Profile of a Party School

“When you’re young and irresponsible, well, you’re young and irresponsible.”

– Jenna Bush, from the Bush twins’ recent RNC speech

Jamie got in trouble for public intoxication during her first weekend at Ohio University (OU). As a consequence she was required to take an online class called AlcoholEdu. She describes the class as “a long online video, with a quiz at the end” and says she didn’t take notes. “I think I was drinking during the class,” she says. “I failed the first time, and had to pay to take it again.”

If the Princeton Review’s list of Top Party Schools is accurate, Jamie is a typical OU student. Earlier this year, when the list was released and OU appeared in the No. 5 slot, this small, Midwestern town went into a state of panic. Administrators denounced the list as the product of faulty surveys and the students either toasted to the decision or began worrying about the validity of their degrees. Meanwhile city officials tried to devise yet another way to deal with their town’s reputation as a Mecca for the overly tipsy. Whether or not OU makes the list next year or not, many of its party-going students would agree, it is the perfect example of an American Party School.

This fall, in an effort to curb underage drinking, as well as change their reputation, OU is requiring all its incoming freshmen to take the AlcoholEdu class. Of course, the difference between taking the class and absorbing the information, might be an important one. As Jamie says, “the second time I took notes, but all I remember is that you can still be drunk when you wake up in the morning.”

The list

The Princeton Review’s list, which they have published since 1992, usually includes a number of large state schools and was topped this year by State University of New York at Albany. Other notorious regulars include the University of Colorado at Boulder and the University of Georgia.

The Princeton Review (no relation to Princeton University) conducts the annual "Best 357 Colleges" survey and uses responses from more than 110,000 students at campuses around the country. The data is then used to rank schools according to eight categories, including academics, demographics, administration, and politics, in addition to the party school list.

According to their website, the Review’s selection of party schools is “based on a combination of survey questions concerning use of alcohol and drugs, hours of study each day, and the popularity of the Greek system.” Survey results come from student volunteers nationwide. Students who choose to fill out the survey in the first place may tend to be less academic minded. But, there is likely an element of truth in the survey, as well. If students feel so intensely driven to put their school on the top of the list, they have to be pretty determined partiers.

Robert Franek, lead author for the survey, believes that the Party School list is just one of the many ways his surveys help schools see themselves through the eyes of their students. He told the Associated Press that he thinks the list “accurately reflects college life – for better or worse – and can be a vehicle for change.”

In 2002, the American Medical Association called for an end to the Princeton Review top party schools list, saying that it is “misleading, and gives college-bound students a skewed perception about ‘partying’ on campus.” The director of the AMA’s Office of Alcohol and Other Drug Abuse, Dr. Richard Yost, said that Princeton Review “should be ashamed to publish something for students and parents that fuels the false notion that alcohol is central to the college experience.” Of course, the Princeton Review’s list isn’t the only source of this myth – think, for example, of the heavily publicized annual Spring Break debauchery or “Animal House” and, well, every other Hollywood film about college, for that matter.