Our public school recommends 6 to 10. Has anyone else gotten different advice?
It depends on the student and the type of universities they are applying to. I have known some top students apply to 12-16, but that is because they included several of the very top universities (Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Stanford, MIT, etc.), and admission to those can be like winning the lottery no matter how many credentials a student has. If a student is primarily applying to match universities with a couple of reaches and safeties, there is no need to apply to more than 10, and some students even apply to fewer than 6.
Aside from competitiveness of admissions playing a factor in the number to apply to, the finances also play a role. Some students are trying to get university merit scholarships to afford college, and that can also cause them to apply to more places than a student who can afford any university.
As long as you include a few financial safeties and admission safeties in the mix, you should be fine applying to 6-10 universities. If you need scholarships or are hoping for admission to a top university (many of which provide aid to meet financial need), then you may decide to apply to more places. If you really know where you want to go, such as your state flagship university, and you have a strong chance of admission there and can afford it, then there is no reason to apply to 6 universities and you can apply to fewer. In any case, what you don’t want is to wind up with a bunch of admissions to places you cannot afford. Sadly, that happens to some students every year, because they didn’t pay enough attention to affordability and realistic chances of scholarships when deciding where to apply. Another sad situation faced by some students each year is to wind up with a bunch of rejections and the only admission being somewhere the student doesn’t want to attend. Be sure to only apply to places you would be content and happy to attend.
I agree with everything that @mommyrocks has said.
Another person on this forum described your objectives in terms of a Venn diagram. One circle is financial issues. One circle is what the student wants to study (computer science? Advanced German Medieval History? Medical illustration? Is unsure?) One circle is whether their grades/scores will get them in. And then there can be several other circles depending on your student, such as Greek life or no, size of school, distance from home, coed or women’s or men’s school, etc.
Your objective is to find schools in that sweet spot where all of the circles overlap, but mainly the first three.
And weirdly as far as the financials go, it’s impossible to tell exactly how much a school will cost until you get their offer AFTER being accepted. So the best you can do, IMHO, is to narrow down schools that are probably in the financial ballpark. And you’re being a Super Parent and explaining well ahead of time to Student that no matter how much you love a school, if you can’t afford it, they cannot attend. No heartbreaks because of financing! Steel yourselves! As was said above, it’s okay to include a few financial reaches, just in case they come through with the cash, but harden your heart and know that you will let that one go, if it’s too expensive.
To narrow down the financials into the ballpark range, I ignored the sticker price. I found the website collegenavigator to be helpful in figuring the probable real price. It is run by the government and it breaks down the average cost of each college based on family income brackets. Click on “net cost” for that information. Once you narrow down your list, you can get a more focused impression of costs through the net cost calculator for that college.
Best of luck
6 to 10 is definitely a good range for most students.
Also good advice from @Dustyfeathers. Don’t let emotions get the upper hand when deciding where to go to. Students can be plenty happy in many schools. The “perfect fit” and “I cannot see myself anywhere else but here” emotions are misleading.
Provided your kid has found one place that will guarantee admission for their grades and test scores, that your family will be able to afford without taking on any debt other than the standard student loans, that offers the probable major, and that the kid is happy to attend if all else goes wrong in the application process, everything else is gravy. Lots of kids out there are one-and-done.
At least 10. Up to 19 is do-able but tough to manage. If you want choices come Apr 1, more is more.
Better doing solid research and end up with a smaller high-quality list of 8 schools than a crazy high number of 19! Each application comes at a serious cost. Both financially and labor. Writing of supplements, interviews, visiting the college all contribute to potentially better chances to get accepted. I wouldn’t wish any teenager having to do this for 19 schools!
Our school has a strict maximum of 12 applications. I agree.
And it also depends on whether the colleges applied to are rolling admissions, early action/early decision, or regular decision. So the typical advice is to apply to 2-3 safety schools, 4-5 target schools, and then it’s up to you how many reaches you want to apply to. Well, if you apply to a rolling admissions college as soon as the application year opens up (usually August), you will probably hear back in October, and if it’s a yes and the financial package works for you, then you can be more selective about what other school to apply to in that same category (safety/target/reach) or maybe you decide not to apply to any more in that category. The same thing works for early admission/early decision, and those schools typically let you know around December 15th, and most regular decision schools have an application deadline of Jan 1. You have to be a bit careful with this, though, because the UC schools have an application deadline of Nov 30, and for many other schools if you are interested in throwing your hat in the ring for merit money consideration you have to apply by Dec 1. So you have to keep an eye on the differing deadlines of the actual schools that your child is interested in, but applying early and hearing back early can help shape which schools and how many schools you apply to in the regular decision round.
19 was fine. and in the end there were a few surprise admissions to super reach schools. It is true if you apply, you need to tailor your app to the school, so its a lot of work. But no risk, no reward.
It depends on the student’s personality as well. Creating the best application a student can make takes work so a high achieving student can apply to more places. My D applied to 15 places without any stress or problems. I am pretty sure my younger S will not produce that many applications 
And looking at @preppedparent 's numbers, I’d say he/she is either looking for merit money or an Ivy type school, because more than 10 is pretty unusual for most students. My D’s guidance counselor said anywhere between 6-10 is the right number unless you are chasing merit money or schools with less than 10% admissions rates.
My kiddo has five schools. But, they were poorly chosen to maximize the number of essays - FOURTEEN, not double-counting essays that were re-used with little/no effort. The extra essays are for honors programs and a scholarship she’s a great match for, and the fact that only three of the five are Common App.
My D is applying to nine. It was ten but she just removed one last week. It was another reach and not at the top of her list. It had four essays that she didn’t want to write. She has 1 super reach (applied ED), 2 reaches, 2 matches and 4 matches/safeties.
“It depends on the student and the type of universities they are applying to.”
My thoughts exactly. I have heard of one student who applied to 25, which to me seemed excessive. She had a legitimate reason to be nervous (an uneven academic record) but got into most of them. 6-10 seems like a good range for many students. My oldest applied to 7 which was a reasonable number for her. My youngest after considering schools in both New England and Canada ended up applying only in Canada, where there really wasn’t any point in applying to more than 2 or 3 since she was going to get into any school in the country and they all would be affordable. She actually applied to 5 mostly just because all of her friends were applying to more than that. For unhooked strong students applying to Ivy League and equivalent, admission is so unpredictable that applying to more schools, or to a few solid matches / safeties and a few reaches, makes sense.
I have an unhooked strong student who is applying to 12 schools. No Ivy/top-10 schools, but even the next tier down is a lottery frankly. Sure, the acceptance rates are slightly more forgiving, but equivalent (“match”) GPA and test scores only get you so far at these schools. So beyond her likelies, she is treating everything else as a reach and applying broadly.
Thank you all so much. I appreciate the info. My son applied ED to Dartmouth but we have prepared him for that not to work out. Right now we have ten schools with a range of selectivity