Academic success will be found neither in the toilets of Cindies nor a bottle of VK, a Varsity survey can reveal.

A review of 2009 exam successes saw students in drinking societies struggling academically compared to Boaties and student journalists, who tended to excel in Tripos.

Inspired by the Independent’s annual academic review, Varsity’s survey is based on the same principles as the Tompkins table, but ranks the academic achievements of actors, rowers, choristers, hacks and drinking societies.

Student journalists narrowly topped the table, beating rowers by 0.4 per cent, whilst drinking society ‘apocalads’ fulfilled their epithets less appealingly by finishing last in the rankings. Actors were the third most successful group, achieving scores close to the top five Colleges in the real Tompkins, whilst choristers were the society equivalent of 10th place Corpus Christi.

Though demonstrating a correlation between grades and extra-curricular choices, the results dispute the idea that that other commitments will have a negative impact on work. Though falling short of Trinity’s winning percentage, rowers and journalists scored significantly better than every other College.

"The results aren’t necessarily causative," one third year historian and student journalist commented. "However, student journalism does teach you how to be succinct, clear-thinking, and argumentative."

4th year rower Donald Evans was similarly unsurprised by the results. "A lot of rowers are really hard workers" he said. "Rowing gives you a lot of structure during the day, and when your time is taken up with rowing in the morning and evening you’re more likely to be disciplined about what you’re doing at different times."

Though they topped the table, journalists achieved a lower proportion of firsts than actors and the boaties who, though a close second overall, achieved a 30.77 per cent rate of firsts. It might be speculated that subject choice plays a part in this, however: 14 per cent of the boaties surveyed sat Arts or Social Science subjects, compared to an overwhelming majority of 95 per cent amongst those writing for student newspapers.

Drinking societies contained a higher density of Land Economy students than other groups, but generally included a mixture of individuals from all subjects, redeeming, perhaps, a few social prejudices against Natscis. Strikingly, girls’ societies seemed more able to hold their drink than boys; scoring closer to the fourth place Choristers than to their male counterparts, female societies easily matched the real Tompkins score in some colleges, whilst the men scored almost eight per cent lower.

Not all drinking society students experienced the much-maligned ‘Cindies effect’, however. One drinking society president gained a full blue in football and a double first in law, whilst another managed to publish her third novel and achieve and first class grade in English.

"There are so many factors that contribute to the degree that an individual achieves that it would be unfair to attribute it to one commitment" said one drinking society member. In my society last year’s graduates achieved an average mark of a high 2.1, higher than the University average. I’m sure no-one would attribute their success to the drinking society, so it’s a bit unfair to attribute their failure to it in the same way."