University of Delaware is America's No. 1 party school, Princeton Review says
Jessica BiesStudents at the University of Delaware work hard — and play hard — new rankings from The Princeton Review show.
UD is No. 1 on the New York company's list of the Top 20 Party Schools in America. Rob Franek, editor-in-chief of The Princeton Review Books, says it's a position the university has been flirting with for years. It was No. 6 on the list last year and No. 12 in 2016-17.
"The schools on our top party school list have a very active social scene," he said, adding that the rankings are based entirely on student opinion.
Princeton Review also ranks the most Stone-Cold Sober Schools. Brigham Young University in Utah, which is owned by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, has topped that list for more than 20 straight years.
The Princeton Review derived its 2019 rankings from a survey of 138,000 students (an average of 359 per campus) attending 384 different colleges and universities, Franek said.
The survey asked students 84 questions about their school's academics, administration, student body and themselves. The format uses a five-point scale to convert qualitative student assessments into quantitative data for school-to-school comparisons.
For the top party school list, Franek said he and his team looked at five different metrics:
- Beer consumption
- Liquor consumption
- Drug consumption
- Hours student spent outside of the classroom daily
- The popularity of the fraternity and sorority scene on campus
Based on the same results, UD was also rated:
- No. 1 on Lots of Hard Liquor
- No. 1 on Lots of Greek Life
- No. 9 on Lots of Beer
- No. 11 on Students Who Study the Least
The University of Delaware was additionally ranked No. 7 on a list of most popular study abroad programs.
Adam Cantley, dean of students at UD, said the Top Party ranking is "another piece of the puzzle in how we look at alcohol and substance abuse on our campus." Because the Princeton Review lists are based on student surveys, it gives UD administrators another perspective on how drinking is viewed on campus, he said.
Of course, UD collects its own data on the issue, Cantley said, which shows that student behaviors are trending in a positive direction.
At 54 percent, UD's 2017 binge drinking rate was the lowest it's been in more than a decade, according to the annual report, Binge Drinking and Other Risk Behaviors among College Students.
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Additionally, University of Delaware Police told The News Journal in March that the department has seen a 44 percent reduction in alcohol violations, going from 511 in 2010 to 285 last year.
Campus police also work closely with local law enforcement and when Newark police break up a party, they frequently call in officers from campus so that students can be immediately referred to the Office of Student Conduct and the BASICS class, a seminar that helps students make changes to their drinking habits.
Students can also take the class voluntarily, and many of UD's fraternities and sororities participate.
Franek admitted that some of the rankings — like those involving drugs and alcohol — can be contentious.
"If a school ends up on a less-than-coveted list ... people react in different ways," he said, describing how some colleges and universities disparage The Princeton Review and its methodology after they get the results.
"But we're simply giving the opinion of those hundreds and thousands of students a voice," he said.
Franek said UD is included in the rankings in the first place because of its excellent reputation and academic chops. It has been featured in Princeton Review's book, "The Best 384 Colleges," for the last 27 years.
The guide, which is updated annually, also includes detailed profiles on each institution, supplemented with quotes from students that took the survey.
"For students who aren’t on the hunt for a party, 'there are more and more alternatives to parties for the students who are not big into partying,' such the weekly events at the student center on Friday and Saturday nights," said excerpts from UD students in the 2019 edition of the book.
It describes UD's campus as "so pleasing" students immediately fall in love with it.
"Students have 'a plethora of opportunities to get involved with any number of
clubs and activities all over campus,' and the majority are involved with 'Greek life, club sports, interest clubs or working for the university,'" the book said. "Though UD is 'not very diverse in a sense of … ethnicity,' it is 'very diverse … regarding personality' so 'everyone should be able to find the right group for them.' "
UD's most popular majors are finance, nursing, marketing, exercise science and mechanical engineering, according to Princeton Review. About 91 percent of students return for their sophomore year, 73 percent graduate within four years and 52 percent of freshman receive financial aid.
Top 20 Party Schools
- Univ. of Delaware Newark DE
- West Virginia Univ. Morgantown WV
- Tulane Univ. New Orleans LA
- Syracuse Univ. Syracuse NY
- Bucknell Univ. Lewisburg PA
- Lehigh Univ. Bethlehem, PA
- Univ. of Cal-Santa Barbara Santa Barbara CA
- Univ. of Wisconsin-Madison Madison WI
- Colgate Univ. Hamilton NY
- Univ. of Rhode Island Kingston RI
- Univ. of Alabama-Tuscaloosa Tuscaloosa AL
- Univ. of Vermont Burlington VT
- Providence College Providence RI
- Wake Forest Univ. Winston-Salem NC
- Union College (NY) Schenectady NY
- Univ. of Maine Orono ME
- Univ. of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Urbana IL
- Univ. of Florida Gainesville FL
- Florida State Univ. Tallahassee FL
- Sonoma State Univ. Rohnert Park CA
UD featured in Princeton Review book
Contact Jessica Bies at (302) 324-2881 or jbies@delawareonline.com. Follow her on Twitter @jessicajbies.
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