The University of Wisconsin is back in Princeton Review’s “Best 371 Colleges” rankings for the after being named the No. 8 party school in the nation.
Four years have passed since UW was ranked the No. 1 party school by Princeton Review. The next year they fell to fourth place and in the last two years UW was not included in the rankings.
Seamus Mullarkey, senior editor of the Princeton Review, emphasized UW is not just included in the lists for the social scene, but they also received positive comments from students such as “resources are phenomenal” and “definitely makes you earn your grades.”
“The thing for people to bear in mind, first and foremost, to be included in the ‘Best 371 Schools,’ is they have to be the best schools in the country academically,” Mullarkey said. “These are really, truly, superbly excellent schools on the nationwide scale.”
The survey is always available online for any student to take. This year 122,000 students took the survey from 371 universities, averaging 325 students per school.
According to Mullarkey, the survey labels “party schools” as those with high usages of alcohol and drugs on campus, low daily study hours and high popularity on campus for fraternities and sororities.
UW Interim Director of Admissions Tom Reason does not think such surveys have much validity and can end up being a bit of a distraction from other aspects of the university.
“I don’t think it is particularly scientific or objective, and the validity of all surveys should be called into question,” Reason said.
He added the rankings such as “top party school” should not by any means be heavily considered in a student’s decision of where to attend school, yet they could serve as points to begin asking questions and doing more research.
Other top rankings UW received were No. 6 for “Lots of Hard Liquor,” No. 10 for “Lots of Beer” and No. 12 for “Students Pack the Stadiums.”
As far as how the university officials regard such rankings, they prefer not to have the attention of the community and media focused on the Princeton Review, but rather on other positive aspects of UW.
According to Vice Chancellor for University Relations Vince Sweeney, such rankings are not looked into that deeply, but they might be used as an information piece. He added the university has a pretty active set of programming available for alcohol-free activities.
“For people that have gone to school here like myself, what made the experience were things like meeting great people and learning from an outstanding faculty,” Sweeney said. “Madison is a wonderful and outstanding place and those are the types of things that give you a lifelong connection and leave you full of great memories.”
Reason recognizes the very prominent drinking scene on campus but considers the ingrained philosophy of acceptance and balance at UW to be more important.
“Something we concentrate on is the diversity of opportunities here,” Reason said. “There is certainly an atmosphere of acceptability; although the drinking scene is one part of student life here, the other part is doing what you want to do.”
