Student application process

[Thorsten]

Hi List, 
now that GNU is accepted as mentoring organisation with quite a lot of
projects (with their own ideas pages) under the GNU umbrella, I wonder how
the student application process works. 

Is that a two stage process:
1. Students apply for proposals from indivuduals GNU projects, directly
communication with the project maintainers
2. The maintainers of those projects select some students for their project
ideas and then transfer the student list to the GNU organisation that
decides about the final allocation of student slots

or is it a one stage process:
1. student look around at the various ideas pages of GNU projects and
directly apply here in the mailing list for a project they are
interested in
?

What is the timeline of this GNU internal process? Until when should
indivudual GNU project make up their minds about student applications,
and until when will GNU decide about the final allocation of student
slots?

I'm a bit confused, since I see students applying here in the
mailing-list, but would have expected the individual GNU projects to
deal with student applications. So what are the steps a student,
interested in a GNU GSoC project,

-- 
cheers,
Thorsten