Wisconsin students gain degree in partying
(Saturday September 3, 2005)

Most of us will have consulted a university guide somewhere along the line before decided where to spend the next three-plus years of our life, heck, there's even a great one included in this very site (hint hint). But whilst most guides will give an indication to a uni's social side as well as its academic qualities, there's nothing around that can offer quite what America 's Princeton Review can: a ranking of 361 major institutions by how good they are for a party!

‘All of the schools in this book are academically outstanding,' says its lead author, Princeton Review's Robert Franek. ‘But no school is best for all students. That's why our book has 62 different ranking lists and campus feedback about the schools not reported elsewhere. We hope it will help college applicants and their parents decide which college is best for them.'

The top party school rankings are based on survey responses by existing students regarding their booze and drug use, hours of study and the number of students in fraternities and sororities. This year's winner of the overall best party school award was the University of Wisconsin-Madison, which has a good academic reputation, but has also been in the top ten party list for 13 of the past 14 years. John Wiley, the chancellor of UW-Madison, was not particularly proud of his school's table-topping exploits, telling the Times that the report was ‘junk science that results in a day of national media coverage'.