To answer OP’s actual question (lol) – Kiddo applied to one local day school, one Cal boarding school, and 6 New England schools – all visited in one carefully timed 4-day trip (including flights). It was pretty crazy but fun. We chose those schools off of my spreadsheet because they worked with the schedule constraints and scored highly on my various metrics. We did most of our filtering at that pre-visit stage – there were great schools we just couldn’t fit into our plan.
Eight total applications was about kiddo’s limit – that was the biggest constraint in my opinion.
For revisit days, we did Cate, and three New England schools. Those visits were harder to schedule – but the schools were very accommodating. I wouldn’t recommend doing more revisits than that – it made the decision harder, not easier. So, yeah, six total applications, plus or minus two, sounds good to me. More depending upon your financial aid situation, etc.
I am glad to have had the bs application/touring experience – we will be so much more comfortable and confident with the college search now. I am pretty sure we can narrow the college apps to the same number and be more efficient with the touring, too. We learned so much the first time around.