How I got selected for MLH-Fellowship

About MLH Fellowship

The MLH Fellowship is a 12-week internship alternative for aspiring software engineers. Instead of interning at a single company, MLH Fellows contribute to the type of open-source projects on which every company and community depends like Solana(web3), meta, etc.

MLH Fellowship also started with Prep Program. MLH Fellowship Prep Program is a 3-week preparation program for aspiring technologists interested in experiencing the fellowship before committing to the full 12 weeks. You’ll build out your portfolio of personal projects & experiment with new technologies by collaborating in small groups through a short hackathon sprint.

Know more about the MLH fellowship from here.

My application was accepted for:

• Program: Prep
• Batch: October 2022
• Pod: #2

This may be surprising but it took me 10+ trial to got accepted!

How to get in?

Getting into MLH is not an easy task. A survey(2021) says the acceptance rate is 2.5% only, and I am not surprised that it took me 12 trials before getting in. So There are some strict rules:

• Never expect: Even if your application is accepted, even if you are done with an initial interview, even if you are done with the technical interview, or even if you passed the technical interview, you may be rejected.
• Apply Early as possible: MLH selects candidates on a rolling basis(First come First Serve). Apply at least 2 months before the program.
• Apply with your best project.
• Get your essay reviewed once by past fellows.

Application Phase

The most important aspect of the application shortlisting is essays. Even if you have submitted the best project in the world, your judging will be on the basis of your essays!

Points that may help you to write good essays:

I will be talking about each question (as per Oct 2022 Application).

1. Why do you want to become an MLH Fellow?

   In this answer, you can write your honest opinion on why you need this fellowship, what changes this can make in your career, how you will improve, what you expect, what you want to build, where you see yourself after completing the fellowship, what makes you passionate about remote-work, why open source, etc. Again just a suggestion, be honest.

2. The MLH Fellowship is a diverse community that welcomes Fellows from a wide range of experiences and backgrounds. What perspective or experience will you bring to the fellowship to strengthen our community?

   In this, you can write about your past experience takeaway, what makes you a team person, you can write about your leadership skills, you can write about past experiences(not in detail, just a background experience), you can talk about your personality, and what makes you passionate about technology, you can also write about your volunteer experiences.

3. Anything else we should know about you?

   In this, I have mentioned all my past experience, open source, hackathons, volunteer experience, and all. These were the initial essays, you also need to submit the coding essays that describe your project(you submitted).

Tips to submit the project and coding essays:

• For the coding essays you need to be more specific about what your project does, what are the key features, what makes it unique, any special Algorithm you have used(not necessary), how it is helping people, and what problem it solves.
• You can also write about achievements of the projects, like user engagement, stargazers, etc. You can write about why you choose specific technology to make this project.
• It is not necessary that your project should be very highly qualified or something, it should be a decent project, with no templates, no clones, and no common(weather project, movie project). It should be the one that was your own creation. It may be built using just HTML/CSS/JS, no worries about that.
• The repository should be well maintained, as this will be the first impression. Keep these things in mind:
  • Write good documentation and make a well describes README.
  • The project should be well formatted.
  • Best if you can write comments for the functions used.
• You can check out my 2 projects that got accepted:
  • Go With Flow
  • Hash/Hub

Initial Interview

If your application got selected, you will receive a mail something like this:

Note: Select the nearest possible date. As I mentioned, “Rolling Basis”.

What to prepare for the initial interview?

• Your introduction, most important your application essays, a short description of your project, and how you make yourself updated with the latest technology.
• Keep this in mind:
  • You should have a stable internet connection.
  • Decent background and no noise.
  • Good mic. Test before entering the meet.
  • Be on time, it hardly takes 15 minutes to complete the interview.
  • The interviewer will likely be a past MLH fellow, so no need to worry as he/she understands your nervousness.

Technical Interview

If you passed the initial interview, you will receive mail to schedule your technical interview.

I got this mail after 3 day of my initial interview.

Tips for technical Interviews:

• Just go through your project once, if your project has large files and folders, try to pitch your best and most confident section of the project.
• You need to share your screen, so check if your browser support screen sharing.
• Try to pitch the project thrice before the interview to yourself, it will make you more clear.
• Just be confident and nail it.

So Finally I got this mail that brings me a great smile and satisfaction “This time yepppp!!!!”

Conclusion

The application process for prep and main fellowship is similar. You can refer to this blog for both programs. There is no stipend for the Prep batch.

If you are a prep fellow and applying for the main fellowship, your application got priority and you just need to go through a technical interview only.

This was my experience of going through the process. I hope this help, the things I mentioned are by far according to my experience, it works for me.

Thanks for reading the blog.

Best of luck!!!

If you have any doubt, you can reach out to me.