@tdy123: “To me a safety is a school where Naviance shows every single applicant from your HS with stats equal or below yours (or your child’s) was accepted.”
Based on your criteria, the Naviance data for my older S’s HS would indicate that UChicago was a safety for my S. Every applicant over the previous seven years with higher or lower grades/scores was accepted. This was ten years ago, but still…we did not consider it a sure thing!
For us, UMD was the admissions/financial safety. The question would be if they got into Honors and if they got merit $$. UMD offered some autoadmits w/scholarships for certain math/CS competitions that they sponsored, and while S1 didn’t win those, he was already on their radar through other competitions. Both our kids would have been good with attending UMD. They also spent a lot of time selecting their lists. No throwing apps at the wall to see what sticks. Their favorites got significant extra attention and that strategy worked well.
A lot of kids in our neighborhood were rejected by UMD. Those with strong stats tended to get in at VT, Penn State, Ohio State, Temple, WVU, UMBC, Towson, & Salisbury. Our local CC also has a very strong reputation and a lot do the guaranteed articulation to UMD – but they need to keep a pretty decent GPA to qualify for that. S2 did a post-BA TESOL certification program at said CC and is now teaching overseas. He was quite happy with the program.