30 is fine for a cali applicant whos not a 3.8+ 35+ mcat person. I applied to 43 but nevermind my idiotic decision haha. If i were you and you can afford it id apply to 30 assuming you arent applying to only like the top 25 and 5 safeties😛. Without seeing your list only thing id say is i assume you are applying to schools like: BU, drexel, nymc, gwu, gtown, temple, etc. AKA the schools that every person and their mother applies too. If all of those are on your list i would highly recomend removing a few of them. Honestly i would recommend almost no one apply to BU, gwu etc unless its your number one.\
Also not all "optional" essays are optional if you know what i mean. I would say UW madison might fall under that category. Or at the very least you should be able to write some interesting things there. Btw you should apply to UW if you can actually see yourself there rhino 😛