It’s ironic that the folks who think kids need to apply to dozens of colleges because “yield protection” or whatever the heck you want to call means that admissions is unpredictable. Especially since the BEST way to avoid “Tufts Syndrome” (college rejecting or waitlisting a kid they think is unlikely to attend to protect their yield number) is to actually show interest-- genuine interest- in that college. Which of course is easy to do when your kid is applying to 6 well chosen options, harder but doable when your kid is applying to 10 well chosen options, and virtually impossible to do when your kid is applying to 25 colleges (assuming the kid is doing an effective job with the 25). Circular logic, no?
Even a kid with stats at the 95+ percentile at a particular college has a virtual lock on getting admitted if an Adcom can say to his or her colleagues “I met this kid, what a star” or “I’ve heard from Susie and set her up to talk with the head of the anthropology department and she’s really interested in our program in Bolivia” or “John is seriously excited about the opportunity to do interdisciplinary study on nutrition in the developing world through our Ag program”.
Yield protection may or may not be a “thing”, but applying to two dozen colleges AND being excited (and communicating your interest) to that many schools sounds like a fulltime job to me.
But again- I have no dog in this hunt. No need to limit apps- parents just need to understand the ramification of SO many apps and so many fees and so little time senior year!