SHMACS LLC
These terms are an agreement between you and SHMACS LLC ("SHMACS", "we", "us") covering your use of shmacs.org, the per-school SHMACS sites, and the college advisor at shmacs.org/colleges. By using the site — and especially by creating a sign-in or buying a Season Pass — you agree to them. We've kept them as plain as we can; if anything is unclear, ask us at hello@shmacs.org.
SHMACS stands for Super Helpful, Mostly Accurate Course Suggester, and we mean the middle word. We aggregate course catalogs, schedules, degree programs, and — for the college advisor — public federal datasets about US colleges. We work hard to keep it accurate, but it is provided as-is: catalogs change, scrapes lag, registrars reorganize, and data feeds contain errors at the source.
Always verify against official sources before acting. Your registrar, your school's official catalog, and a college's own published figures are authoritative — SHMACS is not. Nothing on SHMACS is academic advising, admissions advice, or financial advice, and SHMACS is not affiliated with or endorsed by any school it covers.
The chatbots (school chat and the college advisor) are powered by large language models. Their output can be wrong, out of date, or entirely made up — confidently. Do not treat an AI answer as a substitute for your academic advisor, your school's degree-audit system, or a college's official information. Check anything that matters before you register, apply, or pay for anything based on it.
Some features require signing in by receiving a 6-digit code at your email address (school chat requires an email at the school in question). By signing in you confirm the address is yours. Keep your codes to yourself; you're responsible for activity under your sign-in. School chat is currently free for students signed in with their school email while we gather feedback and improve the product; see the privacy policy for what we log in exchange. We may change, limit, or discontinue free features as the product evolves.
The college advisor is a paid feature. The deal is simple:
All purchases are final. Refunds are issued only where required by law, or at our sole discretion. If you believe something went wrong with your purchase, contact hello@shmacs.org from your purchase email. Any refund we issue ends the pass.
Don't:
We may suspend or terminate access for abuse of these terms — including, for serious or repeated abuse, cancelling a Season Pass without refund. You can stop using SHMACS at any time; if you want your data gone too, the privacy policy explains deletion requests.
Anything you upload or type remains yours. You give us permission to process and store it as the privacy policy describes — that's the whole license; we don't claim ownership and we don't sell it.
SHMACS is provided "as is" and "as available", without warranties of any kind, express or implied — including accuracy, availability, fitness for a particular purpose, and non-infringement. To the maximum extent permitted by law, SHMACS LLC will not be liable for indirect, incidental, special, consequential, or punitive damages, or for lost profits, lost data, missed registrations, or admissions outcomes, arising from your use of the site. Our total liability for any claim is capped at the amount you paid us in the 12 months before the claim (which, for free features, is zero). Some jurisdictions don't allow certain limitations, so parts of this section may not apply to you.
These terms are governed by the laws of the State of Ohio, USA, without regard to conflict-of-law rules. Disputes will be resolved in the state or federal courts located in Massachusetts.
We may update these terms as the product evolves. We'll post changes to this page and update the effective date; material changes will be called out in the app. Continuing to use SHMACS after a change takes effect means you accept the updated terms. If you don't, stop using the site — and if a material change hurts an active Season Pass, email us and we'll make it right.
SHMACS LLC · hello@shmacs.org