Depends if your criterion is just “affordable” or if it’s “maximum merit/cheapest overall COA”. OP has already indicated they are full pay and as merit awards can vary quite a lot between institutions, my thinking was simply to have more options to compare.
If OP provides their desired costs and the 7 schools they are looking at so far (plus state of residence assuming an in-state public), we can guide to whether 7 is enough or not.
What matters is budget and list - really nothing else.
That’s right.
I had to dig it up, but my “source” for that impression was this article:
It is getting a little dated at this point, but I think the overall shape of things likely has remained the same, and in fact I wonder if the continuing rise of ED might have made one-and-done application scenarios even more frequent.
But anyway, the distribution in that article looked like this:
This is actually just Common App data, so likely missing even more low-application scenarios. But in any event, a long tail like that with a bump at 20 explains how you can get a mean which is well above the mode AND median.
The rest of the article provides some analysis about factors that correlate with longer lists. Some of the factors include attending a private high school, being an International, receiving fee waivers, higher test scores, applying to selective colleges, applying to private colleges, being from the Northeast, and, interestingly, applying ED. I am not sure if they are accounting for withdrawn apps, but of course a lot of people applying ED get rejected or waitlisted anyway.
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This is the College Confidential - with people interested in optimizing their college search and/or prestige. This is not the real world for most.
A very large proportion likely go to the home junior college, regional university or flagship - 1 or 2 and done.
Yep. Unfortunately, a lot of people seem unaware of how differently conditional probabilities can behave from the independent probabilities most people learn about.
So, if this was all just like coin flips, it would be true the odds of getting at least one admit could become arbitrarily high with enough flips . . . but that can’t possibly be how it works, because underlying all this are only so many slots available relative to the total number of applicants. So if everyone applied to like 20 Reaches, that wouldn’t increase the total slots available, indeed the overall fraction would have to remain the same. So we KNOW the math can’t work like that.
So what actually happens is some applicants get admitted to multiple Reaches, and lot get admitted to none. And the probabilities are conditional–if you know that Applicant 1 was admitted to Reaches A, B, C, and D, and Applicant 2 was rejected by Reaches A, B, C, and D, then the conditional probability of Applicant 1 being admitted to Reach E is much higher than the conditional probability of Applicant 2 being admitted to Reach E.
The math of all this gets complicated and depends on the details. But in fairly plausible models, after, say, five known decisions, you can get some applicants having above 50% chances even at Reaches that started with 5% admit rates, and other applicants with astronomically low chances, as in functionally equivalent to zero.
And it gets even worse if you actually start the analysis with the Reaches with the highest pre-results odds, meaning ones where, say, you did the best job picking for fit, wrote your best applications, and so on. Realistically, if your best 10 ideas for Reaches with your best 10 applications yield zero offers, your 11th best idea is EXTREMELY unlikely to work. And in fact, realistically, for most people at least, that point is probably reached more like after 3-5 Reach applications.
So there is in fact a sound mathematical logic behind carefully choosing your best handful of Reach ideas, and writing your best applications possible. If you do that and none of those work, well, adding more was astronomically unlikely to make a difference. And if instead the process of adding more undermined the care with which you chose schools and wrote applications, THAT could actually harm your overall chances.
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That’s right, but of course I am not suggesting seven is too many and the OP should cut that to one.
Instead, the point is there are many applicants for whom seven works out fine. The ones going out farther into those tails may have their reasons, but if those reasons don’t apply to the OP, then that doesn’t matter.
However, the OP did cite one possible reason to do that, namely chasing merit. But even then, the point we were just discussing about conditional probabilities and Reach admissions also applies to Big Merit.
Namely, just adding lots more low-probability Big Merit applications is unlikely to work, as the probabilities are conditional. So, same deal, if say, your best five ideas for low-probability Big Merit applications haven’t worked, the conditional probability of your sixth-best idea for low-probability Big Merit working is very low.
But, if you apply to more high-probability Big Merit options, then if you get any offers, you will likely get more offers. In other words, conditional probability works in your favor in that scenario.
And more offers in a Big Merit context matters, because with Big Merit it isn’t a simple yes/no result, it is also a question of net cost of attendance. And so more merit offers overall may actually mean more offers at the lower end of the net cost of attendance range.
Long story short, unlike with the shotgunning Reaches strategy, a relatively long list of realistic Big Merit colleges has a sound mathematical logic to it. Within limits, like I still wouldn’t do like 20. And the math also only works if they are actually reasonably high probability for the applicant. But still, perhaps more than seven total, at least if the additional ones are reasonably higher-probability for merit.
However, it is also possible that someone who applied to one or only a few colleges on The Common Application also applied to one or more other colleges not on The Common Application.
What percentage of college applications are on The Common Application?
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How many colleges are kids applying to these days isn’t as important as asking how many colleges should my kid apply to this cycle. Most colleges still accept most applicants, no matter how much our kids spam admission offices through the Common App.
Reflecting on 2 recent application cycles with 2 pretty different kids, my 2 cents:
Step 1: Have at least a few schools that (1) are reasonably affordable for your family without loans (since you’re in the merit-would-be-nice if it’s a $90K LAC bucket), (2) offer a realistic chance of acceptance based on your kid’s stats and profile, and (3) are places your kid could be happy to land.
Step 2: Plan to apply early action everywhere possible to maximize chances of merit, honors, scholarship opportunities, etc. Have at least 1-2 acceptable schools that give replies early so kid doesn’t panic-apply unnecessarily sight-unseen to the entire Midwest in February.
Step 3: If demonstrated interest is important or considered, demonstrate! Open emails, visit in person or virtually, attend webinars, etc.
Step 4: Plan to submit applications, including all desired supplemental and scholarship essays, at least a few days before due dates. Earlier if rolling admission, if kid is ready.
Step 5: Submit all financial documents needed in a timely fashion. (Step 5a: Review the CSS profile application - if you are subsequently unwilling to submit one, skip schools that require it for merit if you don’t want to be full pay there).
Step 6: After applying, recognize that kid has to stay on top of college-related emails, portals & logins for every individual school, possible surprise supplemental essays for honors/merit/scholarships in said portals, possibly more demonstrated interest as colleges weigh who they can yield, accepted student day visits if desired, etc. — ALL while trying to be a senior and staying on top of classes & AP/IB exam prep and other activities.
Step 7: Understand that because too many students are applying to too many schools these days, many colleges are waitlisting students that they would have readily accepted even a few years ago because they’re unsure who they can yield. If students hold on to hope of a possible acceptance from a waitlist, this can leave their decisions undecided longer than they would have preferred.
Step 8: Reflect on your own student’s emotional, mental, and physical bandwidth for this experience and their outside activities, commitments, hopes and desires (for senior year, college, beyond).
Step 9: Consider how many/what mix of schools feels right for your child and family and return to Step 1. 
That said, 7 sounds like a sweet-spot number to me.
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As I understand it, that is a complicated question and the answer depends in part on whether you are looking at applicants or applications.
That is mostly because of California and Texas (apparently even though you can now apply to some Texas schools using the Common App, lots of people are still using the Apply Texas system). If you are applying in California or Texas, that is likely adding a lot of applications. And that is a decent number of applicants too, some of which might not even be using Common App in parallel. But still, there are lots of people who aren’t applying at all in those states, and only using Common App. Of course there are also people signing up at not-selective community colleges and such, but I am assuming we are looking just for people applying to selective four-year colleges.
Anyway, at a guess, if we could account for all this, the curve in that graph would look somewhat thicker in the middle range. I’m not sure any other one particular number would pass 1 application for the mode title, however. Too many different possible scenarios.
My D26 applied to 6 schools.
Had finished the application for a 7th- but decided not to submit 
It did not out place her top 3 choices, so she figured it wouldn’t matter if she got in or not.
Looking back- 4 would have made the most sense for her.
She had 2 safeties (one would have been enough- her safety to her safety was more of me having some anxiety over the whole process 
I had asked her to apply to a couple of more in state safeties but luckily realized quickly that that was over kill)
Then she had 4 others and she had a 3-way tie for top spot, and all were high probability for admission so that 4th one was not necessary.
(In state flag ship- so I think it just got on the list because everyone has it on their list! 
)
(no actual ‘Target’ or ‘Reaches’ on her list)
So really- she should have just applied for the 3-way tied schools and the one safety.
It does not work for all students/families- but what really helped D26’s list building was doing lots of research and planning the end of Junior year and that summer. When applications opened up- she knew what she wanted and did not have to apply to any ‘what-if’ / ‘I look into it later’ schools.
(She had a really good understanding of what she wanted - nothing wrong if at 16/17/18 they are still figuring this out!!!)
I did encourage her to apply to a few more schools- but that was my anxiety talking and she held her ground, and though humored me by taking a deep dive into my suggestions- she did not apply to them.
It was mentioned already- but a match/chance me thread may help. Not enough information from your post to know if the 7-8 on your students list is actually enough or not. There is no magic number of applications to fill out.
Looking at merit- many schools have enough data points (whether on their websites or through groups like here on CC) to be able to a have a good wag on what to expect. Go conservative on that guess and you ‘should’ come close on most schools.
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D26 applied to 8, only one of which was a reach. 4 likelies I believe. We were not chasing merit, but she got merit money at 6 of the 8. The reach does not offer merit money. The one match which did not give her merit money gives out very little to very few (on the order of $7k to a small number of admittees on a sticker price over $90k).
If I were searching for merit. I would a) find schools the kid likes that have a track record of giving lots of merit; b) apply to more likelies than anything else as that is where the big merit money is; c) pay attention to the cost of attendance for each school becausethe sticker price varies significantly between even private schools.
For context, the difference in our cost of attendance for the school with the most merit money and the one with no merit would be over $50k per year. And the least expensive one is a great school.
Also, some schools guarantee at least x amount of merit if you have y stats. If your kid likes and applies to some of those, that can significantly shrink the number of schools you’d need to consider to get merit that works for you.
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Someone mentioned that one safety is enough if guaranteed admission.
I can recall a few threads where applying to two safeties might be recommended. One school was hit by a hurricane and housing became an issue. Same with schools getting a much higher yield and not being able to guarantee housing.
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Or, even, you just want choice. What you apply to and what you want a year later may not be the same thing, especially if you haven’t had a chance to visit.
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These are the most recent numbers I’ve seen, and this was before UT Austin went to common app (for Fall 2023 admission).
In mid-February 2020, 51.6 percent of total applications to all schools were submitted through the Common Application. Just two years later, the mid-February 2022 proportion has significantly increased: 65.8 percent of all applications submitted.
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You have mischaracterized what I’m saying.
I’m saying that if you are a very strong high school applicant, the odds of getting into any particular one of the ultra-selective schools (“I really need to get into Stanford”) is low (because you don’t know what their ‘institutional priorities’ are) but if you apply to MANY of the ultra-selective schools, your odds for getting into ONE of them goes up (because your profile may appeal to at least one of them, since they’re all looking for slightly different qualities), though of course it is still difficult and there is no guarantee.
And yes, obviously you have to avoid burn-out in the arduous application process.
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My daughter’s college was on the common app, but if you did it that way it cost money and if you just applied directly to the school with a VERY short app, it was free.
My daughter did the direct to school app, and it was her only one. She applied in Oct, was accepted in Oct, and was happy with the choice. She decided if something went wrong with the acceptance/money, she’d rather take a gap year than go to another school.
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Again, given reasonable models: if you do a good job evaluating fit and start with the best fits, then if you don’t get admitted to any of your best-fitting five or six Reachiests, the odds are becoming extremely low of any additional Reachiests admitting you.
One interpretation of this is that in cases like this, you are learning something about your application isn’t actually competitive for these colleges. Maybe it is recommendations. Maybe something in how your transcript is being evaluated in context. Maybe your Common App essay. And so on.
You’ll never know for sure, but if you were actually competitive, it would in fact be very unlikely none of your first five or six best fits would bite. So you have likely learned SOMETHING is making you uncompetitive for this level of selectivity, even if it is not clear what.
The flaw in your logic is that you’re assuming equal probabilities and equal preferences in the other party’s decision making.
Simple (and cheesy) example: suppose you’re in the market for “a very attractive significant other”. The odds of you landing any PARTICULAR person is low because they may not be seeking the qualities you offer, but if you approach ten (10) attractive people who might be potential spouses, the odds increase of you landing someone attractive (though of course not guaranteed). Why? Because ONE of the 10 may find your qualities attractive in return.
Hence setting your sights set on one person (i.e., one college) is not as wise as spreading your bets (“I can be happy at any of these colleges”).
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I don’t follow your analogy. Screening (in or out) based on attractiveness is a “first cut” assessment, and does not approximate in any way admissions to selective colleges. I’d get it if you were arguing that high SAT scores were a first cut assessment/akin to looking for an attractive spouse, but after that your logic falls completely apart. And adding MORE attractive people does not change the calculus. You pass the first screen, you fall apart after that. Bad personality, no job, toxic relationships with your family of origin- there are a lot of reasons why very attractive people sometimes have trouble attracting an equally attractive mate. First cut- yes. She’s pretty, he’s handsome. And after that- a big no.
Same with college admissions. There are tens of thousands of Vals and Sals who are convinced they are getting into Harvard. And thousands of them have the right scores and EC’s to go along with that. Adding more “Harvard-like” colleges to the mix won’t help if their recommendations imply that they are a “hardworking and diligent student” but lacks creativity or genuine love of learning, or if their laundry list of EC’s includes an internship at Mommy’s law firm, a paid summer job at Daddy’s surgical practice, and their own 501-C-3 to buy Christmas gifts for children in homeless shelters. Every one of the “Harvard-like” colleges is going to have the same eyeroll over starting a brand new non-profit to do what 100 other non-profits are already doing.
Tulane won’t care about the EC’s if the grades and stats are off the charts. Same with Vandy. But padding out the “I’m destined to go to Harvard” list with Stanford, Yale and Princeton is making the mistake that your attractive person is making in your analogy above. The grades and stats get you a thorough reading, most likely with the exact same result- a rejection.
However, that is for a school that accepts both The Common Application and another application. But some accept only The Common Application, and some accept only some other application.
My question was, out of all applications over all colleges, what percentage are through The Common Application?