Track Your PhD and Scholarship Applications: Free Spreadsheet

Why you need a tracker

A serious PhD or scholarship search means emailing 15 to 30 professors, applying to 5 to 10 programmes and juggling a dozen deadlines, references and test scores, often over a whole year. Students who lose track send a second email to a professor who already replied, miss a follow-up, or forget that a referee has not submitted a letter until the night before a deadline.

A simple tracker solves this. It does not need to be clever. It needs to be the one place you check every week.

Download the 47 Fellows tracker

Download the free PhD and scholarship tracker (Excel, works in Google Sheets)

It has three tabs:

• How to use: short instructions and tips.
• Professors: one row per potential supervisor, with columns for university, country, department, research area, a recent paper you read, a fit score from 1 to 5, whether they have a funded position, where you found them, their email, the date you emailed, a follow-up date that fills in automatically 10 days later, a status drop-down, and their reply.
• Applications: one row per programme or scholarship, with level, funding type, deadline, a "days left" countdown that turns red inside two weeks, application fee, fee waiver, and progress on your statement, CV, references, English test and transcripts.

The first row of each tab is a grey example. Delete it once you have added your own.

How to use it well

Fill in the "recent paper you read" column honestly. If you cannot name a paper, you are not ready to email that professor. This one column will improve your emails more than anything else.

Score fit before funding. A professor with money but no shared interest is a poor match, and they will notice. Shortlist the 4s and 5s first, then check funding.

Update the status the same day. When you send an email, enter the date and set the status to "Emailed". When someone replies, change it straight away and note the next step. Use the filter arrows on the header row to see, for example, everyone you emailed but have not heard from.

Act on gold and red. On the Professors tab, a follow-up date turns gold when it is due. On the Applications tab, the days-left cell turns red inside two weeks. Check both every Sunday evening.

Count your references. Write references as "done of total", for example "1 of 3", and chase the missing ones early. Most late applications are caused by a missing reference letter, not by the student.

Using it on your phone with Google Sheets

1. Upload the file to Google Drive.
2. Open it, then choose File > Save as Google Sheets.
3. Install the Google Sheets app on your phone to update it on the go.

The drop-downs, the automatic follow-up dates and the colours keep working. In Google Sheets, you can also set Tools > Notification settings to email you when the sheet changes, which is useful if a parent or mentor helps you keep track.

Simple upgrades (no coding needed)

• Calendar reminders: for every deadline and follow-up date, add an event in Google Calendar with a reminder a week before. On any scholarship page on 47 Fellows, the "Add to calendar" button does this for you.
• Gmail labels: create a label such as "PhD 2027" and apply it to every email to and from professors. Star replies that need an answer.
• Email templates: in Gmail, turn on templates (Settings > Advanced > Templates) and save the structure of your professor email. Always personalise the paper and research paragraphs.
• A shared folder: keep one Google Drive folder per application, with your tailored CV, statement and proposal, named clearly, for example CV_TU-Delft_2027.pdf.

Other free apps that work

If you prefer an app to a spreadsheet:

• Notion: a free database with board and calendar views. Good if you like to keep notes on each paper next to each professor.
• Trello: cards on a board with columns such as "To contact", "Emailed", "Replied", "Applying" and "Submitted". Simple and visual.
• Google Keep or Microsoft To Do: fine for weekly to-do lists, but not enough on their own to track many professors.

Whatever you choose, use one system only. Two half-updated trackers are worse than one.

Track scholarships on 47 Fellows

For scholarships listed on 47 Fellows, you do not need to copy deadlines by hand. Find your matches, save the scholarships you plan to apply for, and your account page becomes a tracker: mark each one as planning, applied, interview, won or not selected, tick off documents on each scholarship's checklist, and get email reminders before deadlines. Use the spreadsheet for professors and programmes that are not scholarships, and your 47 Fellows account for scholarships.

Next steps

• Read how to get a funded PhD by contacting professors.
• Use the email to a potential supervisor sample.
• Prepare your academic CV before you send the first email.