Folks from Europe want to know.
I don’t know if things have changed but Dartmouth seems like a party school. My niece graduated from D about 5 years ago. She loved her time in the sorority and made a lot of great friends. She still took care of her academics and will enroll in a top 5 mba school this fall.
In the top 20 (assuming you’re referring to the US News ranking): Dartmouth, UPenn, Duke, Georgetown, Stanford (? not quite sure though), Harvard and MIT (who apparently throw the best parties in Boston/Cambridge).
I would say the ones that are known for their social life and party scene are mainly Dartmouth, Duke, Penn, Stanford, Vanderbilt. Also maybe Cornell. MIT throws some surprisingly good parties but I don’t think you can characterize it as a school with a really vibrant/strong social life.
UCSB. Isla Vista is a party every weekend.
University of Michigan
U of Wisconsin.