We win a National Championship and this board still finds reasons to complain.    

I thought you believed in diversity. 

If your employer was voted top places to get drunk at work, I doubt you'd be telling all your friends, its just not age appropriate.



These guys have no idea what you're talking about.

What's interesting is that many of those places have a pretty good academic reputation. There's not many parents that would "never" send their kids to Penn State, Illinois, Maryland, Syracuse or Wisconsin.

Great point. In fact to be considered for the party school list you have to have good academics because only the 376 "top" universities are surveyed. That's why you won't ever see Kent State on the party school list.

Anybody who thinks this is going to have a crippling effect on our reputation is crazy. There are Bobcats all over the country doing great things. Having just recently graduated I can tell you that I have friends who already have jobs with top companies and organizations throughout Ohio, Los Angeles, New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, and elsewhere. I also have friends furthering their education in grad school at Penn, NC State, University of Maryland, Arizona State, and University of Virginia. Also, I have friends in Med School at Wright State and St. Louis University and friends in Law School at OSU and Drexel.

All of these Bobcats are well-rounded individuals who definitely know how to party hard but are also out in the professional and academic world doing great things. They are independent and hard-working and they are far from "fake." I am proud to be affiliated with each and every one of them and when those companies and schools looked at their resumes and spoke with them they didn't care if OU was a party school because they saw the potential in that person.

If I am ever in charge of hiring talent you can rest assured that I will be confident that any Bobcats coming across my path will have my full faith in their abilities because I know exactly what kind of person it takes to be successful at Ohio University.

Also, in regards to the applications being down this year. Yes, they were slightly down. But that was slightly down from AN ALL-TIME HIGH the year before! And despite applications being slightly down the incoming freshmen class was the most academically distinguished that OHIO has ever seen. They set records for highest average GPA and highest average ACT score.

Pretty funny!

A few years ago, while in grad school at OU, I worked at a food service facility on campus. I have to say that the students I worked with, while possibly less affluent/spoiled than average (and possibly less of the lunkhead persuasion), seemed like a pretty decent mix of undergraduates. There were a few students there who were smart, interesting, nice and not at all afraid to be an individual. It was kind of inspiring.

Bottom line, I wouldn't worry too much about this ranking, but I wouldn't go crowing about how cool it is either.

If you want to worry about something at OU, worry about how the R/TV Building's front entrance is literally crumbling. You could put your foot through the rotting door with one kick, and the inside steps are partially cordoned off due to disintegration.

I sure wouldn't mind getting off this list.  There's way too many people out there who think the only thing that goes on at OU is drinking, and like some previous posters mentioned it gets old dealing with that reputation after you've graduated.  It's almost always the first thing that comes up whenever I mention where I attended.  The current students could probably care less, but trust me after you graduate you will start to think differently and will want to be able to be proud of your education instead of trying to justify it.  Hopefully over time the university can try to create a better balance.

Every year everyone gets upset about these rankings. Only in OHIO! I guess because all the news about our school from outside of Athens is negative, administrators do not want this information out there defining Ohio University. I would suggest, if this is so bothersome, Ohio do a better PR job promoting the positives of our university. I live in Milwaukee, WI. When the University of Wisconsin - Madison makes the list of top party schools, we celebrate! No one feels ashamed for having a degree from UW. Stop letting Columbus Ohio define who we are. We know who we are - Bobcats! We play hard, and we work hard.  Yes, some jerks burn furniture during parties in Athens, but in Columbus and many other towns, they burn the town down when they win (or lose) a football game.

Even with better sampling, it would be nearly impossible to code responses to this query. How do you quantify a such a subjective term as "party shool" from one student to the next, and from one school to the next?

Special props to the South Carolina kids for the Under Armour logos...Nice attention to detail! 

Bobcat36 wrote:expand_more

DelBobcat wrote:expand_more

Having jus"][" recen"]["ly gradua"]["ed I can "]["ell you "]["ha"][" I have friends who already have jobs wi"]["h "]["op companies and organiza"]["ions "]["hroughou"][" Ohio, Los Angeles, New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, and elsewhere.

Hopefully "]["hese are "]["emporary assignmen"]["s...  

I think that's the correct usage.

As laughable as it is, it saves money versus actually being accurate and still sells the same amount of college guides.

Side note: Telling people that it is proof of your responsibility and time management that you can attend a top party school and "still graduate" can easily be misconstrued as being that the school was so easy you were able to party all the time and still pass. Not a good argument.

We have had this reputation for decades...even generations.  It was the rep back in '83 when I (and a number of others on this board) graduated.  I remember talking to someone in Pennsylvania in '82 and, during the conversation, they found out I went to Ohio.  They asked if "Ohio was such a big party school?" (they were from the Cleveland area) My answer was that every school is, if the student wants it to be.  I then discussed the quality of the J-school, Mass Comm, engineering, education, etc.  Count me in to the group that says the college should accept the reputation, but present it as a component of the 360 degree we provide.  As far as it hurting our enrollment, I see limited evidence of that. Georgia, Wisc., PSU and others that are also consistently on this list have not experienced a decline in applications.  If we are, I think pointing to a 40-year old party school reputation is an easy, and questionable conclusion.