I never understood why some people seemed so ashamed to be on it. There are some mediocre universities there, but there are always a number of top public and private universities on it every year. Looking at the list this year, I see Wisconsin, UC-Santa Barbara and Illinois. I've always thought that Miami consistently making the "diversity not welcome" and "little class/race interaction lists was a much bigger black eye.
Here is why you should not like the designation of "Party School". I used to be a recruiter for one of the largest employers in Central Ohio. When we would discuss candidates to bring to hiring managers, I would sometimes hear, "He/She went to OU, that's just a party school" and they would not be sent to the hiring manager. You can say , well it's their loss, but that doesn't put food on the table of the Ohio Grad.
Now OU no longer has a Human Resource Management Major. So there will be less Bobcats in HR to defend our University.