Unless you've been hiding under a rock, you know that The Common Application,home to some 600 college applications, goes "live" for 2015-16 on August 1 (that's this coming Saturday, for those who may be calendar adverse). 

And so, courtesy of our friends and colleagues at The Prospect, here's a Step-by-step guide to filling out the common app. 

Okay, so this guide presumes that Hogwarts is your first choice (is that school even on Common App?), and it is based on the 2014-15 version of The Comm...