<p>FrommetoTM: this was the garbage you spewed on the other thread that finally got that thread closed. I love the matter-of-fact tone in your post. Apparently you are the leading authority on all things Cornell despite the fact you are a freakin’ high school student. You have no first-hand knowledge or any objective statistics to back up anything you say.</p>
<p>Fact: Cornell’s average GPA is 3.4. This is not different from the other top colleges. Who cares what professors teach where? It makes no difference on the difficulty. The difficulty is set by the grades you receive.</p>
<p>Fact: Cornell’s suicide rate was right at the national average. There is nothing intrinsically wrong or suicide-promoting about Cornell.</p>
<p>I agree with norcalguy, FrommetoTm’s posts are not constructive (nor are they well written), and making sweeping statements about Cornell that are clearly unfounded really isn’t helping anyone.</p>
<p>Cadmiumred: if we go on that logic, heck, we might as well cancel all of the exams and take away anything that makes a university a university. College is stressful, exams suck, but most people deal with it fine - the problem is not the tests.</p>
<p>Mom22039, despite the “debates,” the fact is that Cornell’s historical average is in line with other schools that size. From the New York Times, re Cornell’s rep as a “suicide school”:</p>
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<p>Any suicide by young person is a shocking tragedy, but I also think that the vivid and spectacular nature of these deaths makes them stick in our minds more than, say, a drug overdose or even a self-inflicted bullet wound.</p>
<p>Also, suicides among students (including high school students) sometimes happen in clusters. Be careful about extrapolating a cluster into a long-term trend.</p>
FrommetoTM: You will surprised how similar coursework between top schools are. College level textbooks are a huge endeavor to write, so there are only a handful of them out there. This is especially true for more advance science and engineering classes. I have looked through course websites of other universities to do extra practice problem etc. One will be surprised to learn that the topics emphasized in courses in these universities, are on the whole similar to those emphasized in courses in Cornell.</p>
<p>So, Cornell isn’t any rigorous than any other top college.</p>
<p>cad: because most of us are here gain an education, and having exams is essential as it demonstrates how well I understand the material. And like what was previously mentioned, ppl can just roll off the nets/find other ways to end their life. And I agree that having statements made from non-Cornellians isn’t beneficial as well…</p>
<p>How would it save lives? If someone wants to kill themselves, they will do it one way or another.</p>
<p>Or did you mean the cancelling of exams?</p>
<p>The mean GPA at Cornell suggests that most people are doing well. There’s going to be people that struggle. In that case, Cornell should do everything it can to help them (there’s 00 courses, office hours, tutors, Learning Resource Centers, etc.). It can’t cancel exams or dumb down the curriculum just so a few people can feel better about themselves. Killing yourself over a C is a maladaptive reaction due to biological imbalances. You can’t change your curriculum to appease those people.</p>
<p>One thing I hate about my girlfriend’s school is that they are always postponing tests if the teacher doesn’t cover all of the material on time. Not only does it absolve the teacher of any responsibility to stick to his planned curriculum, students there no longer take responsibility for their own education. They start expecting tests to be postponed every time the teacher doesn’t cover a concept in depth. You can’t be spoon fed every little concept. There are some things you need to learn on your own and there is a wealth of resources out there for you to do that. </p>
<p>I’m sorry that your son is finding it a challenge to adjust to Cornell. Please understand this is normal and will get better. Please don’t make any generalizations about Cornell when you’ve never taken a test here or sat in on a lecture.</p>
<p>Last time I checked, statistics can tell a more accurate story than anecdotes. The fact is that suicide is a “stunningly common” way for people of this age to die. It’s the second leading cause of death for young adults. </p>
<p>Just because you hear about these tragic incidents more often because of their shockingly public nature doesn’t mean that Cornell is afflicted by any more suicides than any other top school. In fact, for the last couple of years there were no student suicides.</p>
<p>The recent string of deaths has been an absolute tragedy, and unfortunately sometimes lightening strikes more than once, especially given the contagion nature of this sort of behavior. And Cornell will no doubt redouble it efforts to increase mental health awareness on campus, something it is already nationally recognized for. But erroneously suggesting that Cornell is a “suicide school” or placing blame on Cornell as an institution for the unexplainable is not going to help matters at all.</p>
<p>There have been a lot of inflammatory and ignorant statements posed here by non-Cornellians. For all of students and alumni alike, I advise that we not try to ration with the irrational.</p>
<p>Riceboy:
If exams demonstrate how well you understand the material, why do the grad student teachers or profs threaten to make the subsequent tests twice as hard if you do well on the previous one? To punish you??? This is not an intro course either like Moneydad suggested. Lastly, why do you all quote historical suicide averages? The fact is 3 kids are deceased at this school, and we do not why.</p>
<p>Since Cornell has done their part, I also think parents need to do theirs too. I think most students would feel ashamed if they were were failing their classes and would do anything but go home and have rumors spread that you dropped out from an ivy-league. My parents have told me multiple times that they don’t care if Im failing my classes or would need to take an absence, its really comforting to know that they will love me no matter what :)</p>
<p>Cad: I don’t see whats wrong with having hard exams, in fact I love them. The grade will still be curved to a B or whatever no matter what. I just took an orgo prelim, which is expected to drop to a mean of 30-40 from the first which is around 70. And its not like they make it harder, but the material is much harder.</p>
<p>“…closing the school, putting nets beneath the bridges, or canceling exams would be ridiculous.” </p>
<p>“Why is that ridiculous Riceboy? It might save lives.”</p>
<p>I’m not riceboy, but I’ll give my answers
closing the school is ridiculous because people are going there for the purpose of attending school, that’s why it exists
canceling exams would be ridiculous because exams are an integral, expected part of school; see #1 above</p>
<p>That leaves the nets. I’ve no idea about nets, what those would be like. I’ve already stated here that they might wind up with barriers on the bridges, if nets work better so be it. others have suggested that this would be pointless since there are 4 miles of gorge cliffs to jump off of, besides the bridges. Perhaps riceboy had that argument in mind. </p>
<p>But the connection with the area’s natural beauty, the vistas of the gorges, are an important positive of life there for those community members who do not plan to jump off bridges,. Therefore anything that might impede these views which benefit the overwhelming majority can be a touchy subject.</p>
<p>The problem with arguing with someone who does not go to college is that they just don’t get it.</p>
<p>How “hard” the prelim is irrelevant in a curved course. The median grade is everything. I don’t care if the mean on a test is a 80 or a 50, your grade is determined not by your raw score but by how you do in relation to your peers (this is especially true in a science/math class like the one you’re talking about). They can make the test so freakin’ hard that no one finishes it. The students will still align themselves in the correct order. The best students will still get their A. The worst students will still get their D’s and F’s. If the mean on a test was a 90, then I agree the test was not hard enough. A good test will have a solid distribution of scores so that a student who is smart and studied well can separate himself from a student who is merely good and a student who did not study.</p>
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<p>At least you’ve acknowledged the idea of a high suicide rate at Cornell is fiction ;)</p>
<p>Anyway, there are some things Cornell can do: promote physical education, subsidize gym membership (exercise reduces depression rates), promote non-drinking ways to have fun (alcohol increases depression), offer more counselors, provide more mentorship. NOT cancel exams. I still think there’s nothing heinously wrong about Cornell that’s causing these suicides but there are some things Cornell can do. Most of all, I think we should educate ourselves about depression. We, not Cornell, are in the best position to help a depressed classmate.</p>
<p>Anyway, gotta get back to studying (ironically it’s my neurology unit). I have a test in 2 days. There’s no bridges here for me to jump off of so I gotta conquer the test the old fashioned way.</p>
<p>Riceboy made a valid point by explaining that most kids would be ashamed if they were failing classes and would “do anything” but go home. He nailed it. They are academically pressured and it could very well be manifesting in these tragedies.</p>
<p>Memphismom:
It seems to me, that the academic pressure can derive from a number of sources. My son’s experience could correlate to other students’ experiences. That is why I mention them. Why do you not want to find out the roots of these tragedies? It could help us all, especially the kids. Quoting meaningless statistics about national suicide rates doesn’t help anyone does it?</p>
<p>People who are completely healthy mentally don’t commit suicide because of academic pressure.
People don’t become mentally unhealthy simply because of academic pressure. </p>
<p>People who are <em>depressed</em> may have their condition worsen due to <em>stress</em>. Stress of <em>ANY</em> nature, perhaps academic, but there are other sources of stress in one’s life. The rate of suicide for those in college is less than those not in college. It is probably a bad combination for someone suffering from serious clinical depression to also be attending an elite and challenging academic institution. </p>
<p>Suicides also tend to happen in <em>clusters</em>. I believe there were three at CalTech at the end of last Spring. So, the fact that there have been 3 in one month does not necessarily suggest this causation:
Stressor–>3 suicides, as some of you seem to think.
There’s also this possibility:
Stressor+Depression –> 1 suicide
1 suicide + Depression –> More suicides</p>
<p>Yes, Cornell is an academically intense institution. So is MIT. So is Caltech. So are the rest of the Ivies. Plenty of people get through not only alive, but also very happy, and plenty even enjoy their time there immensely. Individuals with depression, however, might find the workload to be too much. So the issue here is depression, as it is everywhere else. Suicide is, after all, the second leading cause of death in our age group.</p>