@Decal7 Congratulations on the school acceptances with merit! What sport does she do? We’re in the same boat (- merit aid).D has applied and is visiting a few of her top choices (on paper) in New England this weekend. She’s really excited and I’m glad she’s visiting in the winter to see if she thinks she can handle weather… The waiting game is brutal! Good luck!
@Aussiemom thanks. DD is a pole vaulter; it’s her obsession. She also is a fair-good sprinter. We’re a New England family. Enjoy your visits!
@Decal7 My S had alot of the same schools on his list. It always interests me how kids tend to gravitate to similar places… but that’s just me showing my nerd-ness. LOL
Is she attempting to walk on? My S is thinking about it for his sport, but may be facing a summer surgery in order to be healthy enough to play.
@Decal7 - we also have a fair amount of overlap at the same schools as you. good luck to your daughter!
@ChaosParent23- yes, she will be a walk on as a late bloomer in track. She spends hours each week speaking with various coaches; her HS coach is similarly involved. We’ll see how it goes!
I, too, am always intrigued (and affirmed) at the “overlaps.” Except for a couple toss-ins (free express application type of scenarios), most of the colleges are broadly similar. I like our cohort; for me, some of the underrated gems in American higher education. 
Best wishes to you, and your son.
Good luck to your D as well!! It’s so stressful. My S was accepted ED at Kenyon, so we’re done with that but the athletics part is still very much in the air.
@Decal7 Congrats on the acceptances so far! My d also applied to 9 of those schools. Great list!
@taverngirl- thanks! Interestingly enough her very last cut was Rochester. She really liked it in unexpected ways, and had a great interview. But in the end decided to stick with the “small LAC” vibe, exclusively.
@Decal7 Roch was the only non “small LAC” on d’s list. I think in the end (it was Allegheny v. Dickinson v. Roch) size was the deciding factor, even though that’s what she thought she wanted all along! She is thriving at Roch, so she clearly made the right choice for herself.
Thank you
My D applied to six schools and has three acceptances in hand. Still waiting on three decisions (one likely yes, two maybe, one high reach so likely reject). She’s going to have a hard time deciding, as the three in hand already are all excellent options and pretty similar. How on earth do kids with 10+ acceptances decide in the end? 
If some number of those schools are not even attractive, why apply at all? Our calculus was that if D gets into one school at which she can be happy and we can afford, mission accomplished. What happens if a kid gets into 10 schools at which she can be happy and are affordable? YIKES!
D ended up applying to 14 schools (many the same as @Decal7 and others). She started with 10 then we panicked suddenly afraid they were too ambitious because they’re all pretty small schools and what if they all happen to reject her? So far she’s been accepted to 5 with no rejections (but the very selective ones are still to come). Ultimately she’s just deferred the hard decisions and we piled on by making her add some likely schools. Oh well. Live and learn.
@packacards and @Decal7 I’ll be very interested to hear what happens! My D is also a T&F athlete, which is definitely part of the equation. But I’m really glad she didn’t want to apply to more schools than she did–even with only a handful we need a spreadsheet to weigh the pros and cons (and dollars).
My son has applied to 10-12 schools. He intends on running cross country for 4 years.
@atanvarne We did 12 because we were chasing merit. One school was dad’s request, so ill say 11 schools she thought she could have been happy with. Ultimately, I’d say when it comes down to decisions, it’s probably no different than applying to 6. Having heard from 7, it was fairly easy to rule out 4. Maybe a little sadness at letting go, but pretty easy. The next 5 are the high reaches, so the likelihood is that rejection and/or lack of merit will aid that decision.
She applied to all of these schools and then chose a (just googled) barely Top 200 LAC in their only competitive program they have because she feels comfortable there.
Since then she has been accepted to: Denison, Rhodes, SMU, Texas A&M, UTD, waiting on others, but she doesn’t care. She wants to go to her less rigorous, small town LAC in the middle of nowhere hopefully… this will be a wise choice looking back.
@emptynesteryet maybe your D will be a catalyst for that school becoming a rising star and moving up that Top LACs list!
@emptynesteryet You should check out the finances of her chosen school. Many smaller LACs without large endowments are in danger of closing down in the next decade or so.
@MWolf it is small like 110 million.
My personal endowment threshold is about $100 million as I think an institution could weather the coming storm at least a while with that much. I would also gauge the shape of the campus and easily seen deferred maintenance as that $100m could go quickly if the place is falling apart.