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Origins: Since the 1950s, rumors have been aired at every college in the U.S. that Playboy conducted surveys of drinking on college campuses and used them to compile annual lists of America's best party schools (rumors usually spread by students proudly proclaiming that their own school had achieved the #1 slot in the latest ranking). However, not until the late 1980s did Playboy actually publish a ranking of this nature, and it was never an annual feature of the magazine. Through the end of 2006, such a list had appeared in the pages of Playboy only three times: in its January 1987, November 2002, and May 2006 issues. However, there were two precursors to the full-blown list: the September 1968 issue identified the University of Wisconsin at Madison as the most permissive campus (drawn from a sample of 25 universities) and dubbed it the party school (primarily because it served beer in the student union); likewise the October 1976 issue named UCLA tops in campus action. In more recent years Playboy has sometimes republished college rankings compiled by others, such as the annual list of The Top 20 Party Schools as determined by The Princeton Review. Prior to 2002, Playboy had compiled their own list of party schools only once. They gave their reason for reprising this feature in 2002 as: Campus legend has it that Playboy does a yearly ranking of America's top party schools. Truth is, we haven't done such a roundup since 1987, when we tagged Cal State-Chico the craziest campus in the nation. Chico has had bragging rights for 15 years, causing students to binge with pride while parents and administrators have dried out fraternities and sororities and canceled Halloween. Some students have sent us e-mails that say Don't you dare say Chico State. I'm sick of having to defend it. It's all because of your article 15 years ago! Why do another ranking now? The kids demanded it, our public relations department is bombarded with calls from students who wonder where their schools rank. We wanted to hear what goes down on campus — the good, the bad and blurry — in your own words, more than 1500 of you wrote. These are your stories.The information for Playboy's 1987 list of party schools had been compiled in 1986 from the reports of Playboy staffers who interviewed campus club leaders, dorm rush chairmen, fraternity presidents and other campus social studs at more than 250 schools nationwide. Which leads us straight into the legend which has sprung up around this famed list: Then there's the computer bulletin board-fueled story about the magazine (usually Playboy) that was ranking the Top 10 Party Schools in the country. Students at the University of Wisconsin were taken aback when their school didn't rate even an honorable mention; after all, everyone knows about the legendary cheesehead antics that go on in Madison. But when the kids contacted the magazine, they were told: We don't rank professionals.Gentle souls that they are, Playboy referenced this bit of folklore (a charming bit of blarney which been told about any number of schools, cheese-enhanced and otherwise, for many years prior to 1987) and did their best console those who were left off the January 1987 compilation by stating, If your school isn't listed, it's probably because we didn't include professionals. For those who really want to know how their institutions of higher learning fare now in the party school category, Princeton Review’s latest eagerly-awaited annual ranking of the Top 20 party schools was issued as follows in August 2014, based on a survey of 130,000 students at 379 schools: Syracuse UniversityUniversity of IowaUniversity of California at Santa BarbaraWest Virginia UniversityUniversity of Illinois at Urbana-ChampaignLehigh UniversityPennsylvania State University at University ParkUniversity of Wisconsin at MadisonBucknell UniversityUniversity of FloridaMiami UniversityFlorida State UniversityOhio University at AthensDePauw UniversityUniversity of GeorgiaUniversity of MississippiTulane UniversityUniversity of VermontUniversity of OregonUniversity of DelawareBarbara party line Mikkelson
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