The cat is out of the bag. And now many students fear their party days may be limited.

After years of shotgunning beers, performing keg stands and competing in the Beer Olympics, the Princeton Review has named Georgia the No. 1 party school in the nation.

However, as the first weekend after classes gets underway, students may wonder if police will step up their game as a result of the new title. Should they boast or be more cautious?

University Police Chief Jimmy Williamson sat down with The Red & Black and laid many of these concerns to rest.

“It doesn’t affect it,” Williamson said of the ranking’s affect on his job. “We’re going to do what we already do every day. I have the same number of [officers] this year as last year and the year before. I’m not looking at doing anything different.”

Although police say nothing has changed, one fact does remain — more arrests have been made in the two weeks following the release of the rankings than in years before.

Within two weeks of Princeton Review’s release of these rankings on Aug. 2, University police reported 23 drug- and alcohol-related arrests.

This number is up from 15 arrests during the same time period in 2009, 13 in 2008 and 18 in 2007.

The University of Florida saw a similar trend after it was crowned the No. 1 party school in 2008.

The number of alcohol-related arrests surged from 63 in 2007, to 228 in the year after the school received the title.

However, when presented with these numbers, Williamson warned of the dangers of looking at short-term crime statistics.

“There may have been external factors that I can’t account for,” he said. “For instance, people don’t like to go out when the weather is bad.”

Though Williamson said the school’s title doesn’t concern him, he does fear it will send students the wrong message.

“College is all about having fun, but don’t let this rating get you thinking Athens is something its not,” he said. “It’s not an animal house around here. But if everyone parties smart, they don’t really have any issues to worry about.”