We didn’t use the term safety either, we said ‘strong likelihood you’d get admitted’ (yeah, it was a mouthful but we were saying this, not typing it so easier than it might sound on paper).
We also looked for schools where we thought D20 and D23 would be successful and happy. Because budget was the most limiting factor, we spent a lot of time making sure schools would be affordable before looking for the fit. Maybe we just have super easy kids (ha!, they can be very picky) but neither found it all that hard to find schools they liked within the group of schools we determined we could afford.
I know it can be hard to figure out budget but, seriously, having a firm budget and sticking to it really did remove a lot of the angst of college searching for us. There were plenty of great schools that didn’t even make an initial list because we couldn’t afford it. In some ways, it was like saying to the kids, “Hey I know those Porsche, Audi and Ferrari models look incredible and the reviews say driving them is super fun…but we have the money to buy you a decent Toyota, Honda or a really nice Hyundai. Which one has the most features you think are important?”