UT has a “work hard, party hard” ethos, but the University no longer holds the Playboy Magazine No. 1 party school title.
Playboy’s editors, who considered feedback from readers, students, alumni and campus representatives, ranked UT fifth. They also looked at factors such as male-female ratios on campus, academics, proximity to recreational hot spots and athletic records, according to a statement from the magazine.
Meagan Heeren, a senior engineering major and Alpha Delta Pi sorority member, said she thinks UT’s rank dropped mainly because of UT’s rough football season this past fall. Heeren said her sorority maintained frequent social events this year, and she went to more parties this year than she did before.
“We party hard, but I guess we didn’t party hard enough this year for Playboy,” Heeren said.
April Tieu, a student associate in Student Activities and Leadership Development, said she did not see a significant drop in activities or social events registered on campus, and she blamed the lower ranking on difficult economic times.
“It’s possible we are not ranked first anymore because of the heavy workload students receive at UT or because of financial problems our economy is facing,” Tieu said.
Absolute Texxas’s vice president, Amanda Jarman, also said that the social organization held the same events it did last year, and she is not sure what made UT’s ranking drop.
Playboy’s 2011 top party school went to the University of Colorado at Boulder. Editors noted the school is the “home to reefer madness,” housing more than 50 medical marijuana dispensaries.
Every April, more than half of CU’s 24,000 undergraduates participate in the “4/20 smoke-out on school grounds,” according to the magazine. Boulder is also a top beer drinking school, possessing four breweries within its city limits.
Second place went to Pennsylvania State University, followed by Arizona State University and University of Western Ontario, the first Canadian university to make Playboy’s list.
The rankings will be published in Playboy’s May edition, which will also include “the best (and worst) of everything on campus this spring” with categories such as “Best Naked Parties” — Yale University — “Coolest Course” — University of California, Berkeley’s “The Sociology of Seinfeld” — and “Hottest Sorority” — San Diego State’s Alpha Phi.
