Or Superfluous.
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I thought the same.
I quite disagree. I personally do it all the time, when trying to help people better understand the real shape of the US undergraduate education system.
I have used clunky phrases like “the LACs embedded inside research universities,” but I would love it if there was a common, simple classification system that tracked this important reality.
As far as I can tell, US News was in fact primarily responsible for this classification system becoming so common.
Like, if you look back far enough, what I see is people did not really talk about Amherst or Williams being in a totally different class from Harvard or Yale. Indeed, people understood Harvard COLLEGE was different from Harvard Law School, that Yale COLLEGE was different from Yale Medical School, or so on. Technical schools were treated as something different entirely, and people would see, say, Caltech and Harvey Mudd as cousins, not Caltech and Chicago and Harvey Mudd and Bryn Mawr. People actually knew the service academies were a whole other thing.
Generally, people understood “going to college” as a broad notion that then tracked into different types of colleges that did not map onto the National Universities versus LACs
So at least from what I have seen, the indiscriminate lumping together of LACs and National Universities as two different classes really did seem to arise only after the US News system became widely known and read.
Although this is in fact a durably annoying aspect of democracy. Put things up for a vote, and all of sudden people are voting in ways you don’t think they should!
The Scandalous use of S when combined with the acronym LAC has Solicited a truly Sententious post about the Substantive meaning and Specific usage of Said acronym when Supplementing LAC with a Superfluous S.
Let it be Stated for all and Sundry that the extra S is a Silly waste of time. Less is more! Just say yes to LAC!
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I’m sure you could create a very contentious post about USNWR, but not here please.
Instead, ignore the Luddite LACists and embrace Social Progress with SLACism!
Vive la révolution!
I’m a Luddite for sure. But it wasn’t broke and didn’t need fixing.
Instead of debating, why don’t we all simply agree to use LAC as the moderstor requested?
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I was simply putting this up as a discussion. Not as a mod😊.
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So when someone in a discussion makes an argument from tradition (some form of, “This is how people have been doing things for a long time, and it is working fine, so don’t change it”), surely it is a fair response from others who disagree with that argument to critique that tradition, to point out things like perhaps it is not as old a tradition as some think, that its real origins may not be all that laudable, that it might not actually be working fine at all.
Of course we don’t need to belabor it, but if you are trying to better understand why perhaps some people see the value in changing a traditional practice, at least being willing to listen to such views seems important to me (obviously you don’t need to agree).
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And there we quite disagree.
I thought it meant selective- which is defined differently by everyone anyway - because it was always mentioned with the Vassars, Wesleyans…but never the Willamettes or Kalamazoos, etc.
But I don’t see the need either…but que sera sera
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Hmm, I have seen it used broadly.
Here is an example from five years ago with a Kalamazoo grad referring to Kalamazoo as a SLAC (sorry for the obscenity at the start):
https://www.reddit.com/r/kzoo/comments/bgbkrv/kalamazoo_college_residence_halls/
I would say “silly” since I’m an engineer, but that might get me in trouble. (Kidding!!)
“It has always been LAC”.
Things change over time. Especially if someone is new here and didn’t have kids going to college 10 years ago to know that terminology on here has changed. I figured LAC was obvious and had no idea people are using it to describe a school within a huge state school! I thought the s stood for “selective” to differentiate an 80% acceptance rate school from a 15% acceptance rate school. If I am looking for suggestions for selective liberal arts schools vs liberal arts schools the s would be a helpful filter.
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I honestly don’t think this matters. On this forum, folks ask about size, and the respondents ask about stats and what the student is looking for.
So….what difference does it make…when those questions are answered.
I think people are saying we don’t use LAC that way.
You can do a search here on CC using SLAC and you’ll get results that are all over the place. My point is that the S is confusing.
Well, I’m going back to LAC. Doing my tiny bit for the collective. The chips where fall where they may…
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I think this is right. I am afraid I have probably fallen into using the SLAC term myself, but it really isn’t necessary as there aren’t any (or at least many) MLACs or LLACs.
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What is an MLAC or LLAC? Wow, now I’m really confused! I’ve opened a can of worms 
