<p>Dad –</p>
<p>We faced this last year. The college counselor at my D’s HS was aghast when she saw D’s first cut list of 20 schools, and thought that was way too many. </p>
<p>This having been said – your S needs One True Safety School; a couple of low matches (i.e., schools with higher acceptance rates – to avoid admissions roulette); and as many of the schools with impossibly low acceptance rates as you want. FWIW, D did 10 applications all told, and would have done a couple more had she not had EA acceptances before 1/1.</p>