I think it depends.
1 (min) financial and admissions safety that the student will be happy attending.A few matches admissions wise that may be a mix of financial safeties and financial reaches. Reach schools, to me, are only an option if they’d be affordable. On the flip side, it depends on the student but in this gpa range, applying only to 2-3 can makes me nervous as “match” is a moving target both for admissions and definitely for merit.
S17 had 7. Which may have been too many but there was only one true financial safety so we wanted to hedge our bets. I suspect S19’s list will be a similar number of schools to allow for merit shopping. S17 is telling S19 to apply to fewer as he found it overwhelming once accepted to all. However, there is also something to be said for being accepted by more than one school so the student feels like they have choices.
@OrangeFish that seems like too many to me, even with the BA/BFA complication. If all are affordable then I guess that’s one thing but application fatigue is real and the number of essays on top of portfolio etc…juggling that with actual senior year coursework is a hard thing to manage. Too many matches and safeties, if the student is accepted to many, can make decisions really hard and painful for all.