Where did Greg Apply?

As long time readers of College Admission Forum know I've been sharing various aspects of my son Greg's college admission process over the past couple of years. Well, since it's late February of his Senior year we're almost at the finish line!

Greg ended up applying to five schools: Georgia Tech, University of Illinois Urbana/Champaign, University of Virginia (UVA), Duke and Stanford.

Georgia Tech and Illinois were his 'safety' schools -- colleges that he'll almost certainly get into. In fact he already received his acceptance notification from Illinois about a week ago. Hopefully we'll hear from Tech (in our backyard here in Atlanta) in the next couple of weeks. He took a Calculus II course there last semester and attends a science and technology magnet high school that has a close association with Tech, so chances are good that he'll be accepted there as well.

Between then and the start of April the tension will build. Stanford and Duke are definitely 'stretch' schools -- ones where Greg's (and in fact most everybody's) chances are slim. I just saw the other day that Stanford's applications are up 20% this year and that Stanford's expecting only a 7% acceptance rate. UVA fits in the middle -- a school Greg should have a good chance of getting into based on his credentials.

Compared to the common advice I've read, and recent trends, Greg applied to fewer schools than is typical. Most would advise applying to 2 or 3 mid-range schools, for a total of 7 or 8. But the other wise advice I've heard is to only apply to schools that you'd actually want to attend. And in Greg's case that was these five.