BYU most sober school for 13 years in a row

PROVO — In Provo, hops refer to how high you can jump on a basketball court, and brewing is what you do with root-beer extract and dry ice. Ask for a cold one and you'll get you a Sprite, and if anything starts fermenting, it's either your roommate's mystery meat in the fridge or a chemistry experiment in the Clyde.

That's why it shouldn't come as a surprise that BYU has, for the 13th year in a row now, been dubbed the nation's most stone-cold sober school by the Princeton Review.

The LDS-owned school's Honor Code prohibits anything with more bite than a Barq's Root Beer and more foam than a mug of hot chocolate.

"Every year we feel pretty comfortable going into the rankings," said BYU spokesman Todd Hollingshead. "We're pleased to see we've come out on top. We're looking forward to next year and staying at the top."

Each year, the Princeton Review compiles rankings based on student surveys for the top universities around the country comparing libraries, dorms, campus food, professors, intramural sports, college-town atmosphere, campus appearance, financial aid and even student interaction.

"Many students use the Princeton Review rankings, the ratings and the narratives ... to allow them to find the best-fit school for them," said Rob Franek, lead author on the book, "The Best 373 Colleges: 2011 Edition." "I can't underestimate the value of that."

Franek noted that BYU has been consistent in its top marks and is also one of the few schools to be ranked in so many "Top 20" lists, at 10. The top-ranked school is listed in 14, he said.

Along with the top "stone-cold-sober school" award, BYU claimed No. 1 in the related categories, "Scotch and Soda, Hold the Scotch" and "Got Milk" for low hard-liquor and beer consumption.

Wheaton College in Illinois took the silver medal in all three of those non-imbibing categories. A four-year Christian liberal arts college and graduate school, Wheaton College operates under the historic motto "For Christ and His Kingdom."

In the "Don't Inhale" category, referring to low marijuana use, BYU ranks second. The U.S. Coast Guard Academy in New London, Conn., leads the way with the U.S. Naval Academy, U.S. Air Force Academy and U.S. Military Academy falling into formation behind BYU.

If Cougars want to talk politics, they would feel at home with students from Texas A&M or Hampden-Sydney College in Virginia. Those schools had the first- and second-most conservative-leaning students, politically speaking. BYU took third.

BYU administrators earned a ranking of their own, 14th, for keeping the place running "like butter," and current Cougars were voted second in the category of "Future Rotarians and Daughters of the American Revolution."

BYU's sober students were also rated the nation's most religious. Students at Thomas Aquinas College in California took second for most religious and pushed Wheaton College students to the bronze.

The Provo school ranked sixth in a category about lowest acceptance of gays, based on BYU students' own responses to the survey statement, "Students, faculty, and administrators at my school treat all persons equally regardless of their sexual orientation and gender identity/expression."

The University of Utah is profiled in the book but not listed on any of the 62 "Top 20" ranking lists.

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