re: Most famous abbreviation for a university?

It's prolly UCLA. I haven't read the thread, but I'll throw out NC State, if that one counts. I don't think I've ever heard it spoken aloud as North Carolina State...only ever NC State. I've heard LSU the long way, same with UNC and others. But never NC State.

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I've heard LSU the long way

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Vern loves him some "Louisiana State"

BSHU

Ball So Hard U

CAL

IUPUI

top 2 are

LSU and UCLA. I would say USC but they are commonly referred to as "Southern Cal"

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Most famous abbreviation for a university?

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I think an abbreviation is only worth a shite if you know what it abbreviates. That would drop MIT quite a bit down the list. Tons of people know that it is a fancy, high-end college, but few normal Americans can tell you what it means. Embarrassing as it may be, it is true.

I would say:

UCLA


NYU

LSU

If you made a list of university abbreviations, and told people it was a list of university abbreviations, those three would be the ones people filled in correctly.

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MIT

UCLA

NYU

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I just have a really hard time believing that more than 30% of normal Americans would know what MIT abbreviates. UCLA and NYU are self-explanatory, but MIT would be another story. People know MIT is a university, they just don't know which one it is. It is like NASA. NASA is famous, but people have no clue what it means.

RPI

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I just have a really hard time believing that more than 30% of normal Americans would know what MIT abbreviates.

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If you put it that way I would completely agree that many probably can't tell you what MIT stands for but they do still know it's a famous university.

It actually kind of reinforces how famous the acronym is when people don't even know what it stands for, like NASA, but still know what it is.


In NY, when I'm telling non-college sports fans that I'm at home watching an LSU football game they often clarify by asking "that's Louisiana State right?" where if I were to say University of California at Los Angeles they'd presumably clarify by the acronym and say "oh, UCLA".