What @tk21769 said about Macalester and holistic admissions. It’s a great school, and a good one to have in the mix, but since they accept only 34% of applicants, “safety” is a little strong. Match/low match maybe? Among other things, a school that is that selective and practices holistic admissions is also going to be sensitive to interest and yield. Not saying you wouldn’t get in, just that you shouldn’t count on it.
ALSO, and this is extremely important: If your parents can only afford $12K a year, the meaning of “safety” changes significantly. You need schools where you can BANK on having enough financial aid. I’m not familiar with Macalester’s financial aid practices, but this might steer you more in the direction of places with guaranteed aid for certain stats and/or schools that have a documented history of providing a certain amount of merit aid for high stats kids. You’ll find a number of the latter amongst the CTCL schools.
I believe Oberlin offers some merit aid (a few kids in our orbit have received nice offers), Wesleyan not so much. I don’t know how good they are with need-based aid. Both are selective schools. In our area, Wesleyan is a reach for anyone because they get so many applicants. From other areas, maybe not as challenging.