If you're looking for small classes, accomplished peers and a degree that will help land a job after graduation, then check out the U.S. News & World Report college rankings.

If it's the "Animal House" experience you're looking for, this might be more your thing.

Collegehumor.com, a popular, testosterone-oozing, sometimes offensive but often hysterical Web site geared toward the (male) college-age crowd, is getting into the college rankings game. Its new "Power Rankings," which go live Tuesday, are looking for colleges that offer "maximum fun and minimum effort."

Don't expect to find this guide in your high school guidance office.

They don't use academic criteria like graduation and acceptance rates. There's nothing here about the size of the library. SAT scores count -- but as a negative. The smarter your peers, site co-founder Ricky Van Veen says, the harder you'll work and the less you'll party.

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SEX, DRUGS, ROCK 'N' ROLL

A school gets points for having a high percentage of female students, and if lots of them are single (determined through an unscientific survey of Facebook.com sites). It also gets points if the student health center gives out free condoms (Did we mention the rankings are geared toward men?).

Other plus factors: lots of fraternity participation, bars that close late, drug interest (another unscientific Facebook survey), and the number of highly rated bands that come to campus.

You lose points for high SAT scores, and for each a cappella singing group on campus.

The singing groups "just embody students that I guess you could say reek of effort," said Van Veen, who co-founded started the site as a student at Wake Forest in 1999 (it's recently published in print a college guide, brimming with similarly juvenile material). "If you're in an a cappella group, there's no beating around the bush: you're an overachiever."

Van Veen says the rankings are meant to celebrate the spirit of the Web site. And that spirit is basically the spirit of "Animal House" and its spiritual leader Bluto Blutarsky (played by John Belushi), who poured a jar of mustard over his head at a party, pretended to be a giant, exploding zit and secured a 0.0 grade point average.

The criteria are definitely NOT scientific. But Van Veen says they take pride that the mathematical formula is solid (a Wharton-trained statistician signed off on it). You could argue that, for what they try to do, they're as valid as the online surveys The Princeton Review uses for its annual college guide, which also includes a ranking of "Best Party Schools."

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AND THE WINNER IS...

Michigan state

Van Veen admits he's never been to Michigan State, but says it sounds like fun.

But is it really like "Animal House?"

Not according to Grant Attenberger, a junior who serves as rush chair of the Delta Sigma Phi fraternity on campus. The movie is a "horrible, horrible portrayal of fraternity houses," he said from his cell phone last week. Students have fun, and Michigan State did recently shut down a chapter of another house after a long run of misdeeds. But Attenberger says he and plenty of other students are there for an education, and by no means are they out every night.

"I'm pretty conscientious about my grades and I don't have any trouble getting things done when I need to," Attenberger said.

He says a few years ago Michigan State was acquiring too much of a party-school reputation and it cracked down.

"The University itself has made an effort to try to get away from that," Attenberger said. "There's a lot more police around campus trying to control what goes on. There's new ordinances where you can't have parties in your front lawn."

"I think that's a good thing," said Attenberger, who is studying pre-dentistry and general management. "I don't want to go to a school that's known just for partying. I want to go to a school that gives you a great education."

A Michigan State spokeswoman called the rankings "not worth dignifying" and declined to comment.

Michigan State doesn't even appear on the list of top 20 party schools as ranked by The Princeton Review. That should tell you all you need to know about how reliable these things are.

Van Veen admits his rankings, like most things on his site, are there to entertain, not to base decisions on.

"But it can help," he said. "If you're either a trust fund kid or extremely lazy, you could judge where to go to college on this list. But otherwise you should balance some serious factors in as well."

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On the Net:

htttp://http://www.collegehumor.com

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asap contributor Justin Pope is the AP's education writer.

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