of project "slots" on their program dashboard.  Committed mentors must be assigned to all projects that the organization wants considered. Additional mentors can be added later but a minimum of one mentor must be assigned to a proposal or it can not be ranked.
+During the GSoC contributor application period (and in the weeks leading up to the application period) mentors discuss project ideas with potential GSoC contributors, organizations prioritize the GSoC contributor proposals based on the conversations they have had with the contributors, discard proposals unworthy of consideration and investigate proposals further. The organization administrator will reach out to the mentors and together they will prioritize the proposals and rank them. Then the organization administrator will submit their organization's requested number of project "slots" on their program dashboard.  Committed mentors must be assigned to all projects that the organization wants considered. Additional mentors can be added later but a minimum of one mentor must be assigned to a proposal or it can not be ranked.
 
 GSoC contributor slot selections will be based on the rank an organization gives the proposals.
 
@@ -24,7 +24,7 @@ Google asks your organization how many slots you want after you have had time to
 
 The actual number of slots Google assigns to each organization depends on the number of organizations and the number of GSoC contributors Google is going to fund that year. Then the slots are distributed amongst the accepted organizations by Google. Every accepted organization is allocated at least one slot. First-year organizations rarely get more than two slots. No organization ever receives more slots than they asked for.
 
-There is no net advantage to getting as many slots as possible. Sure, more GSoC contributors might get paid, and the org gets paid a little more. However, accepting less-than-great applications has a huge cost in time and grief. Google's process for choosing organizations includes the pass/fail ratio. Poor ratios may endanger future participation in GSoC. And if you request more slots than you need you are taking those slots away from other organizations who could have used them for some of the excellent GSoC contributor proposals they received.
+There is no net advantage to getting as many slots as possible. Sure, more GSoC contributors might get paid, and the org gets paid a little more in organization stipends. However, accepting less-than-great applications has a huge cost in time and grief. Google's process for choosing organizations includes the pass/fail ratio. Poor ratios may endanger future participation in GSoC. And if you request more slots than you need you are taking those slots away from other organizations who could have used them for some of the excellent GSoC contributor proposals they received.
 
 When Google assigns an organization its slots, that number will automatically consider the ranking your organization administrator gave the proposals. For example, if an organization requests 7 slots and is given 5, the proposals that were ranked 1,2,3,4 and 5 will automatically become your accepted GSoC contributor projects.
 
@@ -34,10 +34,12 @@ You can not substitute in other proposals after you have ranked your proposals a
 
 ## GSoC contributors selected by multiple orgs
 
-GSoC contributors are allowed to submit up to 3 proposals each year, and they can be to multiple organizations. When organizations have chosen their desired GSoC contributors based on their ranked slot allocations, it is inevitably the case that a few GSoC contributors are sought by more than one organization.
+GSoC contributors are allowed to submit up to 3 proposals each year, and they can be to multiple organizations. When organizations have chosen their desired GSoC contributors based on their ranked slot allocations, it is inevitably the case that a few GSoC contributors are sought by more than one organization (usually around 10-20 each year).
 
 Ranking is taken into account when slots are allocated to projects. The higher your organization ranks a proposal the more likely your organization will receive it, in the case another organization also ranks a proposal from the same contributor. If a tie breaker is necessary, then Google's AI will select which org will receive the proposal.
 
+**New in 2025, the GSoC applicants will be able to rank their proposals with their #1, #2 and #3 preferences. Only Google Admins will be able to see these preferences and they will be considered but not guaranteed. Google Admins will go through and review any situations where a contributor was selected by multiple orgs. In the case where the GSoC applicant's 2nd or 3rd choice org was granted their proposal, Google Admins will reach out to that org and let them know the applicant preferred another org over their org. The org will get to decide whether to keep the contributor (might happen if they had no other great applicants for the project idea and it's very important to the org) or they can release that contributor (to their preferred org) and notify Google Admins of who they would like to replace that now empty spot. 
+
 If you "lose" the project due to another org ranking it higher, Google will contact you to see which project you would like to replace that slot with. The system will automatically select the next ranked proposal (if your org did not receive all the slots you asked for) but the OA will have a day or so to let Google Admins know if they would prefer to adjust that project slot to a different contributor.
 
 ## Acquiring and Assigning Mentors