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Authors: Craig Brandon

BOOK: The Five-Year Party
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P
arty schools and subprime colleges spend millions marketing their products to unsuspecting parents, but those who know what to look for can save tens of thousands of dollars by just saying no to the hype. The tips listed below are intended to be a consumers’ guide for parents who want to avoid the party school trap. Parents can use it as a checklist to weed out the party schools from the colleges that still value education. If your college fails one or two of these tests, look more carefully. If it fails more than that, you may want to cross the school off your list and look elsewhere.
What a party school or subprime college IS NOT
: It’s generally not a top-tier school, as defined by the
U.S. News & World Report Guide to Colleges
or the
Princeton Review.
It’s not a trade school, a vocational school, or a community college.
 
 
What a party school or subprime college IS:
It’s a relatively inexpensive four-year residential college/university that rates among the third and fourth tiers, as defined by
U.S. News & World Report
. Not
all
third- and fourth-tier schools are party schools and/or subprime colleges, but most party schools come from this lower ranking level and admit students with low grades and SAT scores. These schools are, by nature, more interested in tuition money and keeping students entertained than education.
1. Student comments in college guides and rankings mention partying more than academics.
 
The
Princeton Review
,
U.S. News & World Report
, and student-run sites like
studentsreview.com
consist of a lot of statistics to help you determine what areas they specialize in. That’s helpful, but none of these guides will tell you right out which ones are party schools. Take a look at the student comments, which are carefully selected by the editors to give a true impression of what the college is like. If students praise their teachers, talk about their classes, and discuss the learning environment, you are on the right track. If the students talk about how much fun it is, how you don’t have to do any work, and how everyone parties all the time, you can cross that school off your list.
2. The school admits students with combined SAT scores of less than 1000.
 
Take a close look in the guides or on the colleges’ websites at things like average SAT scores and the high school class rankings of incoming students. If the college admits students with SATs less than 500 in verbal or math, you are definitely in subprime territory. Few party schools have combined scores higher than 1050. Take a look at how many students come from the lower half of their graduating classes. That’s a good sign that the college is not very picky about who they admit and probably doesn’t care too much if they learn anything in college either.
3. More than 10 percent of the school’s students require remedial programs.
 
Admitting students from the lower half of their high school class means they will need lots of remedial help in grammar and basic math skills, and that’s a warning sign. You might be able to find out how many students are enrolled in these programs. If it’s more that 10 percent, the college is probably admitting unprepared students to increase its bottom line. However, watch out if the college offers no remedial programs at all. They are most likely dumping the unprepared freshmen in with the other students, which is even worse.
4. More than 10 percent of the school’s students are involved in fraternities.
 
The connection between party schools and fraternities is a symbiotic relationship. Party schools need fraternities to organize the kinds of illegal activities that attract students, and fraternities need party school administrators who will not crack down on them too hard. In fact, I don’t know of
any
party schools that don’t have fraternities. Students looking for party schools know this and look for colleges with lots of Greek activity. Many first-class colleges have banned fraternities because of their consistent illegal activities, including life-threatening hazing incidents, rape, and drug dealing. If fraternities seem to be at the center of most of the social activities on campus, it’s a prime warning sign.
5. The college’s view books make no mention of learning or teaching.
 
View books are the carefully prepared advertising brochures sent out by colleges to attract students. They can tell you a lot about the kind of student the college is trying to attract. Good colleges attract good students by promoting their teachers, classes, academic programs, and other aspects of education. Party school and subprime college view books feature students playing sports, eating in the elaborate food court, walking down the sidewalk, or enjoying the college’s hot tubs, climbing walls, and workout centers. They avoid any mention of classes, studying, or teaching because they know that turns off the students they want to attract.
6. The college newspaper focuses on drinking and parties.
 
Most college newspapers are online and are a great resource for understanding not only what goes on there but what the students are interested in. As a former newspaper advisor, I was always surprised that more parents didn’t take a look at the paper before enrolling their children. The paper clearly reflects the concerns of the students who write it and the students who read it. If the paper features “bars of the week” and advertises drink specials, that’s a very good indicator that it’s a party school. If every issue features articles about students being arrested, that’s another sign. If there are any articles at all about classes, professors, or public affairs, that’s a sign that it might not be a party school or subprime college.
7. The college covers up its real crime statistics.
 
There is probably no college statistic that is so deliberately and consistently falsified as the official crime reports. College officials apparently think that parents will believe the astoundingly low numbers posted on their websites. I have seen colleges report with an entirely straight face that only three assaults took place over an entire year at a ten-thousand-student campus. Outrageously low numbers are, in fact, a pretty good indication that the college is fudging the numbers. Instead of being fooled by this, it’s a better idea to check with the watchdog group Security on Campus, which reports that only a third of colleges report crimes accurately. This group also includes reports of schools that were fined by the federal government for lying about crimes on their campuses. If they lied about this, you should ask yourself, what else are they not telling you? What else do they have to hide?
8. Students are making anti-intellectual comments on
ratemyprofessors.com
.
 
This site has a page for every college in the country on which students can comment about their teachers. This is a great place to find out whether students care at all about academics or are just looking for a place to hang out for five years. Pick a few professors at random and take a look at what the students are saying. Are these intelligent, helpful comments directing students to the best teachers or are they abusive, libelous comments about the teacher’s clothing, sexual preferences, and grooming habits? At party schools and subprime colleges, the ratings are about who is the hottest teacher and who is most lenient about attendance policies, grading, and susceptibility to being coerced into awarding a better grade. Professors who attempt to maintain academic standards are regularly trashed at party schools.
9. Dormitory rooms are trashed by students.
 
The dorm rooms that colleges show off on the golden walk are carefully prepared false fronts. If you can arrange an unannounced visit, you can get a great idea about what life is like there. Such tours might be permitted on Parents’ Weekend, for example. Look for overcrowding—a sign that the college is maximizing its profits by over-admitting customers. What you are likely to find in freshman dorms at party schools includes broken furniture, graffiti-covered walls, and vomit-filled bathroom sinks.
10. Police officers, firefighters, and EMTs are busy dealing with out-of-control students.
 
To avoid the college’s public relations spiel, get the real story from the people who deal with day-to-day campus problems. It’s worthwhile to make an appointment with off-campus first responders. When I was doing the research for this book, I was constantly astounded by the stories they told me about abusive, drunken students who refused to be taken to the hospital despite being unable to walk. These officials are the ones who are called to the campus to deal with drug overdoses and assaults, and to take unconscious, drunken students to the hospital. In party school towns, 60 to 80 percent of radio calls come from the campus. I’ve found these people very willing to give you the real scoop, especially if you tell them you are considering enrolling your child. Their job is to help people. College officials’ jobs are to get you to sign up.
11. Students at sporting events are obviously intoxicated and obnoxious.
 
While off-campus drinking parties are usually off-limits to parents, sporting events are showcases for unruly students at party schools. Football tailgate parties at party schools feature hundreds of students drinking out of funnels and passing out while police stand by and do nothing. Many students don’t even bother to attend the game. They’re only there for the party. Basketball games feature hundreds of students shouting drunken obscenities while falling out of their seats. This is another place where you can see students in action without the admissions office’s scripted tour.
12. Students in the library are playing, not doing research.
 
Libraries at subprime schools would have long turned into ghost towns if they had not been reinvented as computer centers. A quick tour is all you need to find out what students use it for. Are there students in the building or is it mostly abandoned? Are they using the computers to look up information for papers or are they using Facebook, MySpace, porn sites, and celebrity sites?
13. Students tell you their school is a party school.
 
In compiling the information for this book, I was surprised to find how honest and accurate students were when I asked them if they were attending a party school. They knew and they were proud. “It’s a party school and everyone is ready to party” was a typical comment. At nonparty schools, however, students just laughed or said things like “I don’t have time to party.” I asked this question hundreds of times and I always found that the student comments matched everything I had learned about the college. It’s an easy final test to see if the results match the answers you received on the previous questions.
Acknowledgments
 
A
book is never the work of one person and this one is no exception.
The Five-Year Party
is really a collaboration of hundreds of people who understood that the abuses that were taking place on party school campuses needed to be stopped and that making the public aware of them was the first step to reform.
 
I have spent nearly forty years working with editors, but I never had a more talented one than Leah Wilson at BenBella Books. In addition to offering hundreds of suggestions to make this book better, she didn’t hesitate to warn me when I was sounding too much like a curmudgeon and less like an investigative reporter. She drew up outlines for me to follow when my writing got disorganized and helped me eliminate thousands of words of great prose that were not appropriate for this book. Thank you, Leah!
My agent, Sally van Haitsma, understood how important this book was from the first time she read my book proposal. She helped me revise my proposal and was there to ride out the storm after publishers thought this book was too hot to handle. She also found me a great match with BenBella Books.
Elaine Ambrose took on the difficult task of fact checking the manuscript to make sure the information was accurate and attributed to the correct source. Any remaining errors are, however, the responsibility of the author.
My many friends and colleagues at Keene State College were helpful both before and after I decided to write this book by offering their views on party schools and what could be done about restoring rigor to higher education. I won’t name them here because they asked me not to, but they know who they are. They’re not just faculty but staff and even minor administrators who found it hard to sleep at night knowing they were part of the abusive culture that took advantage of students.
My colleagues at College Media Advisors, the professional association for advisors of student newspapers, were also helpful during the late-night sessions at the national conventions for nearly a dozen years where we discussed many of the issues in this book, particularly the efforts of colleges to cover up crimes and misbehaviors of administrators. For years, we discussed writing a book about this, and many of their ideas are included here.

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