CHAMPAIGN, Ill. (AP) – The University of Illinois stakes claim to 23 Nobel Prize winners and tech prowess that contributed to the creation of YouTube, Netscape, Java and light-emitting diodes, or LED.
But students at the central Illinois campus don’t just bury their heads in books, they also party – so much so that they’ve earned the top spot on The Princeton Review’s annual list of top party schools in the U.S., the college guide said Monday.
“Drinking culture is huge here,” according to an unnamed student in the Princeton Review’s 2016 edition of the “The Best 380 Colleges.” The university has about 31,000 undergraduate students.
University spokeswoman Robin Kaler was bothered by the No. 1 ranking – a first for the campus, which has been among the list’s top five for years – and said it painted students in a false light.
“They are serious, they are hard-working, and to try to present them as being somehow irresponsible is insulting,” she said Monday.