At first blush, it would appear that Playboy's annual ranking of the country's best party schools is completely arbitrary. How else to explain the appearance of the University of Western Ontario in last year's top 10 or Plymouth State the year before?
But no, this is science. "Our methodology?" Playboy explains. "We took America's top 100 colleges and ranked them across 900 data points in three categories: sex, sports, and nightlife." Throw them in a blender and, voila, you have a list of party schools that is 100-percent unassailable.
See also: What an SMU Sorority Party Playlist Looks Like
So when SMU comes in first in the magazine's nightlife rankings, as it did this year, you can be sure it's the gospel truth. The blurb accompanying the ranking says it all:
Tired of solo cups of warm beer? At SMU, Dallas is your never-ending house party. The number of bars within Dallas County: around 2,000, including Idle Rich Pub, the campus hot spot that best describes the student body.
Junior Colton Meyer then informs us that "everyone is all about going to the bar and balling out."
But lest the Mustangs revel too gleefully in their awesome nightlife, their rival to the west claimed a coveted slot on the party list itself. That's right. TCU is the No. 9 party school in the country. So which school parties harder? That could be decided this weekend.