The No. 1 Party School in the Nation Revealed

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The Princeton Review named the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign the No. 1 party school for 2016. (Photo: Facebook/University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign)

The list is out, and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign is the best — well, the best party school, that is. The Princeton Review, a standardized test-preparation service, released its annual college rankings in 62 categories on Monday.

The second- and third-best party schools are the University of Iowa and the University of Wisconsin-Madison (the latter also took the top spot in the category “Lots of Beer”). And Bucknell University in Pennsylvania was given the No. 1 spot in “Lots of Greek Life.”

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Here are more key school rankings:

Professors Get High Marks: Swarthmore College (Pa.)

Best Career Services: Clemson University (S.C.)

Great Financial Aid: Princeton University (N.J.)

Lots of Race/Class Interaction: Rice University (Texas)

LGBTQ-Friendly: Emerson College (Mass.)

Best Campus Food: Bowdoin College (Maine)

Most Beautiful Campus: Rollins College (Fla.)

Happiest Students: Vanderbilt University (Tenn.)

What’s the best college overall, according to the list? Bryant University in Rhode Island.

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The Princeton Review, which has published its rankings since 1992, surveyed 136,000 students at 380 top colleges, who rated their schools in categories such as academics, extracurricular activities, social scene, and quality of life.

“Our 62 ranking lists provide students with a way to see the types of colleges that could help them achieve their future goals and dreams,” Robert Franek, Princeton Review’s senior vice president/publisher, said in a press release. “Every college in our book has outstanding academics. While our purpose is not to crown one college academically ‘best’ overall or to rank the schools one to 380 on any single topic, our lists provide direct student feedback on the schools’ campus culture, program offerings, and cost. Our goal is to help applicants choose and get into their dream college — the college best for them.”

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But how seriously should students — and their parents — take these rankings?

The Princeton Review’s rankings are different than U.S. News & World Report’s college rankings, which rates schools based on data provided by the administration and the opinions of high school counselors and administration at peer institutions.

“It’s really interesting, because if you speak to most higher-education insiders, they complain bitterly about these college rankings,” Barmak Nassirian, director of policy analysis at the American Association of State Colleges and Universities, tells Yahoo Parenting. “At the same time, if [a school] moves up two slots, [they] trumpet that in press releases.

“It’s really important to understand what you’re looking at,” Nassirian adds. “To poll students about their views on the value of education assumes they already know what’s going to happen to them after graduation. That’s the problem with The Princeton Review approach. Having said that, there are things [about it] that could be very valuable.” Nassirian lists LGBTQ-friendliness and diversity as two examples.

Nassirian says parents and students shouldn’t ignore these rankings, but they also shouldn’t use them as the sole factor in making decisions about colleges. He advises checking out the National Center for Education Statistics College Navigator, which offers more objective data.

“Even if everything … [the rankings] have captured is accurate, they don’t know you,” Nassirian says. “Parents and students should focus more on the individual student’s needs and what school can provide them.”

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