Where's the party? Austin!

The Princeton Review has named UT-Austin as the number 1 party school for 2006. The guys at TX Alpha should be proud of the part they played in helping the school achieve this singular honor. (Maybe they got extra credit for "creative bottle rocketry")

Maybe it was Vince.

Maybe it was Shiner's first light beer.

Maybe it was the timeless lyrics of Robert Earl Keen, chanted like tribal ritual at fraternity parties, that finally sunk in.

For whatever reason, students at the University of Texas seem to have decided that the booze goes on forever and the party never ends.
[...]
Based on surveys of several hundred UT students, Longhorns party harder and study less than students at Penn State University, West Virginia University and last year's winner, University of Wisconsin-Madison.

UT ranked second in the nation for hard liquor consumption and third for beer guzzling. The Princeton Review survey, which is not affiliated with Princeton University, also considered drug use, hours of study outside of class and the popularity of fraternities and sororities.

There was, of course, the obligatory harrumphing by school officials.

"It's good water cooler conversation, but is there a basis in fact? Debatable," said spokesman Don Hale. "I think we're known as one of the nation's leading public research universities, and that's really our reputation."

Besides, he said, there might have been extenuating circumstances this year: "The students who filled out this survey might have remembered the parties we had after we won the national football championship, and maybe that's what got us to No. 1."

Or it might just be that Austin is a GREAT place to party.

The article goes on to not-so-subtly point out the tragic irony of events less than a year ago

A sobering reminder of UT's struggle to control alcohol came in December, when an Asian-American-interest fraternity was banned from campus after a university investigation found evidence of hazing the night 18-year-old Phanta "Jack" Phoummarath of Houston drank himself to death at a party honoring new members.

On a more, ahem, sober note, now that school is starting up again it is a good time to consider how to approach school work - and play - this year. Parties are great, but so is graduation, and leaving school with all the body parts you had when you started.

"Let's be careful out there."

Officials not celebrating UT's party school title

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