Given the current evironment, a wise strategy is to apply to a bunch of reaches, a few targets, and a few safeties. In my son’s case, he only applied to one safety, the in-state flagship, and two or three targets, and about ten reaches. He got his share of admissions and rejections, and waitlistings from the reach schools. If he had limited the number of reaches and chosen the wrong ones, he would have been shut out of the selective schools and ended up at a target or safety.