University of Iowa Top Questions

For many people I would say yes

Like I said above, this is completely false. We live in a CITY - Iowa City, not on farm land. This campus is the farthest thing from being located "in the middle of nowhere". We are three (give or take) hours from major cities like Chicago, Omaha, Minneapolis and St. Louis! And our town feels like a city. There is always something going on, I am never bored or feel like all there is to do is drink. All of the students here, I feel, participate in so much more than just the night life. We have a Hancher Auditorium which brings in big events such as "Mama Mia!" and Billy Joel's "Movin' Out". We have free outdoor concerts in the summer and a lot of 2008 Presidential Candidates have visited our campus. We have had some big bands perform here: OAR, Big & Rich and Kelly Clarkson was scheduled to perform later in April (but that has recently been cancelled). Yes, we have fun, but we have fun by participating in other activities outside of drinking. There is so much to do, so much to get involved in - we have over 400 student organizations, I find it hard to believe that someone can not find something that suits their lifestyle! We even have a huge bike race as well as a festival that caters to runners with a 5K and 10K right in their own backyard! Huge events like Dance Marathon and Relay for Life show that students care about other things besides the size of their wallets because we continuously donate over a million dollars in one of the two, and are reaching for a goal of $100,000 in the other and this is its second year on our campus!

In many ways, no. The University of Iowa has some of the best students in the country. Students can be found applying for Fulbrights, interning in D.C., studying abroad, among others!

For some students, I would have to say yes. But not all students.

Not completely. While there is a fair number of students who give Iowa this stereotype, there is a huge number of students who choose to be responsible, and there is a wide range of activities to participate in that do not revolve around drinking and partying.

Definitely not since close to half of the students are from the suburbs of Chicago.

No

No

The stereotypes are as accurate as each individual student wants them to be. You can choose how much you want to party and how much you want to study. Whatever balance of the two that you decided to pursue, you will find other students who have worked out/desire a similar balance.

There are a ton of wild students here.

To a certain extent, yes, there are very few African Americans in Iowa.

No. The location of the University is actually really pretty, with rolling hills and old historical buildings...athletes pay for the majority of what they get, we get some stuff for free but its mostly clothes that we practice and sweat in, every athlete buys his or her own scooter...athletes don't get special treatment, we just have to work our schedule around practice time and such.

No! There is way more than corn here and even though some of us ar farmers, Iowa is filled with many great people and things!

There is a lot of drinking. However, this University is filled with bright young minds who are using every resource available to them in order to succeed.

I would say that it is a party school, but it is if you want it to be. There is a lot of activity in the downtown area, but this provides a controlled environment for students instead of being all spread out at house parties. The fact of the matter is that Iowa is also a very well respected research institution. There are a lot of people from Illinois and Chicago, but there are also many from the good ol' state of Iowa and from many states across the US. I would say that it is a football school and Saturdays in the fall in Iowa City are like nothing else.

Everyone but me likes partying, drinks a lot, and has a lot of sex; liberal's accurate for about 75{4a082faed443b016e84c6ea63012b481c58f64867aa2dc62fff66e22ad7dff6c} of the students, only PE classes and foreign language classes are on Fridays for the most part, so that's pretty accurate... diversity and intelligence are overstated by stereotypes, and most people aren't active in extracurricular activities for any purposes other than social (friends, people to party with)... most people really don't study much, and students seem to be mostly from wealthy families although there are the shunned exceptions.

Yes, there are people like that, but that's definitely not the majority. It is a big party school, and drinking is what a lot of people do on weekends, but there's still a lot of diversity. The RAs are really good at constantly planning activities, so there's a lot of choices of what to do. Partying and drinking is definitely the norm though.