O

Man, that really got me. Hats off to Mr Zhou. I know the term "safety school" as the college you apply to that isn't your top choice but that you feel confident you'll get into. So if all else fails you'll still have one school you can attend

I was absolutely certain about SPOCK being the circled letters for one and stuttered to a halt when i saw I was wrong. Set me up for a toss-the-phone-down laugh when i realized what was going on. What amazing construction!

I assumed the spelling of mezcal as "mescal" was a redirect and started trying things like "cacti", thinking it was referring to mescaline. Guess I need to solve a few more crosswords.