What makes someone want to pick a party school? The limelight, the endless parties that supply alcohol and the area full of watering holes ready to serve up a bevy of concoctions. There are some hard truths about "party schools" that doesn't exactly give a fully detailed comprehensive picture of campus life.
Prospective students anticipated and excited about the freedom of college, yet parents are distracted by the grandeur of the academics and educational opportunities. What can be the biggest downfall is that parents don't really see the potential problems that arise when their child goes away to school is the high risk, binge drinking. Alcohol is a persistent and costly problem on many college and university campuses and various college-based communities nationwide.
According to statistics taken by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism some 1400 college and university students between the ages of 18 and 24 die every year as a result of hazardous drinking and some half million suffer serious alcohol related injuries, but college and university manuals highlight party so called party schools, yet they don't provide information on the endless negative consequences of binge drinking among college students.
The Princeton Review puts out an annual list of the top 20 party schools across the United States, yet fail to mention the problems that comes with excessive partying like: academic failure, sexual assaults, rapes, arrests, vandalism, and an array of other health and social problems.
The Princeton Review has also come under fire from health care professionals citing that they are disappointed that the publication had failed to thoroughly inform parents and potential students about the consequences high risk binge drinking instead of painting a rose-colored glasses image of how great a school is and downplaying the problems that come with attending a party school.
One school that made the Princeton Review's list of top party schools was the University of Colorado-Boulder in 2003 and in 2004 when they made national headlines after the school's football team alcohol-fueled recruitment parties resulted in rape charges brought on by several female students. Harvard University conducted a study and their findings concluded that sexual assaults and rapes had occurred more on college and university campuses that has a higher level of binge drinking.
Parents and students are advised to look beyond the guidebooks and recruitment manuals and use sensible judgment and assess the safety of a particular campus' alcohol environment. Any student is not immune to the pressures of party life in college and the temptation to binge drink, but you'll see a higher level of binge drinking among students who have a family history of alcoholism.
Here's a few things to take into consideration when looking at schools:
- Is the community where the college is at surrounded by a high density of bars and liquor stores?
- Do the bars in the surrounding community promote weekly drink specials such as “nickel pitchers” , por “ladies' night,” which encourage high-risk drinking?
- Are there penalties for bar owners who violate underage serving laws? And are local police enforcing these penalties?
- Does the college have a clearly defined alcohol policy that is widely publicized and consistently enforced, including a policy to control high-risk drinking at fraternities and sororities as well as residence halls?
- Does the college offer alcohol-free residence halls and activities?
- Have there been alcohol-related crimes in and around the college campus, including sexual assault or violence in the past year?
These are things that need to be looked at when you're selecting a school. Most people who attend party schools usually have poor academic performance records and many don't graduate with adequate grades because most of the time that would be invested in studying is spent partying and drinking which can contribute to frequent class absences that eventually cause students to fall below the required cumulative GPA to stay in school.
