<p>OP this is very individual. If your parents are willing and able to be full pay, I would say your list is too long and too varied, as your list is not very focused on certain types of schools. I would encourage you to narrow down basewd on what type of college experience you are looking for. My daughter has a LONG list. Right now there are over 20 schools, hoping to get that down to about 15 applications. She is chasing merit, and despite what Tomsriver has posted, it is NOT that easy to predict merit aid at some schools. She has good but not crazy high stats. She has several schools were we can easily predict what the merit would be, but there are quite a few where they do give some students very generous aid, but don’t have the ‘grid’ where you can easily see it. She hopes to be out on the East coast and we are from the midwest. We have visited some, but have decided we are done visiting until we have the merit offers in hand and then we will visit the three that she feels are the best value. I feel that her list is too long, but is probably necessary for her specific situation. She will apply in a few ‘waves’ and the list may be shorter if some of her favorites come through early with solid merit.</p>