Another article that day should have identified the creator of the video series “The U: Uncut” as Doug Imbruce.

The academics are tough, the party scene is weak and students are too busy to worry about politics or dating.

The stereotypes about life at Northwestern are familiar, but this time they’re set to music, student interviews and animated clip art.

The 11-minute segment, “The Not-So Wildcats,” is part of the Midwest volume of “The U: Uncut,” a set of five DVDs that offers “MTV-style” tours of the 50 most popular colleges in the country, according to the series’ Web site.

The college tours are hosted by actors from The WB television shows. David Imbruce, who created the series, interned for The WB’s “Everwood” while a student at Columbia University.

David Gallagher of “7th Heaven” hosts NU’s segment, which includes interviews, campus footage and “student grades” rating different parts of the campus: An A-minus for safety, B for food and C-plus for off-campus housing.

Although the NU segment mentions aspects of college life that tours and college guides often leave out – dorm sizes, the off-campus party scene and meal plans – students said the free preview video on The U’s Web site reinforces popular stereotypes.

“The online clip was definitely skewed,” said Weinberg junior Tiffanie Wong, one of the students interviewed in the segment. “It just made us seem like we have no social life and never have any fun.”

Imbruce said he wanted to give students a more balanced idea of college life than glossy viewbooks and tours currently provide.

“Like every other high school senior, I scoured the country in my mom and dad’s minivan,” said Imbruce, who graduated last year. “I left all the tours knowing how old a certain statue on campus was, but I had no idea what the students were like or what the actual college experience would be like.”

Imbruce did not give exact sales figures but said “thousands” of DVDs have been sold online in the last two months. The DVDs, which cost $14.95 each, will be available at retail stores in the spring.

Imbruce said he and the crew found students on each campus to help produce and critique the segments. There are also message boards on The U’s Web site where current college students can post reactions to the video clips.

“We wanted an accurate representation,” Imbruce said. “From dirty dorm rooms to professor interviews, it’s the truth behind college so there’s no more guesswork.”

But students said the video tour was loaded with blanket statements that could apply to any university, like “even overachievers find ways to occasionally blow off steam,” and “the food’s not gourmet, but you’ll learn to love it.”

NU student producer Abhishek Lahoti said he tried to include a range of students in the tour.

“I went through Facebook and tried to find people who were involved on campus,” said Lahoti, a Weinberg junior. “I went through students in sororities and fraternities, dance groups and sports teams.”

Although the segment includes commentary on meal equivalency, The Rock and CTECs, it overlooks major events such as Dillo Day and Dance Marathon.

“Obviously, some things had to go,” Lahoti said. “It all depended on what looked good, what sounded good and what fit in with the end result.”

Students said the generalized statements made it difficult to distinguish one school from the next, and voiceovers about NU’s “prime lake-front property that would have even The Donald drooling” got tiresome. But most agreed that the video offers an unconventional look at college.

“The video clip is helpful – but it’s still better for students to visit the campus,” Wong said. “It does represent parts of the campus well, but at the same time, it leaves out a lot.”

Reach Abha Bhattarai at [email protected].