I'd stay away from the magazine guides. I've read as many articles denouncing those. They factor a school's endowment into the ranking--which is why schools like Harvard and Yale (with endowments over 10 billion) have higher rankings than schools with higher average test scores and lower endowments.
When I was looking at schools (4 years ago! Yikes!) , I liked Fiske and Princeton Review. I liked how they had what the STUDENTS--the real "college experts" --felt about the school, and not just some numbers crunched into a computer.
2 safety schools? I didn't realize until after I got to school how I applied to fewer schools than most of my friends--only 4! (and one was my state school, so it doesn't count).
PM me if you have any more questions. College admission time shouldn't be so stressful for high-schoolers!
