The linear elastic theory has been used in the parametric analysis of borehole stresses in the hollow cylinder model. The analysis has been conducted in terms of two major parameters that introduce different geometries and loading conditions and have significant influence on the critical wellbore pressures. Different outer diameters and different hole sizes have been considered and their impact on stresses and failure investigated, both for dry and saturated rock. The Mohr-Coulomb, the Drucker-Prager and the Modified Lade criterion have been used and the safe mud weight window has been defined in each case. It has been shown that pore pressure plays an important role in borehole stability and that the Mohr-Coulomb criterion is a safe but apparently conservative choice as it predicts higher well collapse pressure than the other two criteria. On the other hand, the Drucker-Prager criterion is a very optimistic criterion that predicts very lowest values of collapse pressure, but it significantly overpredicts the σ2 strengthening effect. Providing predictions between the extremes of the other two criteria, the Modified Lade criterion is a moderate criterion that seems to account for the σ2 strengthening effect in a reasonable way and give reasonable mud weight choices required for maintaining well stable.