There is no common app for PhD and fellowship applications. Every school runs its own portal, its own fee, its own deadline — and most applicants end up tracking eight to fifteen of them at once, plus letters of recommendation and one or more fellowships on a separate calendar entirely. A spreadsheet is where almost everyone starts.
What a tracker actually needs to hold
- Every program: school, department, deadline, and status.
- The professors you're targeting at each one, and why.
- Recommenders — who you've asked, and what each one still needs.
- Your CV and statement of purpose, plus what changes per school.
- Fellowships (GRFP and others) — they run on their own deadlines.
The habit that matters more than the tool
Whatever you use, check it against real deadlines on a schedule — 14, 7, 3, and 1 day out is a reasonable cadence. Late submissions are the most avoidable failure mode in this entire process, and they happen because a tab got closed, not because anyone forgot to care.
Where to start
If you want a spreadsheet, we give one away — the tracker template we built before we built the app. If a sheet starts fighting you back around your ninth or tenth school, that's the exact moment Lodestar exists for.