LSU Ranks as No. 1 Party School
Aug. 17, 2000 -- Louisiana State University has topped this year’s list as the best party school in the country, an honor that annually tends to raise the ire of college administrators and raise the beer mugs of its students.
LSU, as well as the University of Alabama and the University of Texas climbed in the rankings just above last year’s king of the party, Florida State University.
“Between the football, baseball and the tailgating, we're definitely No. 1,” said Todd Duhon, the owner of the Stadium Club, located near LSU.
Classes don't start until next week, but there was hardly a drop off in business during the summer this year, he said. “My business this past summer is up 80 percent over last year,” Duhon said.
The survey is only one of several lists compiled annually by The Princeton Review, which is not affiliated with Princeton University. It is scheduled for release in book form next week.
The Baton Rouge campus, with illustrious alums such as Democratic political strategist James Carville, former ARCO chief executive Lowdrick Cook, and film critic Rex Reed, may not be so proud of its new title.
Colleges are much happier to make the top of other Princeton Review categories.
“Yes, one loves to be in a book called The 331 Best Colleges … but of course they want to cherry-pick, especially when it’s a book about the life on campus,” said Evan Schnittman, the executive vice president of The Princeton Review. “Our book has a very consumer-oriented focus. It’s all the things 18-year-olds care about.”
We’re Not Really No. 1In the past, college administrators have put out press releases touting their high academic ranking. But last year, Florida State actually held a news conference to denounce its inauspicious “Party School” title.
Florida State officials, not surprisingly, opted not to respond today to the loss of its party school ranking.
“I think the whole survey, from my point of view, would be very laughable if it didn’t misinform people about the university’s environment,” Mark Emmert, chancellor of LSU, told The Associated Press. “LSU is no more of a party school than any other American university.”
Other winners in the new survey include Harvard University for best library, Princeton University for best academics, and Babson College, in Babson Park, Mass., for best professors.
The survey ranks The College of the Atlantic in Bar Harbor, Maine, as tops in best campus food and most beautiful campus. Syracuse University reigns as the friendliest on race and class relations while Wheaten College in Illinois is classified as the most religious.
But ranking No. 1 on the “Stone Cold Sober Schools” list is Brigham Young University.
The rankings are nonscientific, but rather based on surveys of about 175 students questioned on each campus and asked to rank their school in several categories.