THE NATION’S GREATEST PARTY SCHOOLS: THE I’S HAVE IT!

8/7/13

The Princeton Review has come out with the results of its 2013 nationwide poll of 126,000 students regarding the quality of, er, recreational activities, in our nation’s institutions of higher learning.   According to these observers, who apparently know of what they speak, the nation’s top five party schools are…

1. The University of Iowa
2. The University of California at Santa Barbara
3. The University of Illinois
4. West Virginia University
5. Syracuse University

As loyal readers know, two of these schools are very close to yours truly’s heart.   I got my MBA at Iowa.  My oldest daughter attends the University of Iowa.   And my wife and I aspire, at some point in the future, to live in or around Iowa City, which has to be, in our and many’s opinion, the best place in the world to live, but that is grist for another mill.  I got my undergraduate degree (BS, Accountancy, as they call it, which makes it sound not like a subject but rather a disease, but I digress).  Until I met my wife, those four years in Champaign-Urbana were the best four years of my life.

One supposes that, as an alum of Illinois and Iowa and the father of a student at the latter, I should be perplexed at the notion of these institutions’ being widely regarded as great party schools.  But I’m not.

While no one, and least of all yours truly, condones excessive drinking (or any underage drinking) or some of the other activities that fall under the general heading of “partying,” what is wrong with having a good time?   If my two almae matres were pure party schools, offering little academic challenge or opportunity for intellectual or career enhancement, I would indeed be sullen and down-in-the-mouth about this latest development.  But neither school is a non-stop party; far from it.

Regarding the Big U downstate…

Illinois and its students consistently rank in the top five universities in the country by employers.  Its business, and especially its engineering, math, and science programs, are among the best, if not the best, in the nations.  22 Nobel Prize winners are, or were, associated with the Big U as either alumni or faculty members.  If you are an Illinois resident, Champaign is perhaps the best bargain out there in higher education.  And if you a resident of South Korea or China, you know the U of I; much of the technological infrastructure of both countries, and of others, has been built by U of I alums.

Regarding the University of Iowa…

Iowa has long been widely recognized as both the easiest Big 10 University to get into (though with the entry of Nebraska (another great place to go to college), Maryland, and Rutgers (no opinion yet on these interlopers) into the family, Iowa may have lost that distinction) BUT the most difficult Big 10 University to stay in.   (This juxtaposition of the difficulty of gaining entry and maintaining student status makes Iowa something of the opposite of Harvard (i.e., the U of I (either U of I) of the East) and its Ivy League colleagues, where the only difficult endeavor is getting in, but I digress.  At least I do so parenthetically in this case.) Perhaps the attractions of downtown Iowa City have something to do with the latter, but mostly the difficulty of remaining enrolled at Iowa has to do with its very challenging general ed requirements.   Freshmen and sophomores at Iowa are frequently heard to complain that none of their friends at (name just about any other Big 10, or any, for that matter, university) don’t have to work as hard as they do.   I know from personal experience; thank God my daughter is starting her junior year.

The health related fields at Iowa are always among the best in the country.  (Again, personal experience; my daughter is in the 6^th rated nationally Nursing program.)  The Tippie School of Business is perhaps the most underrated business school in the country, and I say that fully aware that it is always in the nation’s top 50 business programs.  The Iowa Writer’s Workshop is the best in the country.   And Hawkeye sports?   You have to experience the enthusiasm, near pandemonium, of an Iowa football game to believe it’s real.   And watch Hawkeye basketball this year; Fran McCaffrey and the guys are going to surprise a lot of people this season. 

And then…

there is just being in Iowa City.   What a beautiful campus and town, what great people, what a place…and this from a non-drinker, non-partier buy who has seen something of the world.  (Don’t misunderstand me; I was not a non-drinker, non partier when I attended either of these institutions.  I am speaking of my current status in my advanced age.)

So would I rather not have my two almae matres at the top of the national party school rankings?   Maybe.   But does their achieving such notoriety, in many people’s eyes, make me think any less of either of these two academic giants and all-around great places to spend one’s college and/or grad school years?   Absolutely not.   I love both my schools, would gladly and gratefully go to either again if I had to do it all over again, am delighted that my daughter goes to one of them, and would strongly recommend them to anyone seeking a place to matriculate.   And, yes, they are both a very good time; is that something of which to be ashamed?