Living the typical campus high life

Bluto and the “Animal House” frat boys would have loved to see their alma mater top-ranked in a list of the nation’s best party schools. The latest poll results are a sobering reminder that not all campus activities involve slide rules and long hours at the library.

The rankings published by a private college-preparation company are a result of an annual survey of university students all over the country who graded their schools on everything from quality of campus life to the political ideology of the student bodies.

The empirical merits of the report card by the Princeton Review are highly dubious. The results are collected in a non-random sample and are far from scientific, as any first-year statistics student could deduce.

Indiana University didn’t even make the list last year. This time it captured the top party spot, rocketing past some more established swingers. Clemson University won the title in the “Reefer Madness” category, but there’s no way to tell if Clemson students exaggerated their “high times” in a misguided bid for glory.

Scientific or not, the survey provoked a broad reaction, from titters to outrage. The American Medical Association, concerned that the survey promotes unhealthy behavior, called on the publisher of the guide to eliminate the party-school category from its annual guide to U.S. colleges and universities.

Parental concern and the embarrassment of publicity, for instance, helped push Southern Illinois University into giving students a weeklong October break to cut off the raucous, liquor-soaked reverie the annual Halloween party had become.

Many schools now offer substance-free dormitories, or stage university-sponsored parties that are billed as alcohol-free. State lawmakers are getting into the act, too. Starting this school year, underage drinkers caught buying package liquor or drinking at a bar or tavern in Illinois will forfeit that thing they value the most — their driver’s license.

Parents shouldn’t breathe a sigh of relief just because their young scholars aren’t satisfying their thirst for knowledge at one of the Big Keg schools. There are drinking parties at virtually every campus, and plentiful opportunities to inhale and imbibe to excess.

Parents can also do what mothers and fathers do best: lecture their kids. Talk about how responsible adults use — or abstain from — mind-altering substances.

It works especially well in a mandatory-listening environment, such as a station wagon packed to the brim with winter clothes and headed toward campus.