When They Party, They Party Hearty

By Jenifer Joseph

Will Loy leans against the wood-paneled wall at Kilroy's bar in Bloomington, Ind., with a bottle of beer in hand and a devilish grin on his face. It's his 14th straight night of partying, and by 3 a.m. the Indiana University sophomore has plowed through four bars and 12 drinks. "I've got it down to a science," says Loy, a criminal-justice major with--surprise--a 3.4 GPA. "I schedule my classes late in the day, study every day around noon. Then I can party harder at night."

Each night thousands of students copy Loy's partying routine at the half a dozen bars that surround the campus of 38,000 students. "This is the best place to have a good time," says junior George Leach, a starter on the Hoosiers' basketball team. Editors at the Princeton Review apparently agreed. Last summer the college-guide publisher named Indiana the No. 1 party school in the nation.

No doubt a few besotted cheers rose from the frat houses. But the ranking dismayed Indiana's administrators. Officially, at least, drinking isn't even allowed on campus, except in a few residences for older students. And the school had been trying harder than ever to enforce the rules since the alcohol-related deaths of a sophomore in 1998 and a freshman three years later. Since January 2001, six fraternities have been thrown off campus for alcohol violations. The number of underage students busted for boozing has more than quadrupled since 1998. The school even launched a controversial policy in 1999 to notify parents when students are arrested or hospitalized as a result of drinking.

The party ranking meant that the administration's exertions were having little effect. In fact, a shocking 52% of students said in a survey last year that they are binge drinkers, meaning the men consume at least five drinks in a row and the women four.

Some in the university say the Princeton Review's designation will make things worse. Former Indiana president Miles Brand has sent a letter to hundreds of university presidents attacking the Review for "exploiting the university and its students." Replies the Review's editorial director, Robert Franek: "We are not perpetuating the problem of drinking on campus; we're merely reporting what the students tell us. Don't shoot the messenger."

Now administrators have to figure out not only how to combat alcohol abuse but also how to fix a growing p.r. problem. A couple of months after the ranking was announced, a porn company decided that Indiana's party atmosphere made it the perfect place to shoot Shane's World No. 32: Campus Invasion. (Students were filmed getting busy with porn stars in a dorm and frat house.) A month later, the Girls Gone Wild crew danced into town to shoot video of topless I.U. women. "It's a horrendous set of actions that all started with the Princeton Review," says Brand, now president of the National Collegiate Athletic Association.

A bigger part of the problem may be the sheer number of bars just yards from campus. Many stay open until 4 a.m. and encourage drinking games like Bladder Busters, in which the bar discounts drinks to 50-c- until someone breaks down and relieves himself. On Wednesday nights, the Bluebird offers beer for just 15-c-. "We all got fake IDs the second we joined the sorority," says Krissy Selleck, a marketing major squeezed into a booth with four sorority sisters. "The party scene definitely took a toll on my GPA," says telecom major Anna Kumis. "But it's the rite of passage." Some students, however, are fretting that the school's reputation will hinder another rite of passage--getting a job. "I.U. is a very good academic school," says senior Tyson Picken. "But some companies won't want to hire a guy who comes from the biggest party school. They'll think all I did was drink."