8/25/98
ATHENS, Ohio -- "Athens is a distinctly cosmopolitan university town, with students from 100 countries and every state in the nation," said Bryan McNulty, Ohio University assistant vice president for university relations. "We take pride in our diversity, our research and scholarship, and in the personal attention and mentoring that we offer students. For context, note that this same month we were rated 38th best value among 580 state universities in the nation by Kiplinger Personal Finance magazine, and in the listing of the top 113 national universities in the U.S. News & World Reports 'America's Best Colleges' guidebook.
"The 'party school' category is the one that gets The Princeton Review in national wire stories every year, so it is important to their business. But especially in this category, it has never been known for credible surveying methods. The Princeton Review adds to the confusion by stating that 'colleges on all of these lists are still among the best in the nation. This holds equally true for those on the party school list in particular.'
"Rating a 27,000-student university on 'party' atmosphere is not unlike rating a city: In both places you will find people who play hard and people who work hard, and an incredibly wide spectrum in between."