<p>@430ktk “Prepare for the worst and hope for the best”</p>
<p>I think that best describes the college applications process. You probably don’t know whether your reaches are in your grasp- and you won’t find out if you don’t apply and put in all your effort. It won’t feel good to be choosing between OU and KU in April AND wondering whether you could’ve had a broader range of options. The odds of success only go up with effort, anyway. Applying to <em>one</em> less school would’ve actually made the difference between going to a top-ranked program in my major and going to my state flagship; the school I’m attending next fall would’ve been on the chopping-block next because I was afraid my list had too many schools I wasn’t sure about. Actually, that was a common event this year- a friend applied to 15+ schools and only got into our state flagship, a local Southern Ivy that was a lower match for us, and two Ivies, and another applied to 20+ and only got into the flagship and Berkeley (#2 for her major of choice, iirc). So going either way- too many or too few- could hurt you, but as long as you know you’ll be able to put in effort into all of your applications (and aren’t spending more than you’re comfortable with- be aware of the trade-offs involved) it’s going to be a much bigger cost to cut down too much because you’ll always be thinking, “What if I’d just applied to that one extra school? I could’ve gotten in!” without the “You didn’t have the time/money/ability to have that many applications” voice helping you- and that not-giving-it-110% feeling isn’t very nice.</p>
<p>So don’t let the anxiety get to you. Based on the limited information you posted here, I wouldn’t count you out for any of those three reaches.</p>