@acdchai Your high school may be the exception then. Many prep schools or traditional feeder high schools, especially in the NE, may be exceptions as well.
This NY Times article I linked here before (and again below) does seem to support the notion though that most students are applying to a high # of colleges… it even cites the example of a student applying to 86 colleges. It states that 17% now apply to 11-20. 30% apply to 7+. But the article contends that the trend is way up overall versus how it was before 1990 or even how it was just before the Common Application became so widespread.
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/16/nyregion/applications-by-the-dozen-as-anxious-students-hedge-college-bets.html?_r=0
I know that my daughter plans to apply to at least 13 this year. Her sister had applied to 17 in 2013-14.
It is now way too common for a top-50 national university to receive 25K+ applications. Many receive more. UCLA received more that 3 times that… 80K+. If you know that you are going to get in to your state college, and that is where you wish to attend… great. You are then set. Or if you attend an elite prep school or some form of feeder school with an established history of succeeding at placing your graduating students with the Ivies or other elite colleges, that is great as well. You may then be able to apply to only 3-4.
But… if you attend a large public high school, especially in the south, midwest or west, where acceptances to elite colleges are rather rare, it does not seem to be any form of guarantee that 98th or even 99th percentile over-achieving seniors are able to move on with any form of predictability to those same elite programs.
You can have a 4.0 unweighted GPA, be ranked in the top 5% of your class, have a 34+ ACT and 2300+ SAT and have many 5s on AP tests and still get rejected by the majority of elite schools that you apply to. I know this, as I have seen it occur with regularity at our high school. If you have a strong hook, are an URM or come from the right high school, you may be able to apply to less colleges, and your acceptances may still be more predictable. But if that is not the case for you, you may want to gain an early admittance somewhere or also apply to 11+ colleges in hopes of having at least one elite college accept you.
Three years ago, I would not have argued this point either. But then I saw it happen to my own child. Being in that top 25th percentile of the applicant did not spare her from 12 rejections. 5 were to colleges that are high reaches for everyone. Any school accepting 10% or less is then rejecting 90% or more. So even being in that top 25th percentile means nothing. But 7 of her rejections though were to solid matches (some that even accepted 30% or so). They were still tough to gain admission to, yes… but they were still matches in terms of stats for their prior admissions.
The bottom line is that the vast majority of applicants likely need to proceed cautiously and assume nothing. CC has many threads detailing stellar students that were rejected too. Many rejected to all of the Reach and Match schools that they applied to in a given year.
Good luck to all applicants this year. There could be rough waters ahead 
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