Princeton Review ranks IU as No. 8 party school

The votes are in and the tallies have been counted: IU’s students (almost) never study. They are too busy being the eighth-best party school with the fifth most amount of hard liquor, which may also be why IU’s students are the 16th-happiest.\nThe Princeton Review, a company unrelated to Princeton University, puts out a publication called the “Best 366 Colleges” once a year. The 2008 edition gave IU these rankings.\nThe publication ranks everything from academics to the social aspects of college. \nAdrinda Kelly, a senior editor of the “Best 366 Colleges” guidebook, said with 120,000 students between 366 schools, about 325 students per college campus participate in the survey. \nThe survey, according to Kelly, is self-selective, meaning the students have to find the survey themselves and then choose to participate in it.\n“Even though it is self-selective, there is a lot of validation from the students,” Kelly said. After the results are out, students are asked to go online and rate how accurate the rankings are, she said.\nDean of Students Dick McKaig said that the results of a self-selective survey, such as the one put out by “The Princeton Review,” are skewed. \n“A lot of universities question the validity of the information,” McKaig said. “I don’t put a lot of stock in it.”\nSenior Erin Bond finds fault with some of the Princeton Review’s claims as well.\n“My friends study,” Bond said about the “their students (almost) never study” ranking. “People I know take their classes seriously.” \nMcKaig said he doesn’t think that freshmen would base their college choices on the Princeton Review alone. \n“It doesn’t truly reflect IU,” he said.\nBut freshman Tyler Conaway, who looked at “The Princeton Review” online, said it played a part in his decision to come to IU. \n“I was actually planning on going to the University of Southern Indiana in Evansville,” Conaway said. “I was going to visit IU anyway, but the Princeton Review made me more interested in coming here.”\nAs a prospective journalism major, Conaway said that it was the newspaper’s ranking – 13th in the country – that made him more interested in attending IU. \nMcKaig said he’s not sure how the Princeton Review can actually evaluate a matrix that makes IU a party school, or any other ranking for that matter. \n“Everyone I talk to says IU is the most beautiful campus they have ever seen, but it’s not even in the Princeton Review’s top 20,” McKaig said. “That makes me question the accuracy.”