Aug 06, 2013 04:54 AM EDT By Staff Reporter, UniversityHerald Reporter

Princeton Review recently released its annual rankings of top party schools in the country for 2013. The Massachusetts based consulting company arrived at the rankings based on surveys of 126,000 students, an average of 333 per campus.

The students were asked around 80 questions on a wide-range of subjects in the last three academic years including 'academics, administration, student body, general lifestyle around campus, low personal daily study hours, high usages of alcohol and drugs on campus, and high popularity on campus for frats/sororities.'

Robert Franek, the Princeton Review senior vice president, said that the rankings are purely based on students' opinions.

The University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa has been ranked America's top party school, displacing last year's winner, West Virginia University, which came in at No. 4 in the list this time.

 "That indicates they are balancing their academic responsibilities with their social pursuits," said Tom Moore, University of Iowa spokesman, about his school's students.

In contrast to the popular party school tag, Iowa students' alcohol consumption decreased over the past four years and high-risk drinking has stooped to its lowest level in 20 years, according to the National College Health Assessment survey.

The drastic changes are attributed to a series of policies against binge drinking on campus and downtown.

"We are continuing to work to change the culture on our campus by educating students to only consume alcohol in a legal, safe and responsible manner, and those efforts are achieving results," Moore said.

2. University of California, Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, Calif.

3. University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, Ill.

4. West Virginia University, Morgantown W. Va.

Syracuse University, Syracuse, N.Y., made a tremendous improvement on this year's Princeton's annual rankings by moving up to 5^th position from No. 10 last year. One of the reasons that helped the university attain this top tier status is 'Otto,' the mascot for Syracuse Orange. Otto carrying a beer at all the games is a tradition followed by the university.

6. University of Florida, Gainesville, Fla.

7. Ohio University, Athens, Ohio

8. University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, Wis.

9. Penn State University, University Park, Pa.

10. Lehigh University, Bethlehem, Pa.

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