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Tennessee university ranked among the 2025 top party schools in America, according to Niche
By Jeremy Tanner,
2024-08-24
(NEXSTAR) – For the “work hard, play hard” students out there, this one is for you.
Education research and ranking site Niche has released its round up of the top party schools in the United States for 2025, and for the third straight year, the University of California at Santa Barbara (UCSB) takes the top spot.
Using a database of over 500,000 student reviews of U.S. colleges, Niche’s data scientists assigned scores based on the following factors: student surveys, access to bars, athletics grade, Greek life grade and access to restaurants.
Reviews from a number of current and former students mentioned UCSB’s “stunning” beachfront campus, mountainous backdrop and the social aspect of the university, but also addressed its reputation as a “party school.”
“It is literally heaven on Earth for an 18-21 year old as long as you don’t overdo it,” wrote a UCSB junior student in late July. “You need to prioritize school over partying because the academic load is quite rigorous.”
An unsanctioned, annual beachfront event dubbed “Deltopia” has become infamous in recent years , with the 2023 street party resulting in 151 citations, 23 arrests and a flood of medical emergency calls.
In second place among the nation’s top party schools is the University of Oklahoma, according to Niche, where the social scene is closely tied to the Sooners’ athletic programs. In an unofficial poll, more than half of OU students (57%) said the biggest social event of the year was “every gameday,” with 95% of students saying that varsity sports were either a big part of campus life, or that “almost everything on campus revolves around them.”
Rounding out the top five are the University of Cincinnati, University of Massachusetts Amherst and the University of Southern California.
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