@Publisher, I agree that revisits after acceptances is important, and that reality is very different than window shopping. But revisiting a lot of schools is often not practical, for all kinds of reasons. One of our collegekids had 8 acceptances- and there was simply no actual way to get them all in.She had to sit down, look at the colleges and the calendar and start to make some choices- welcome to grown up world. It took Herculean efforts to get her to the ones she did go to (2 of her top 3 were back to back Sat/Sun, in separate hard-to-get-to locations; the scars from navigating the traveling that weekend are still fresh…).
Of course, it’s individual, and there are lots of variables, and 3 is not a magic number. But ime, once they have a final list, most kids can knock several off their list pretty quickly. Shortlisting and the exquisite scary-sweet experience of telling all but one of the schools a definite ‘no thank you’ are part of the growing that the college admissions process can bring.