Has he narrowed down what types of colleges he’d like to go to? Do his grades and test scores limit him to a certain range of schools? How are the finances in the family?

I went to what you would call a college prep high school. I just applied to a small handful of schools. All public schools. One application. I just had to check a box to send a copy of that application to a particular campus. My GPA wasn’t high enough for the Harvards and Stanfords. USC was an option, but I saw no point in paying private school tuition for undergrad since I knew I also was going to need money for grad school. Plus, at the time, USC was really far down the rankings and was on par with the state school I ended up attending.

However, I had friends with great grades and test scores. They applied to a bunch because there were many colleges they’d love to attend and they had a credible shot at all of them. No guarantees tho so they had to apply to a bunch to maximize their chances of getting in to one (also for ego’s sake).