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Er, sexist much? Don’t leave guys out.</p>
<p>Too bad hot girls was a requirement, because otherwise from what I’ve heard MIT is the ultimate work hard party hard school in both categories.</p>
<p>With hot girls a requirement, though, you’d have to say Duke and Vanderbilt. People who are naming the Midwest publics are totally right about the partying, but I’m not sure theyre as hard academically as schools like Vandy and Duke.</p>
<p>Can’t believe that UNC-Chapel Hill hasn’t been mentioned yet. Top-tier sports programs, great greek life and a perfect college town.</p>
<p>Duke and Vanderbilt are good party schools but lack good football programs (although Vandy’s is better than Duke’s). I feel like any true “party school” has to have an elite athletic program, and while Duke is great at basketball its weakness in football drags it down in my opinion. Vanderbilt, on the other hand, is mediocre at both sports.</p>
<p>So, my recommendations would be UNC, Michigan, UCLA, and USC (although less so now that their football program has been sanctioned by the SEC). </p>
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<p>No way. Vandy, maybe, but the first thing people bag on about Duke is its girls. There are some smoking hot ones, sure, but on average they can’t compare to girls at other (particularly SEC) schools-just ask Duke law alumn Tucker Maxx. Even most other ACC schools put Duke to shame as far as “hotness” is concerned.</p>
<p>To its credit, though, Duke can throw a good party (re: LDOC). Duke is definitely the best party school in the USNWR top 10, but once you get into the top 30 and throw top publics and USC into the mix, it begins to fall a bit.</p>
<p>I don’t think there are many Top 50 level schools where even a large minority party 4 nights a week. 3 might be doable except for many engineering and science majors who might have labs or group project meetings on fridays plus just too much homework. Some fans were complaining that the student section at Wisconsin home games was pretty empty on weeknights. I thought that was a good sign kids today are more serious than they were 20-30 years ago. And the team is even better too.</p>
<p>For Chem/ChemE, UIUC is definitely a work hard/party hard kind of place (I personally know a lot of ChemE’s who totally fit that description there). Had lots of good times with them there!</p>
<p>Hawkette why do you continue to insist about Rice’s “great athletics” when looking at the great “overall” school experience - it is currently ranked 111th out of 260 Div. I College sports programs in the country?</p>
<p>Directors’ Cup Standings as of June 3, 2010 - Division I
<a href=“http://grfx.cstv.com/photos/schools/nacda/sports/directorscup/auto_pdf/dcupd1june3.pdf[/url]”>http://grfx.cstv.com/photos/schools/nacda/sports/directorscup/auto_pdf/dcupd1june3.pdf</a></p>
<ol>
<li>Stanford</li>
<li>Duke</li>
<li>Notre Dame </li>
<li>Northwestern</li>
<li>Vanderbilt
**111. Rice **</li>
</ol>
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</ol>
<p>The Director’s Cup doesn’t mean a whole lot to the average student because most people only care about two sports-football and basketball. National championships in fencing, track and field, water polo, volleyball and the like may be good for a school, but they don’t really scream “party school” or anything. </p>
<p>The only two sports that matter for “party schools” are football and basketball. A better measure for comparing top schools would be ranking the top 30 in the past 5-10 years based on football bowl appearances and basketball NCAA tournament invitations. Bonus points for BCS bowls and Final Fours, as well as national championships.</p>
<p>Cuse, then why don’t you help Hawkette a little and show us how well Rice has done in the last two decades in Div. I football and basketball?</p>
<p>either way, the words “Rice University” and “Great College Athletics” should never be used in the same sentence.</p>
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<p>I would but I don’t really care about Rice enough to do that kind of work right now-it is late. If I can recall correctly though, Rice has been like Vandy lately right? Not terrible, not great, but just mediocre in the two key sports (football and basketball)?</p>
<p>but Cuse, according to Hawkette, Rice and Vanderbilit have such incredible sports programs such that this should be a major advantage to attend those schools.</p>
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<p>I guess it is all relative. I don’t know a heck of a lot about Rice, but I’ll use Vandy as an example. SEC football, and didn’t they start out 6-0 a couple of years ago? I’ll bet Nashville was rocking after that 6th consecutive win in a tough league. Even on down years, the prospect of playing against and possibly upsetting elite SEC teams (Florida, Alabama, LSU) is probably very exciting, and Vanderbilt hasn’t done terribly in recent years. They haven’t been too shabby in basketball, either.</p>
<p>Now, does that mean that Vandy’s athletic life can compete with the sports scene at USC or UCLA? Probably not. But of the top 30 schools in the USNWR rankings, there aren’t a heck of a lot that offer what Vanderbilt does. </p>
<p>Anyways, that’s just my two cents.</p>
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<p>Vanderbilt’s basketball team was pretty good this year, spending the majority of the season ranked in the high teens to low 20s. In the past few years, we’ve been to the Sweet 16 twice. For the most part, Vandy basketball ranges from average to pretty good.</p>
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<p>Yeah, we’re god awful at football. Last year was our first winning season in a little more than 25 years.</p>
<p>Sports that Vandy is good at…Baseball, Women’s Basketball, Women’s Lacrosse, Women’s Golf and Women’s Bowling</p>
<p>Cuse and what would that be?</p>
<p>what is it that Vanderbilt offers that not many of the top 30 offer?</p>
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<p>JA,
In the realm of major Division I sports—football, basketball (men and women) and baseball—Rice consistently fields one of the nation’s strongest baseball teams. It’s not football or men’s basketball, but baseball is still one of the nation’s most competitive collegiate sports with over 300 Division I colleges playing. </p>
<p>Do a little digging on the methodology of the Directors Cup. You’ll discover that schools rack up points in sports that few schools play and few people give a hoot about. It’s a relevant measuring stick for colleges that participate in all of these sports, but in some cases (like Rice) I’m doubtful that it’s a good measurement of national achievement. </p>
<p>Anyway, I concur that Rice’s argument is the least convincing of the Stanford, Duke et al group, but for those who are interested in this aspect of college, Rice’s impressive national success in baseball distinguishes its athletic life. </p>
<p>As for the Rice and Vanderbilt examples, you may not be aware that, for several seasons, I did some exhaustive threads on attendance at college football games and additional ones on college basketball (men and women). For Rice, are you aware that they won 10 games two years ago, including going to and winning a bowl game? Pretty incredible for a school with less than 3000 students. </p>
<p>Admittedly, the Rice season of 2008 was uncommonly good, but it happened and people were pretty excited about it when it was happening with an average home attendance of over 20,000 fans (about 6.5x the undergraduate enrollment). Also, think about the level of competition that Rice football competes with. For example, its first game this year will be against U Texas. Plus Rice has games against 7 colleges that went to bowl games last year. By contrast, Princeton opens against Lehigh and Lafayette before entering the frightening Ivy League regular season. </p>
<p>Re Vanderbilt, I think that 'cuse has it right. Especially in the major sports, they play in an incredibly competitive conference with the result being a completely different sporting life experience than what you’d find at an Ivy college. Not all will care about this, but for those who do, it’s a palpably different and very fun experience and one that will pay longlasting dividends for students and alumni alike.</p>
<p>The big problem is that JohnAdams is equating having winning teams with the point of this thread, which is the party atmosphere. Many seem to agree that having an athletic scene is a big part of the equation, although I can think of at least one school that is considered a big party school where attendance at the football and basketball games is miserable. Bet you can’t guess which, lol. But even putting that exception aside, the premise is wrong. Many schools have a lot of fun with supporting their teams even when they are not too good. It does make a good excuse to party, no matter what happens on the field/court. In that sense, the Rice example is a good one. Attendance may not be great in absolute numbers, but as hawkette correctly points out, it is a small student body so as a percentage it is actually pretty decent.</p>
<p>Pretty sad day when it is only acceptable to have winning programs count as being a part of the campus fabric.</p>
<p>fallenchemist,</p>
<p>While I agree with your notion that winning teams aren’t required to have fun at a given college, there is a huge difference between supporting teams that are terrible and supporting those that win consistently. I started off at Syracuse and transferred to UNC, and the difference in the football game-day experience at both schools is incredible. Moreover, huge wins unite the college community like nothing else; one of my favorite memories from college so far was enjoying the chaos that ensued after UNC won the title in '09. Now, that is an extreme example, but the excitement that winning programs give their schools is hard to beat.</p>
<p>I guess I’d argue that the best party schools have winning programs, but you can still have very good party schools that have programs that are mediocre or even terrible.</p>
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<p>SEC football for one, although looking at their record over the last 10 years it appears as if they’ve been pretty terrible (only one winning season).</p>
<p>Alright, here’s a list of the USNWR top 30 schools that offer D1 football and basketball. I’ve included the number of football winning seasons and basketball NCAA tournament appearances over the past 10 years. Stars (*) denote BCS bowl games or NCAA final four appearances.</p>
<ol>
<li>Stanford (2) (7)</li>
<li>Duke (0) (10)** </li>
<li>Northwestern (3) (0)</li>
<li>Rice (3) (0)</li>
<li>Notre Dame (6)*** (6)</li>
<li>Berkeley (8) (6)</li>
<li>UCLA (5) (7)</li>
<li>University of Virginia (5) (2)</li>
<li>USC (9)*** (5)</li>
<li>Michigan (7)*** (1)</li>
<li>UNC-Chapel Hill (3) (7)**</li>
<li>Wake Forest University (3) (7)</li>
</ol>
<p>Cuse, Duke has been to the Final Four three times in the past decade: '01 (National Championship), '04 (FF) and '10 (National Championship).</p>
<p>Thanks for compiling these statistics! I know you only analyzed the results for the USNWR top 30 schools, but I think Ohio State actually might be the ONLY school which has been to both a BCS bowl game and a Final Four in the past decade. It’s interesting to see how little crossover there is between the top teams in the two major college sports of football and basketball respectively.</p>
<p>As someone who experienced only losing teams during my tenure in Madison, WI I can attest to the fact that winning teams don’t correlate with “playing hard.” Unless ofcourse we are talking about crew or cross country, but i doubt it. Or, that a smallish (less than 10% of undergrad) and largely irrelevant frat and sor scene had anything to do with how much fun the kids had.</p>