Over the past few weeks, the streets of Madison have been filled with endless dialogue and debate as to how the University of Wisconsin could so drastically fall from the graces of the likes of Hugh Hefner. UW deteriorated into mere mediocrity in the eyes of the world’s most well-respected adult magazine’s party school rankings. Yet again, even as we make our case through the means of MTV, the judges failed to recognize our unmatched status as crazy party animals.
While the above sentiment is facetious, it is always amusing to see how big of a deal people make of school rankings in general. While they may not be the first things on people’s mind, even so, there is always a substantial amount written and discussed about various school rankings. Whether it is the U.S. News or Playboy, for some reason, people have come to accept the notion these rankings give a completely fair analysis of the quality of education (or any other specified category — i.e. party atmosphere) you will receive if you attend any given school. Frankly, the feeble attempt to survey every school in the country, rank them based on a slew of criteria and subsequently publish which schools are the most esteemed in America is inconsistent at best. I felt this way when I was choosing where to go to school as a senior in high school, and I feel this way now, as I complete my fourth semester in Madison.
It is because I feel this way that I have remained generally apathetic about UW’s fall to sixth in Playboy’s party school rankings. I wholeheartedly believe if we were to have been ranked highly, it would not challenge our integrity as an academic institution; yet, I also believe that slipping in the rankings does not erase our reputation of being a party school. Saturday provided further proof these rankings have no practical importance. While I am not saying one good party should thrust us back to the top of this dubious list, I am asserting Mifflin simply provided further proof that these rankings get more attention than they ever deserve.
It seems in the past administration and local police have overreacted to these rankings, which they obviously viewed as a blow to our academic reputation, by cracking down on parties, increasing police raids into bars and taking various other actions to combat this trend. This overreaction was unwarranted and unnecessary. The concurrent revitalization of the party and the extreme drop in number of arrests was simply not a coincidence. I am not suggesting the reason for Mifflin’s great success was because of our drop in party school rankings; I am also not saying that it was not in spite of it. While I, admittedly, was one of the skeptics when I first heard of the proposition to get Mifflin sponsored, it seems the sponsorship may have been the perfect catalyst to catapult Mifflin back to what it should be. Don’t get me wrong, Mifflin last year was amazing in its own right, and this year’s party had an unfair advantage provided to it by Mother Nature, but this year the party seemed to have that indefinable “it” factor that may just be the catapult for its rejuvenation. While the sponsorship and the behind-the-scenes work of the likes of Mike Verveer were the reasons for the drop in arrests, the effect of the drop can be only positive.
Whether you think that Wisconsin’s drop in the party school rankings is a titanic defeat to our party school reputation or you think it is a giant step in the right direction toward ridding ourselves of an undesired stigma, it is clear that a stronger Mifflin is a great thing for our university. Regardless of how big Mifflin gets, or how high Playboy ranks us, our repute will not be undermined by our parties.
Jordan Soffer ([email protected]) is a sophomore with an undecided major.
