Thursday night bar crawls, beer pong tournaments and rows of fraternity houses may not be as synonymous with Penn State culture as many students believe.

According to the Princeton Review's rankings of colleges, The Best 361 Colleges, 2006 Edition, University Park was the 13th biggest party school.

"If we are 13th, I'm transferring." Max Rice (freshman-business) said jokingly. "It's a disappointment, honestly," Rice said, adding that he enjoys the "respect" from friends attending more sober schools.

However, Penn State did jump six spots from where it was ranked at No. 19 on the list of top party schools last year.

Suzanne Podhurst, editor of The Best 361 Colleges, 2006 Edition, said the publication ranks colleges so prospective applicants can be well informed about other facets of a college besides academics.

"The rankings are created to help students find schools that are the best match," Podhurst said.

This year's rankings were tabulated from 110,000 student-responded surveys, available at http://survey.review. com.

Categories on the 70-question survey include alcohol and drug use, hours of study per day and the number of students involved in Greek life.

Interfraternity Council President Brian Bertges said he believes the rankings perpetuate a negative image of Greek life.

"It is stereotyping fraternities and sororities as binge drinkers," Bertges said, adding that he would instead prefer the rankings to include the number of drinking violations.

Penn State spokesman Bill Mahon referred to the survey as "bogus" and said that it is solely done for ratings.

Mahon added that admissions are not affected by the ratings, as students do not choose a college purely based on the social scene. "We have traditionally been one of the most applied-to universities in the country," Mahon said. "That was the case before Princeton Review and that is the case today."

Penn State peaked three years ago when it was ranked as the No. 4 party school. The following two years, Penn State came in at 20 and 19, respectively.

The schools that took the top honors in this year's rankings were University of Wisconsin-Madison, Ohio University-Athens and Lehigh University.

Although some students said they remain proud of Penn State notoriety as a school heavy on alcohol, others said they would prefer a lighter version.

"I don't want the nation to think it's all partying," Brian Medford (junior-life science) said. "I want them to know it's a good school, too."