It’s another list of schools to pick through and a marketing association for some not-crazy-selective LACs. We found it helpful for one of our kids who was looking for an LAC and needed a lot of merit aid to make it happen. She applied to several CTCL schools (no, not all in the list were good fits for her) and recently graduated from one of them. I doubt we would have found it without the CTCL label. She had a great LAC experience there, studied abroad twice, and landed a great job after graduation. The school was as described in the marketing materials and turned out to be a good fit for my kid.