My kid’s top two choices…one was a public university with 30,000 students or so, and one was a private university with 6000 students or so.
At this point, your student is applying, not matriculating. If the kid likes all of these schools…apply and see where he gets accepted.
Has the student visited all of these colleges? If not, once accepted, pick the top three, and visit…you can wait until after acceptances if you want to.