It seems like yesterday I arrived in Madison to start my freshman year, boasting about the recent announcement the University of Wisconsin was blessed with the highest position on Playboy’s list of the country’s biggest party schools. I was at first worried this newly esteemed regard the party gods at Playboy had put us into would force our administration to make some serious crackdowns in regard to partying. Much to my surprise, however, when I showed up for orientation at the Kohl Center, one of our deans made a seemingly shocking announcement: He didn’t care about our new position. He told us if we maintain the high level of academic wherewithal Madison is known for, we should party as much as we want.

Needless to say, not everyone agreed. These are the same people breathing a sigh of relief last week as Playboy handed down a stiff punishment to the Madison partiers: sixth place on their list of party schools. It seems there are those who take these rankings seriously; they repeat the common refrain the perception of the University of Wisconsin as a party school seriously hinders our image, which in turn deters quality applicants from applying to attend here.

From my personal perspective, however, this has not been the case. Two weeks from now I will be leaving a university with higher national rankings in many programs than from when I entered. In fact, if I were to be applying for next year’s freshman class with my high school record, I would most likely not be accepted. As they say, each class of freshmen at this university is more qualified than the one before it.

For these people obsessed with rankings, however, look no farther than our sociology, chemistry, education, psychology, and library and information studies programs — each of which was named as a Top 10 graduate program in the country according to the U.S. News and World Report rankings released last week. Add in as well the oft-heard factoid that our school produces more S&P 500 company CEO’s than any other school in the country, tied with a small northeastern school in Cambridge, Mass., and you begin to see that maybe our position atop the party rankings did not and does not hurt our image.

Now, we can all agree the party rankings are completely arbitrary and quite silly ways of documenting something that seems nearly impossible to quantify. That said, there is no doubt that, as a group, the students at our university enjoy partaking in quite rowdy festivities. (I mean, if we didn’t why would MTV bestow upon us the honor of our own reality show?) While it certainly does not mean everyone, it’s hard to witness the debauchery of football Saturdays (or just Saturdays in general) and not come to some general conclusion regarding how we choose to entertain ourselves.

The point, however, is this does not define us. It has always seemed to me that a student here at UW is a special breed. Yes, we party and drink, often times too much, but we also work hard; We engage ourselves within our community, and we take seriously what our goals are as a public university. It seems most understand we are not here just for one thing; we did not come just to regurgitate lectured information nor did we come just to socialize. We are all here to learn in more ways than in just the classroom, the club, the Greek organization or on free bacon night at Wando’s. We have come because we wish to grow in many ways and we know that this university is one that can provide us with that opportunity.

That atmosphere is an important element of our university and one that has continued to be our tradition for well over a century. Nationwide, people know about the University of Wisconsin, and a lofty party ranking simply will not change that. What we can do is continue to demand the most out of our students, our peers and our community members so when we all leave here we are better people, and more well-rounded, than when we matriculated. Such are the goals of a liberal education, and we should continue to take advantage of the unique way our school can provide us with just that.

Ben White ([email protected]) is a senior majoring in political science.