And as a seasoned house partier, here are some tips to help you survive the first big house party of the year:

Do show up fashionably late.  Nothing in the college party scene starts before 10:30pm.  And nothing says freshman more than showing up at the party at 9pm eager for the festivities to start.  You are not in high school anymore!  So please, if you want to look like you know what’s going on, pre-drink in your room don’t show up until after 11pm.  Trust me, you won’t miss a thing. In fact, you’ll get there just as the party gets pumpin’.

Don’t wear heels! If you’re going to a house party, you will be way overdressed.  House parties attract all types of people and there will most likely be hundreds of them there.  Large amounts of grinding people means hot temperatures.  You will be sweating…profusely! So for those back-to-school bashes, leave your new skinny jeans at home and wear shorts, a cute flowy tank top or even a sundress, and sandals. You’ll thank me later, when the floor is filled with mud (or questionable bodily fluids) and your favorite suede pumps are ruined!

Do get your creative juices flowing. Theme parties are super popular in college.  Whether you’re attending a Toga party, ABC party, the Beer Olympics (the list goes on and on…), get creative with your costume.  I’ll guarantee you’ll be the talk of the night (and for the right reasons).   That’s not such a bad thing, eh?

Don’t bring a posse of boys.  It sounds shallow, but college dudes hate when a girl shows up with an entourage of men.  Here’s something lame, if you show up with a bunch of guys (and they didn’t bring their own alcohol) they may not let you in! This means no free drinks, and not even batting your full, voluminous lashes will get you out of that one.  Of course, your guy friends are welcome at the party, but be smart—walk into the party first.  A sure-fire-way of getting into the party is to show up with a bunch of your girlfriends. Nothing else will make those single college boys happier.

Do befriend the house owners.  You will get special treatment—the first to know about house parties, better booze, and – just in case – a special hideout place when the Po Po come to break up the party.  Take my word for it: just saying hi a couple times or striking up a conversation with the owners definitely pays off in the end!

Don’t be shy. House parties are only one part of the college party scene so don’t be scared to try all college party venues.  Hit up the bars on Thursday, brave the frat house on Friday, and shake your groove thang at the club on Saturday.  After a couple weekends, you’ll figure out what you like best and where you like to get your party on.

Just get creative (and a permit from public safety)!

Here are a few ideas on how to have some extraordinary (in a good way) fun on Friday and Saturday night, based on things my friends and I have done or aspire to do at some point this year. Although it’s always nice to have a plan in mind, I’ve found that the most spontaneous things end up being the most enjoyable, so don’t be afraid to just go with the flow when the sun goes down!

Screen a musical outside and have a massive sing-along

A couple of weeks ago, a program house on campus screened Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog and the musical episode of Buffy on the porch. If you’re a techie (or have friends who are), you can gather up all the theater geeks and have your own musical screening on the side of your dorm! Just be sure you have the necessary permits to do so.

Set up a bowling lane on your hall

This one’s really easy. All you need are assorted shampoo bottles/hairspray canisters and something that rolls, and there you have it – a bowling alley! If you want to raise the stakes, have a tournament for prizes, or simply for bragging rights. Not that knocking down a few bottles of shampoo with a grapefruit is that impressive, but it’s still something, I guess.

Have an old-school slumber party

Remember those elementary school pastimes of making prank calls to guys and stuffing your face with candy at a friend’s sleepover? Since college is technically one giant sleep-over, why not have a night of nostalgia and junk food (minus the confining sleeping bag/pretending to be snoring when someone’s mom comes down to check on you)? Play “Never Have I Ever” and “Truth or Dare,” and if you’re really bold, play a prank on your next-door neighbor. It’ll be even easier if they’re falling-over-themselves drunk, so you’ll get twice the hilarity out of less effort!

BAKE!

Even if you’re really bad at baking (like me), take advantage of the empty common kitchen and bake some cookies, or brownies, or both! The ends will definitely justify the means, no matter how frustrating the actual process is. Plus, who can resist sampling (read: wolfing down) fresh cookie dough? It certainly can’t be worse for your health than what’s cooking at the dining hall.

Host a marathon of a TV show

Yes, I know, watching DVDs gets old after a while. But when you’re trying to squeeze an entire season into an evening, things get interesting very quickly, usually by the eighth straight hour of viewing. If you’re really ambitious, screen a season of 24 in one sitting. I’ll personally shake your hand if you accomplish in one day.

Play the Wikipedia Game, extreme edition

I mostly use it as a procrastination tool, but I imagine it can get competitive with enough spirited people involved. You also might learn a thing or two from it, and isn’t learning what college is all about? Am I right? …hello? Bueller?

Is it true though? Or are the tabloids just running exaggerated fantasies to harpoon mass appeal? It’s hard to know because these grandiose lifestyles are perpetuated by the attention drawn to them (unless the celebrity is actually talented). Case in point — the Kardashian sex tape.

Bad publicity is good publicity, I suppose… especially for the venues that become associated with celebrity attendance (who doesn’t want to go to places where you might see a rockstar in a bar fight or catch Paris Hilton stripping down to… well… a slightly more naked version of her usual self?).

When talking about club publicity, nothing turns up the temp on a particular venue more than the drug habits of the celebrities. The scandalous behaviors of one Miss Britney Spears has made headlines for a variety of clubs in New York including an all time personal favorite, Marquee. Yes, she has been caught using drugs in the public bathrooms all around town and she’s not the only one. The question then becomes, of course, how many drugs are being done in these places? Certainly you run a high risk (pun intended) of being caught abusing drugs if you are a celebrity, but what about us ordinary folk? Are drugs swimming through the clubs as the tabloids would have us believe?

The answer is YES. I would never consider myself a drug abuser, but I know first hand that almost every club I have been to has it’s own underground microcosmic drug scene. Club Stereo was closed last year after several cocaine busts, though this came as no shock as Stereo was known for being “pot friendly” and leaving the club was like opening the Scoobie Doo van (smoke pouring out). Tenjune turns the other cheek when it comes to smoking the reefer in the VIP section and won’t ask why there are so many girls leaving the bathroom with runny noses. The real shocker comes from Le Souk where I witnessed some special k being snorted in the wide open.

I have also witnessed people getting arrested. Again, Club Stereo, you win in this department with flying colors. On two — no three occasions I witnessed drug raids there, but in the end, drug use was far far more frequent than the arrests that were made. This can probably be said true for almost any club and can be said especially true for celebrities. Amongst my celebrity encounters few involved sobriety (or much respect for, I dunno… THE LAW). Indeed, the Studio 54 mentality lives on in places like Bungalow 8 (where you might just order “a rum and coke.. hold the rum”).

These scenes are often under the radar of the public because of tight security. It’s nearly impossible to get in unless you know someone, ARE a celebrity or (at the very least) have your very own assistant. Places rarely have to answer to the law because undercover cops simply do not fit the demographic of these super-dooper (more like super-doper) high-end venues.

This doesn’t mean that the celebrity lives we read about aren’t embellished to perfection, but it certainly adds validity to the stories. The truth of the matter is, we aren’t living lives so separate from those we read about and if anything can be learned from the tabloids, it’s two things: 1) where the drugs are 2) where people get caught doing them.

There’s nothing better than possessing college pride. No matter where we go, from sporting events to keg parties to our grandmother’s house for Thanksgiving dinner, us college students revel in screaming out the names of our mascots, singing our alma maters, and making it known, loud and clear, exactly where we go to school, whether we’re shiny new freshmen or forty-year-old alumni.

Unfortunately for some students, there just aren’t enough bragging rights to go around.

Radaronline.com has compiled the nine worst accredited four-year colleges in the country. If you attend one of these colleges, we’re very sorry to do this to you. But for every college that’s known for its superior eliteness or exclusivity, or its hell-of-a-good time, or its drop-dead beautiful men and women, there has to be one that is….well….lack luster.

The list is based on “statistics on academic offerings, admissions, and student life from the Princeton Review, U.S. News and World Report, and the U.S. Department of Education, criteria like low SAT scores, incompetent professors, rock-bottom admissions standards, unbridled alcohol and drug consumption, rampant criminal activity, dubious alumni, and reviews from online outlets like Students Review, Campus Dirt, and College Prowler.” Whew. Pretty extensive.

From the most out-of-control school, California’s Chico, where a mere 15 percent graduate in four years and also where the family-friendly game, “pussy ring toss” was first established, to the worst Ivy Leage school, New York’s Cornell, where suicide rates are high and the girls are considered the most unattractive of the Ivy League bunch, this list provides disses, dirt and fun facts for everyone.

For those of you who call one of these nine campuses your home away from home, I’m sorry for outing you, and I’m also sorry you chose these schools. Haha!! Just kidding. You should be….proud? And for those of you who are lucky enough to go to a school that didn’t make the cut – this calls for a victory dance! WOOHOOOOO!!! Go FSU! IN YO FACE!