Some parents said the record numbers reflected not more students applying, but the same students applying to more colleges. Pamela McCready-Huemer said her son and others who planned to take on popular majors like computer science and engineering had to hedge their bets.

“My son did apply to 20 schools, not for bragging rights, but because it’s so unpredictable, no one knows what will happen,” she said.

Admissions outcomes were even bleaker for the parents who arrived in a Boston federal courtroom on Friday.

A lawyer for William McGlashan Jr., who appeared in court and is accused of arranging false test scores and conspiring to bribe a college official to get his son into U.S.C., told the court this week that the son had withdrawn his college applications.

All of the parents were caught in recorded phone calls with the college consultant that prosecutors say was at the center of the conspiracy, William Singer, who had become a government cooperator.

Some of the parents plan to fight the charges, and indicated in recent days they would argue that they were not in on Mr. Singer’s schemes, and that he was deceiving them, too.

A lawyer for Gamal Abdelaziz, a former casino executive, who is accused of conspiring to bribe an official to get his daughter into U.S.C. as a basketball recruit, said on Friday that Mr. Abdelaziz believed he was making a legitimate donation to the university.