Adding Applicants to Your Admissions Cycle in Puddin

Before you can invite applicants to complete their personal statements through Puddin, you need to add them to your admissions cycle. You can add applicants one at a time for small cohorts or import a CSV file when onboarding larger groups. If your institution uses a connected student information system, you can also pull applicants directly from that integration.

Add Individually
CSV Import
Connected Systems

Adding a single applicant is the quickest option when you’re onboarding a small number of people or filling in gaps after a bulk import.

Open your admissions cycle

From the Puddin Admissions dashboard, select the cycle you want to add applicants to. If you haven’t created a cycle yet, go to Cycles → New Cycle and complete the setup wizard before continuing.

Navigate to the Applicants tab

Inside the cycle, select the Applicants tab. You’ll see the full applicant list for this cycle, or an empty state if no one has been added yet.

Click Add Applicant

Select Add Applicant in the top-right corner of the applicant list. A slide-over panel will appear.

Enter the applicant's details

Fill in the following required fields:

Field	Notes
First name	As you’d like it to appear in invitation emails
Last name
Email address	The address the invitation will be sent to
Programme	The programme or course this applicant is applying for

You can also add an optional applicant reference number to match your internal records.

Save the applicant

Click Add Applicant to confirm. The applicant is added to the list with a status of Not Invited. You can now send them an invitation immediately or return to do so later.

Use CSV import to add tens or hundreds of applicants at once. Puddin validates your file before import and reports any rows with errors so you can correct them without losing the clean data.

Download the CSV template

Go to Applicants → Import and click Download Template. The template includes all required and optional column headers with example values in the first row. Delete the example row before uploading your real data.

Prepare your CSV file

Populate the template with your applicant data. Follow these formatting rules to avoid import errors:

Column	Required	Format
`first_name`	Yes	Plain text
`last_name`	Yes	Plain text
`email`	Yes	Valid email address
`programme`	Yes	Plain text
`reference_number`	No	Alphanumeric, max 50 chars

Each row represents one applicant. Do not merge cells, add extra header rows, or include columns that aren’t in the template — Puddin will reject files with unrecognised columns.

Upload your CSV file

Return to Applicants → Import and either drag your file into the upload zone or click Browse to select it. Puddin will validate the file immediately.

Review the validation report

After validation, Puddin shows a summary of:

Rows ready to import — valid entries that will be added
Rows with errors — entries Puddin could not process, with a reason for each

Download the error report if needed, correct the flagged rows in your file, and re-upload just those corrected entries. You don’t need to re-import rows that already passed validation.

Confirm the import

Click Import [N] Applicants to complete the process. All valid rows are added to the applicant list with a status of Not Invited. A confirmation email is sent to your account address once the import finishes.

If an email address already exists in this cycle, Puddin will flag it as a duplicate and skip that row. The same email address can appear in different cycles without issue.

After adding applicants

Once applicants are in the list, your next step is to send them invitations. Head to Sending and Managing Invitations to get started.

You can add more applicants to a cycle at any time — even after invitations have already been sent to others. New additions always start with a status of Not Invited.

Overview

Admissions Setup

Managing Applicants

Reviewing Essays

Applicant Guide

Administration

Support

Adding Applicants to Your Admissions Cycle in Puddin

After adding applicants

​After adding applicants

After adding applicants