My kids applied to a diverse array of schools. I thought my daughter would wind up at a liberal arts college - she applied to a way-too-long list of mostly LACs - but she ended up at an urban university (luckily, in a small program within the big pond). I thought my son would wind up at a university, but he wound up at a liberal arts college. In the end, they chose the colleges that made themselves most affordable to us, which luckily for my status-hungry offspring, were also the highest ranked of the ones where they were accepted.
No, we visited around 20, my hope was a clear match would be her favorite. It looks like that happened.
She is applying to only 5-6, but currently is fine with her current non competitive acceptance and is only applying to others in case she goes loco and changes her mind in 5 months.
32 Act, 3.91 UW, we hit all the typical reaches for her stats: UR, Davidson, Wake, Emory, Denison, Kenyon, CWRU, Rhodes, W&M, Colgate, Colorado College, Furman, Trinity (Texas).
All the Texas schools Tamu, UTA, UTD not Rice.
Her favorite is none of those lol non competitive christian LAC barely in the top 500 is her current favorite.
I guess you could say we looked at all the typical ones and so far she just something completely different.
Hope daughter finds the perfect school.
D19 has 11 apps done and 5 more to go. They run the gambit for sure. The only school she doesn’t have is a west coast school. She is looking for a good fit and merit. We have visited 2 schools that she won’t apply to.
I will say a few schools have been applied to solely because they let her apply free. But two of them became interesting to her and she is visiting them the next two weekends.
Northeastern and Montana State University. There is a lot of difference between Boston and Bozemanz =))
Our kids visited every single school they applied to before applications were sent.
Still…kid had U of South Carolina and Santa Clara as her top choices once acceptances were in.
My 2018 graduate applied to BIG SEC schools like U of Florida, A&M, Auburn & to small private schools like Fordham, Loyola Chicago & Trinity University (TX). 2016 kiddo applied to vastly different schools too, she applied to Pitt, Drexel, Purdue and Marquette and College of Wooster, among others. We visited most of their choices. It may be weird to you and seem that your child all over the map; but honestly, what my kid thought they wanted during fall application season and what they ended up choosing in May were very different. They do a lot of changing/maturing during those intervening months of senior year, it’s good to have options!
A little over 6 months ago my son’s final choice was between UChicago and Tulane. There are some similarities tha are not obvious at a first glance 
Large State flagship, an elite, east coast LAC, a midwest LAC in the country, and urban LAC, and a large public University in another country.
Back in the day, my brother applied to one of the SUNYs for Environmental Science, UNH for Physics and UCB for CivE. The only reason he is a Civil Engineer is he got into Berkeley.
S1 applied to U Dayton, 2300 miles away, and a community college 3 hours away. He ended up with a gap year.
S19 has a Large State Flagship, Midsized Private, Smaller Private, Large OOS school, and Branch campus of state flagship.
Very interesting mix some things in common but not consistently across all 5. Different plusses and minuses got them on the list (or took them off) but it is not apples to apples for sure!
S17 had one OOS Flagship, 3 small LAC’s, one private mid sized univeristy and one regional in state option. All over the board and like his brother, some things in common but not consistently across all.
The older 2 were far more consistent with their school types.
I am glad to see that a lot of kids and their parents don’t buy into this “fit” myth.
Schools can be very different AND be good fits.
"I was just thinking about how odd it was and was wondering if this is “normal’.”
This is pretty normal especially if you use the reach/match/safety strategy that most do, even in the good ole days when I applied we did this. Your reach will typically be a private, and your safety an in-state public so right there you’ll have a big difference in campus vibe, fit etc…
We visited lots of different size schools over the years so that our kids could get a feel for each campus and weed out those that just didn’t fit. My older two immediately identified with smaller campuses (less than 5000 students) while my youngest felt at home at large public universities. I think it is largely personality driven. While there are certainly versatile kids that can attend any size school, it seems to me that for a majority of students, you are either a big school kid or a small school kid. As for applications, we had a firm limit of 6. The older two applied to 2 each. The youngest applied to 6.
@gallentjill I have the same problem as your daughter – every school has so many good traits that it seems impossible to choose just one!
Since most schools have many pros and cons, I personally don’t think that there’s a problem with having a very diverse list if it helps balance out certain aspects that you could go either way on (eg, big vs. small school). Or, they might all meet certain important criteria (such as a major) and differ on not-too-important ones (maybe location).
I agree with previous posters like @Cheeringsection and @appalachymom; it’s so easy to change your mind on what you want in a school halfway through the process, so why not keep your options open?
Plus, you can always reject a school you don’t want to attend, but once applications close in December or January, there’s no going back and applying!