I’m on my 2nd go around with music admissions right now. A few things from our experience
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It is more than ok, to set a budget or have contraints. Including using the funds you have available for Florida public schools. Being a musician is a long expensive road, graduating with little to no debt should be a priority. Having some financial flexibility for next steps after graduation can be helpful. We have treated the college search at our house as a game not to gain entry, but to find the best value road to reach goals. There are working musians in our metro from programs no one ever talks about performing along side musicians from much more acclaimed programs. You can find amazing faculty and opportunities lots of places - especially at larger well funded schools and near metro areas.
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Summer programs are great if they are in your budget and can be a good way to get a little taste of a program and build up a relationship with faculty. That said, we had really affordable regional summer options and my kids didn’t do any “famous” summer programs in high school and both have done reasonably well with admissions too. So I also think it’s fine to balance this with budget and not feel you have to do every option open to them. If you know FSU is an affordable option for you for college, I’d be prioritizing that program.
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I will say my straight music kid applying this year who has a teacher with a lot of experience with music admissions applied to 8 programs. My older kid was applying for double degree/double major programs and he applied to 13 programs. We’re still watching/waiting on kid #2 results here, but she does have at least 2 (and most likely at least 3 or 4) affordable options on the table so were calling it a tentative success. How you apply/shop for programs might vary depending on teacher recommendations, if you qualify for need based aid, if you’re hoping for merit aid, etc. Anyway - I think 8-10 schools as an initial list is good and make them a good range of options if you’re hoping for merit. That might dwindle to be 6-8 as you figure out more, get through prescreens, etc. One nice thing to come out of covid is the ability to do online auditions, I hope that does not disappear. My 2nd kid’s list was definitely mostly focused on merit money since we had more background on that though she did have 2 reachy options.
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Hopefully someone weighs in with better info possibly via PM but it is my understanding generally that UNT can be quite generous financially. Frost is dicier and more competitive for merit probably. Berklee is not known for being super generous with UGs typically but you don’t know until you try. If you dig around here you can find some hints. I feel like schools are intentionally vague about it this for sure. Sometimes if you have a sample lesson with a faculty member can give you some hints, both my kids had this happen.
Good luck!