BYU still 'stone cold soberest'

MADISON, Wis. — The University of Wisconsin-Madison topped a list of the nation's best party schools released Monday, despite a decadelong effort by the school to reduce its reputation for heavy drinking.

Meanwhile, Brigham Young University led "stone cold sober" schools for the eighth straight year.

And that sits well with at least one BYU mom and two other students.

"It makes a lot of sense," said Nancy Law of Madison, Ala., whose son Ted will be a BYU freshman this year. Law said her son had offers of full scholarships to both the University of Alabama — which has a bit of a party reputation in the South — and BYU. He chose the latter, she said. "This is not a school where drinking is a form of entertainment, which is atypical for colleges."

Sydney Lambson of Gilbert, Ariz., and Mitch Lee of Orem expressed similar feelings.

"I think it's awesome," said Lambson, 18, a freshman. "I actually have so much fun here. You can have so much fun without being stoned."

"I don't have a problem with (the ranking)," said Lee, a senior. "It's not stone cold. It's a way of life. You live clean lives, and you get into a whole lot less trouble."

The rankings are based on survey responses regarding alcohol and drug use, hours of study each day and the number of students in fraternities and sororities.

Schools often criticize the list, while the American Medical Association has urged Princeton Review to stop putting it out, saying it legitimizes students' drinking.

UW-Madison Chancellor John Wiley dismissed the report as "junk science that results in a day of national media coverage."

The chairman of the campus student government, though, said many students would take pride in the ranking considering the university's other reputation as a top academic institution.

U.S. News and World Report ranked UW-Madison No. 34 among national universities in its annual survey last week.

"It just shows that we work hard but we play hard also," said Eric Varney, chair of the Associated Students of Madison.

The list — which is not affiliated with Princeton University — is based on online surveys of more than 110,000 college students and is included in the Princeton Review's "Best 361 Colleges."

Robert Franek, who authored the report, said students are looking for more than just a classroom experience when they pick a college.

"The mission is very simple — to provide information to make the college search palatable for a student and all of them to find a school that's the best fit for them," he said.

Other universities listed in the Top 10 party schools were Ohio University-Athens, Lehigh University in Pennsylvania, University of California-Santa Barbara, State University of New York at Albany, Indiana University-Bloomington, University of Mississippi, University of Iowa, University of Massachusetts-Amherst and Loyola University New Orleans.

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Contributing: Rodger L. Hardy