I've just been thinking about this a lot and this seemed like the appropriate forum to discuss it.
So Princeton Review released their list of party schools for 2013.
1. University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa
2. University of California, Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, Calif.
3. University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, Ill.
4. West Virginia University, Morgantown W. Va.
5. Syracuse University, Syracuse, N.Y.
6. University of Florida, Gainesville, Fla.
7. Ohio University, Athens, Ohio
8. University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, Wis.
9. Penn State University, University Park,
Pa.
10. Lehigh University, Bethlehem,
Pa.
11. University of Georgia, Athens, Ga.
12. Florida State University, Tallahassee, Fla.
13. DePauw University, Greencastle, Ind.
14. University of Mississippi, University, Miss.
15. University of Texas at Austin, Austin, Texas
16. Miami University of Ohio, Oxford, Ohio
17. University of Maryland, College Park, Md.
18. Tulane University, New Orleans, La.
19. University of Vermont, Burlington,
Vt.
20. University of Oregon, Eugene, Ore.
I attend Iowa. We were ranked 2nd last year and now we're #1. Honestly, I don't feel it's accurate. I've been to UW Madison on weekends and it's way more wild. I feel like it's also not accurate because of the statistics they use to partially determine rankings. In Iowa City, we have an ordinance which states that no one under 21 may enter a bar after 10pm regardless of if you're drinking or not; obviously this means we're going to have more alcohol related arrests because of this than a city like Urbana where you can be in a bar at 19.
I also know a lot of people who hate when this list gets released because it gives people even more of a reason to get shitty drunk on weekends. "NUMBER 1 PARTY SCHOOL, GOTTA REPRESENT." And they say it gives us a bad rep. I suppose in some ways, it does. But I feel that our academic programs are still pretty awesome. Rankings like these probably do attract some undesirable folks to the university, but chances are they won't stay beyond freshman/sophomore year anyway. And if you can balance getting black-out drunk every night and still maintain a decent GPA, then more power to you. Part of me is really looking forward to syllabus week and how insane it's probably going to be because of this, but at the same time I don't really want to see all the freshmen puking on the sidewalks again.
Discuss
1. If you attend one of these schools, do you feel it's accurate? If you don't, would you still attend a school even if it had a rep as a party school?
2. Do you think lists like these influence students? If yes, how?
3. How do you personally balance your academic life with your social life?