Move over Delta House, Frank the Tank and Van Wilder, there’s a new ranking of top party schools in America.
The latest annual analysis comes from education research platform Niche, which pitted over 600 schools nationwide against each other to determine the top party school for 2027.
To compare the schools, Niche analysts considered a number of factors, giving the most weight to the results of student surveys, along with access to bars, Greek life, access to restaurants, and more.
The top spot in the ranking belongs to Florida State University, located in Tallahassee, Florida. The public university, founded in 1851, unseated the University of California, Santa Barbara, which ranked first on last year’s list. FSU also made the most recent U.S. News & World Report ranking of “Top Public Schools” in America, landing in a tie for 21st with Texas A&M University.
Rounding out the top three party schools for 2027 were Tulane University in Louisiana and the University of Wisconsin-Madison in Wisconsin. Aside from their party scenes, Niche also awarded the three schools high marks for academics, which it calculates using a number of metrics ranging from graduation rates to professor reviews.
See Niche’s 25 highest-ranked party schools in America for 2027 below:
| Rank | School | Metro Area/City | State |
| 1 | Florida State University | Tallahassee Area | FL |
| 2 | Tulane University | New Orleans Area | LA |
| 3 | University of Wisconsin-Madison | Madison Area | WI |
| 4 | University of Dayton | Dayton Area | OH |
| 5 | University of Southern California | Los Angeles Area | CA |
| 6 | Penn State | Happy Valley | PA |
| 7 | The Ohio State University | Columbus Area | OH |
| 8 | University of Georgia | Athens Area | GA |
| 9 | West Virginia University | Morgantown | WV |
| 10 | University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign | Champaign-Urbana | IL |
| 11 | Morgan State University | Baltimore Area | MD |
| 12 | University of Texas – Austin | Austin Area | TX |
| 13 | The University of Alabama | Tuscaloosa | AL |
| 14 | Syracuse University | Syracuse Area | NY |
| 15 | Howard University | Washington, D.C. Area | DC |
| 16 | Texas Southern University | Houston Area | TX |
| 17 | Michigan State University | Lansing Area | MI |
| 18 | San Diego State University | San Diego Area | CA |
| 19 | Indiana University – Bloomington | Bloomington | IN |
| 20 | Ohio University | Athens | OH |
| 21 | Miami University | Greater Cincinnati Area | OH |
| 22 | University of Miami | Miami Area | FL |
| 23 | Clark Atlanta University | Atlanta Area | GA |
| 24 | Florida A&M University | Tallahassee Area | FL |
| 25 | University of Colorado Boulder | Denver Area | CO |
The complete ranking can be found on the Niche website.
Prospective college students who would rather skip the party scene altogether may be wondering what school placed last in Niche’s ranking.
That distinction belongs to Patrick Henry College in Purcellville, Virginia. The private Christian college has a full-time enrollment of 375 undergraduates and 50 part-time undergraduates, according to Niche.
Niche awarded the school a C- for its party scene, but an A grade for it’s campus and a B- for its academics program. Popular majors at the school include Political Science and Government, Managerial Economics, and Intelligence.
