Surveys: Life changing for IU students

If The Princeton Review is to be believed, the party at IU is beginning to die. \nIU fell to the No. 15 party school in the nation according to the publication's 2005 list of "The Best 357 Colleges," but did manage to land the No. 5 spot in the "Lots of Beer" ranking.\nIU received what administrators saw as negative national attention when the school was ranked the top party school in the country in 2002. In 2003, The Princeton Review ranked IU No. 3 for parties.\nSusan Williams, assistant director of IU Media Relations, said she was glad to see IU drop from the top ten party schools in the nation but questioned the validity of the ranking. \n"We're quite happy not to be in the top ten," she said, "but I'm not sure we should have been there in the first place."\nIU Police Department Lt. Jerry Minger also raised concerns about The Princeton Review's rankings.\n"If you read how they put their data together, you realize that it's pretty much junk research, junk data," he said.\nDean of Students Richard McKaig said his department doesn't give much credence to the survey either.\n"We have a saying in the office, we take everything seriously about alcohol except The Princeton Review," he said.\nIU-Bloomington Interim Chancellor Ken Gros-Louis said he did not believe the drop in ranking was because of any efforts on the part of IU because the publication lacked credibility.\n"I've always been mystified by the methodology used by The Princeton Review, so I don't know the statistical significance of dropping from the top ten," he said.\nMcKaig said he agreed that the methodology is questionable. \n"Their methodology is so unclear that you cannot intentionally move yourself either way," he said. \nBut McKaig said there are new alcohol abuse-resistance programs in place that are helping to reduce the problem on campus. The most significant of which, he said, is the addition of Alcohol Counselor Walt Keller.\nWilliams said while IU does have drinking problems, it is not unique among universities in that regard.\nMcKaig said Keller meets with students who have been caught violating University alcohol policies, whether in the dorms or elsewhere. \n"This is more of a help to students than to just be punitive," he said. "There are huge drinking problems on every campus; it's not something that students should be proud of. It is, however, a small part of campus life." The Princeton Review is a publicly-traded company not affiliated with Princeton University. Though its party school ranking is one of the most famous aspects of its yearly publication "The Best 357 Colleges," the company ranks colleges on 64 issues, including academics, politics, quality of life and extracurricular activities.\nIU also ranked No. 16 for "Great College Newspaper." The State University of New York at Albany took IU's former spot as the No. 1 party school, while Washington and Lee University and University of Wisconsin at Madison took second and third, respectively.