@squirk…things will change ALOT before its time for you to truly worry about your list. AS your initial question asks- you are way ahead of where most of us were by starting now. The big thing that has changed increasing the number of applications is 2 fold in my opinion. Pre screens have been utilized more and more the past 5 years which gives you an extra layer to get through before the actual audition& this past year the common pre screen made it easier to apply to more schools ( kind of like the common app- but not really). My D is going to what many people would consider a top 5-10 program ( not that top 10 lists really matter) tThat school still does NOT use a prescreen,( Neither does NYU- but those are becoming the minority) I feel our list in retrospect was too top heavy. we only passed 5 out of 17 prescreen. so our list went from 29 to 17 before November 1st.
the best you can do right now is continue to let her enjoy her passion & you read all the MT threads from the past 5 years that are usually called " venting, sharing…etc" or some variation of that for the class of X & then the "final decision thread "for those classes.
Again my story is not the end all & be all, everyone finds their own proper path, but I recently posted a very long and thorough review of our process over nearly 2 years that might be helpful.
long story short- YOU ARE IN A GREAT PLACE BY STARTING ON CC NOW…it will unfold for you just as it did all of us.
BEST OF LUCK!!! Have fun & try not to stress too much
PS- my non MT daughter was a one & done to her top choice school too- I feel that was a " present to me" for the MT process that I was about to embark on- 