I transferred to Purdue from another state school so I have some comparison here. Purdue is not a party school at all. People say that since it's still a big university you can still find parties, which is only really true sometimes. My old university was ranked very low academically, but there were parties every single day. You could look outside your window pretty much any day and see lines of drunken college kids going all over the place. The fact of the matter is that Purdue is almost completely focused on academics, which is great and that's why I'm here, but the only way to party here is through the Greek system. The Greek system is good in my opinion but it's highly regulated so the parties never get out of hand. Purdue has alot going for it, but the partying here is tame. Just some advice though: being at a real party school can get old fast, don't choose your university because of the party atmosphere.