Persistent party school listing rankles university officials

Think about the nation's biggest party schools and some of the country's largest institutions of higher learning immediately come to mind.

The University of Florida? Certainly. No painsville, no Gainesville.

The University of Mississippi? Southern comfort both in person and by the bottle.

The University of Wisconsin? For a radical good time, it's Madison.

And, of course, DePauw University ...?

That's if you can believe the annual Top 20 Party Schools list released this week by The Princeton Review.

For at least the fourth straight year DePauw finds itself on that less-than-prestigious alcohol-infused list.

For 2014, DPU is 13th among the nation's top party schools, tucked in comfortably between Florida State at No. 12 and Mississippi at 14 in an ignominious poll headed this time by the University of Iowa in Iowa City.

That actually means DePauw has slipped a notch from No. 12 in the 2013 edition of The Best 378 Colleges book. DPU was 15th in 2012 after being as high as No. 10 in 2011.

DePauw University Media Relations Director Ken Owen says if the situation weren't so sad, the whole idea that the college has again made the Princeton Review's list of the nation's Top 20 Party Schools would be laughable.

"How in the world," Owen asks, "do some of the best parties in the country take place in Greencastle, Ind.?"

And how does anyone decide what determines having the best parties? Owen questioned.

"Is it bigger meatballs? Serving craft beers rather than PBR (Pabst Blue Ribbon)? I don't know."

If you step back and examine the issue at face value, "it's hard to imagine some of the biggest parties in the world happening in Greencastle," Owen adds, scoffing at the comparison as a "party school" with the likes of the University of Wisconsin at Madison with 40,000 students, nearly 20 times larger than DePauw with its enrollment of 2,400.

"It's just not representative of the real culture out there," Owen told the Banner Graphic.

"I'm not really sure it makes the Princeton Review more credible to keep DePauw in the top 20."

One thing that annoys Owen and the DePauw administration is how many news outlets and reporters just accept the survey "lock, stock and bagel," he says, quoting the title of a Three Stooges episode in making his point.

"They see the Princeton name," he said, "and think it's coming from Princeton University, which it's not."

The Princeton Review claims it surveys an average of 333 students per college (126,000 overall). The survey asked students 80 questions about academics, administration and the general lifestyle around campus.

The party listing is arrived at by digesting responses to questions on consumption of beer and hard liquor, hours students spend studying and the popularity of campus fraternities and sororities.

In recent years, schools have assisted the surveying effort by allowing e-mails to be sent to entire student bodies advising of the availability of an online questionnaire, the Princeton Review website notes. That, in turn, has reportedly yielded "robust response rates."

"We've surveyed anywhere from all 26 men at Deep Springs College (100 percent of the student body) to more than 1,000 collegians at such colleges as Hofstra University, University of Mississippi and University of Wisconsin-Madison," the surveying agency adds.

Owen and DePauw dispute that method and can't say that any such survey has been done of DPU students.

"None of us knows of the Princeton Review doing a survey or when they may have last talked to a student," Owen said, adding that he's not sure how the party school listing has any validity since the survey appears to "just move a few names around from year to year."

The DPU spokesman went so far as to suggest there is "lots of evidence the whole thing is made up."

For example, the editorial content of the two-page spread on DePauw has not changed in the past four editions, Owen said.

"It's like the Banner Graphic publishing the same newspaper every day. After a couple of days people would be saying, 'That fire in Roachdale was four days ago, when are you going to write something else?'"

The editorial content has been kind to DePauw, Owen said, characterizing it as an "academic fortress with some interesting things going on."

"If you read that text and look at the survey you'd think they were from different publications," Owen commented.

That's due to the sharp contrast in DPU overview and the party school listing or the No. 9 ranking for lots of hard liquor or No. 1 for lots of Greek life.

"It's not like we're 'Animal House,'" Owen says of the latter ranking, while struggling to make sense of a book that he said appears to be "sold on the backside of the drinking issue."

The party school listing, after all, is the one that generates the annual publicity. Gets the Princeton Review's name in newspapers and on websites around the world.

Owen and fellow DePauw officials also take umbrage with a new category -- College City Gets Low Marks -- that lists DPU and Greencastle at No. 13.

"In the past 12 months, Greencastle has opened a Starbucks," Owen noted. "We're in the middle of the Stellar campaign. If you'd say Greencastle is any less attractive to a student than a year or two ago, I'd have to look at you and say, 'You're crazy.' People around here (at DePauw) have been saying it's getting better all the time."

Yet Princeton Review remarks have Greencastle pegged, Owen noted, "as this vile place -- their words -- that students think they have to resort to drinking to have a good time."

There is good news in the survey for DePauw as it again ranks high for Best College Radio Station. It's No. 2 in the 2014 edition (the same as 2013 and 2012 after a year at the No. 1 spot in 2011). The uniqueness of DePauw's student-run radio station, WGRE, stands virtually alone in the college ranks these days, Owens assures.

But taking the good news with the bad isn't exactly comforting for DPU officials.

"Certainly we're open to scrutiny," Owen offered. "We're not saying just write good things about us.

"The sad thing," he added, still focused on the party ranking, "is this will be in bookstores."

The Princeton Review released its 2014 edition of The Best 378 Colleges book on Aug. 5. It includes the Top 20 party schools:

1. University of Iowa, Iowa City.

2. University of California, Santa Barbara.

3. University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

4. West Virginia University, Morgantown.

5. Syracuse University, Syracuse, N.Y.

6. University of Florida, Gainesville.

7. Ohio University, Athens.

8. University of Wisconsin-Madison.

9. Penn State University, University Park, Pa.

10. Lehigh University, Bethlehem, Pa.

11. University of Georgia, Athens.

12. Florida State University, Tallahassee.

13. DePauw University, Greencastle.

14. University of Mississippi, University, Miss.

15. University of Texas at Austin.

16. Miami University of Ohio, Oxford.

17. University of Maryland, College Park.

18. Tulane University, New Orleans.

19. University of Vermont, Burlington.

20. University of Oregon, Eugene.