Complementing its excellent standards in academics, UCSB garnered another high ranking last Friday after it was named the #2 party school in America by the latest edition of Playboy Magazine.

And, fortunately for eager students happy to support their classmates, the women representing the university in the magazine will sign copies of their spread in front of I.V. Market this evening from 5 to 7 p.m., and at Front Page in the Calle Real shopping center from noon until 2 p.m.

The page dedicated to UCSB’s student body features 12 women in various states of undress posing in a Del Playa Drive backyard, a bar, a bedroom and in front of a lavish bathroom sink. In addition, the text accompanying the pictorial refutes notions that the nation’s #2 party school is all play and no work, lauding its Nobel prize-winning faculty.

The issue, which went on sale last Friday, sold out all 50 copies at Isla Vista Market within the same day, a market employee said.

UCSB’s #2 ranking placed it behind the University of Wisconsin, Madison and ahead of #3 Arizona State University on the magazine’s party school list. According to a Playboy press release, the rankings were determined through “informal surveys” of students and professors at 250 universities.

Editors also took into account such factors as the quality of education, athletic programs and opportunities for entertainment at each campus, the press release stated.

Third-year biopsychology major Drea Langston, one of the women who posed in the pictorial, said it was a great experience.

“I saw that Playboy was doing auditions in the Daily Nexus,” Langston said. “I thought it would be really fun, and I told my friends that we could all do this as a group.”

Playboy first carefully vetted students who wanted to bare all in the pictorial through a two-day casting process in which the women posed in lingerie for a photographer, Langston said. The ladies who made the cut were then called back for the official photo shoot.

The women’s friends and families have had varied reactions to the magazine feature. Langston said her parents were supportive of her expose in Playboy, as were her friends.

“I’ve had a lot of friends say, ‘I’m looking at you naked right now,'” she said.

However, another woman featured in the article, Sabrina Deltoro, said her parents were less than enthusiastic about her participation in the shoot.

“I told my parents right away – they weren’t excited,” Deltoro, a third-year biology major, said.

Deltoro said she was not upset that UCSB did not take the #1 spot as best party school.

“We’re not disappointed at all that we’re #2 in partying,” Deltoro said. “We’re above Wisconsin in both academics and demographics. We came to school to study; it’s just a plus that we can party so much.”

Henry Elyashar, a second-year business economics major, said he was not worried that the article would adversely affect UCSB’s reputation.

“With the exception of the girls who are in the pictures, I don’t see how this reflects on the university,” Elyashar said. “There are girls willing to pose for Playboy at every school in the country.”

Unfortunately, multimillionaire Playboy Magazine founder Hugh Hefner was unable to attend the shoot, Langston said.

“We didn’t get to meet Hugh yet,” Langston said. “That would be a good time.”