The Rocky Mountain Collegian

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Parks College Senior Drew Ewing, in his new book, "Saint Louis University: Off the Record," scrutinizes Saint Louis University from the vantage of a student, peeling back the admissions-issued layer of gloss, for better and for worse. But Ewing says it's mostly for better.

The book, which is available in the Barnes and Noble bookstore in the Busch Student Center, ranks SLU in 20 categories, ranging from campus security to dining options to drug availability.

"The last thing anyone wants is to get this opinion that SLU is like a Harvard-esque kind of place, and then people come here and they hate it," Ewing said. "My aim of this book was to give an honest opinion of what SLU is so that people can take it or leave it as they want."

Ewing received a general template to follow from the publisher, College Prowler, for the book's layout. The lion's share of the content is dedicated to student quotes, culled by Ewing from a survey he distributed through e-mail early last year. Ewing said that approximately 12 students responded, about half of whom were male and half female. Ewing did not have the figures available, but he said that about half of the students sampled belonged to either a fraternity or a sorority.

Initially, the data was fragmentary. Ewing compiled the quotes, inserted them into the mold provided by the publisher and graded each category based on the consensus derived from the quotes. Campus dining and on-campus housing bottomed out the list with Cs. Only off-campus dining options, to Ewing and the 12 students surveyed estimations, merited an A+.

"At the point I was writing this, I had been at SLU for two years, so I was pretty well-acquainted with how things were working on campus, and how to work with the administration," Ewing said. "I kind of infused my own opinion, but at the same time, I had to recognize the surveys as well, just to get a general opinion."

The book targets incoming freshman, foremost, "who want to get a good idea of what SLU is like, outside of the admissions department," but current students would do well to pick up a copy, if for no other reason than to pry deeper into the surrounding environment-or simply to steep themselves in some good-natured gossip, Ewing said.

"I think it's kind of interesting for current students too...because as much as people go here, some people don't get into as much as some other people," Ewing said. "Just because you go to SLU, it doesn't mean that know everything about SLU."

The book is also available on Amazon.com and barnesandnoble.com.

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