It’s news enough to shock you sober. In an unexpected and somewhat disappointing release last week, the Princeton Review announced the University of Wisconsin-Madison as the nation’s second-ranked “Party school,” behind the University of Colorado at Boulder.

Though not occurring on the field of play, our loss to Colorado is both unfortunate and somewhat skewed, as the Boulderites suffered a last-place ranking in overall academic rigor. It’s rough losing by a nose to a one-trick pony. Alas, take solace in that we, the seventh-rated public university in the nation (according to the 2004 U.S. News and World Report rankings) and a university with increasingly difficult admissions standards, remain the hardest-partying school whose students remain functionally literate on Monday mornings.

That said, our uncanny ability to mix hard studying with hard drinking proves a broader point: most of us can handle the weekend choices we make, and we urge city and campus administrators to leave them to us. One must concede that the disadvantage of high-priced weekend drinks kept us those last few “shots” from victory. We implore all students to do their part this and subsequent weekends to improve UW’s national ranking in this most critical statistical category. Despite efforts by our “coaching staff” to hold some of our most promising talent on the bench due to budgetary constraints, it only takes a little extra to be No. 1.

The frequent and substantial consumption of beer and hard liquor is apparently what we do best in the country. And based on back-of-the-envelope calculations, which may have been clouded in our own attempts to aid the cause, we believe sticking to what we do best is the quickest route to the top of the pyramid.

Hurt by our poor showing in the “fraternity and sorority life” category, we feel the most efficient game plan for a return to dominance necessitates the additional indulgence of at least one beer per week per student. (We’d sell it as our “three-in-one deal,” but that might be construed as illegal advertising given our location just off State Street.)

Accounting for the patriarchal, puritanical, earth-shoe clad mugwumps among us who refuse to tip back with appropriate vigor and frequency, this would amount to approximately 1 million additional beers consumed over the 30-week academic year, bringing us that much closer to a “Rocky Mountain high” in more ways than one. In keeping with the finest traditions of the Wisconsin Idea, we urge the attainment of this newfound goal by way of Gray’s, Leinie’s and Miller products … just anything but Coors.