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<p>that might lead to depression.</p>
<p>There are some thoughtful posts here, even better than the thread on the Parent Forum.</p>
<p>I hope the media will be sensitive and not disclose too much personal information of those students.</p>
<p>Thanks for the compliments on my posts everyone. :-)</p>
<p>Also, let’s try to not make personal jabs? I understand frustration, but it doesn’t help…I think there’s a genuine opportunity for discourse in this thread. Let’s not get it shut down. </p>
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<p>Dear cadmiumred,</p>
<p>Thank you for reading them!
I will agree with you that there are cons(as well as definite pros) to the Greek scene, and also that drinking also does not mix with depression very well. I wouldn’t blame suicide on the Greeks either, however. Keep in mind that a strong drinking culture is present in the dorms as well, so lifting recruitment from Greeks will probably not alleviate that pressure much, if at all. Also, these trips to casinos are not a regular occurrence, usually just a special trip once a semester or year, which I don’t think is frequent enough for an addiction to gambling. </p>
<p>Though the recruiting you’re talking of is something I rarely hear of at the ivies and actually the first anecdote of its kind, that type of recruitment is actually normal and prevalent at most public universities. I know at my flagship state university, recruiting starts when students are seniors in high school! Almost everyone I know who went to my high school is now part of a Greek organization and those who went to state schools joined before classes even started their freshman year. I don’t know what Cornell’s Greek Council’s policies are regarding recruitment, but truly pressuring students is probably in violation, and that is something that should be brought up and addressed with the council. (Greek Council, for those who are unaware, is usually an organization of the leaders from each Greek organization on campus that decides the rules regarding recruitment, rush, and pledging). </p>
<p>Different Greek organizations have different reputations and cultures, some worse than others. There are some that I find irritating, yet others I actually find to be quite admirable organizations. I agree with you that shutting down the irritating ones might be a great idea, but I also must admit that the type of individual who join these organizations would probably be just as much a nuisance if they were in the dorms. Actually, in retrospect, even though at Brown they don’t recruit until second semester, you can usually already tell who is going to join one of the more infamous Greeks in the first month of school. If anything, the Greeks let certain types of individuals to congregate, segregating them from the rest of campus. </p>
<p>I know it’s difficult to believe, but for some individuals Greek organizations are actually beneficial: At some of the really good ones, it is a place that offers community and social support, something that actually works <em>against</em> suicidal behavior. I have several friends in the Greek system here who will tell you that they have benefited an incredible amount from having such a strong social support network. As one put it, in upperclassmen dorms there is often not much of a community, yet when one lives in a close-nit Greek organization, you know that if you wander down the hall needing someone to talk to when you’re under a lot of stress that you’re going to find someone who will want to be there for you. My friends describe me as the “kid you can always take home to your parents to show how well-behaved your friends are”, and if I did college all over again, I might have seriously put some thought into going Greek. You don’t know me, but trust me when I say that I’m responsible and well-behaved enough that I have yet to come across a single parent that wouldn’t want their kid spending time with me, and if I rubber-stamp approve <em>some</em> Greek organizations, they can’t be that mischievous.</p>
<p>Gomestar:
Are you saying drinking and gambling cannot lead to addictions or depression? Also, though I do not know from firsthand experience, but are some financial aid packages or scholarships contingent on grades. In this economic climate, a kid with mediocre grades may lose his financing. That is an incredible pressure with the grade deflation.</p>
<p>Dear JustBreathe:</p>
<p>At Cornell there cannot be a strong drinking culture in the dorms. Drinking is not permitted. The drinking culture is promoted by the frats. Beer pong (so productive), is one of the many activities related to drinking frats push. Rush week seems to be condoned by the whole university. I think the winter academic schedule revolves around it, and kids are told by older students to take light academic schedules in the spring to allow for pledging. Yes, pledging is more important than academics apparently.</p>
<p>Please, please, please, please just ignore cadmiumed.</p>
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<p>Read it again. And again if you have to. I said absolutely nothing of the sorts.</p>
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<p>It’s like you don’t even understand any of the posts on here. As stated before, average GPA at Cornell is 3.4, I belive the highest in its history. This is a sign of grade inflation NOT grade deflation.</p>
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<p>We told our mothers that too. :)</p>
<p>ok, now I will listed to Cayuga.</p>
<p>I will when I start feeling ineffective. </p>
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<p>I’m afraid your perception of the dorms is incorrect. Drinking may not be officially “permitted”, but it’s alive and well. I know, my mom was shocked too, but it’s true. Beer pong happens in the dorms and it happens in dorm rooms as well. In places where drinking is heavily restricted in the dorms, there’s simply a more thriving Greek life. College students will drink, and some will drink a lot. If it’s more lax in the dorms, it’ll happen in the dorms. If it’s more strict in the dorms, it’ll go off-campus either to off-campus Greek organizations or to off-campus apartments or undercover.</p>
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Cornell only gives need based FA, not contingent on grades.</p>
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<p>just because something is not “permitted” does not mean that people do not do them. take, for example, the prohibition era. alcohol was banned throughout the united states, but did every US citizen stop drinking? please, the entire culture of speakeasies, moonshine and trips across the border can attest to the fact that people kept on drinking. a lot. </p>
<p>drinking, for some, is a very integral part of the college experience. for others, it’s not - it’s personal choice, of course. but you can’t assume that, because alcohol usage is banned until a person turns 21, underage drinking doesn’t occur - and that, just because it’s banned in dorms, it doesn’t happen. come on, where do you think freshmen pregame? ;)</p>
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Not aid from Cornell, but from other outside sources that require a student to maintain a certain GPA.</p>
<p>To think that alcohol doesn’t exist in the freshman dorms is naive. I’m sorry if your son has led you to believe otherwise.</p>
<p>If frats were the sole reason for underage drinking, (as someone stated on this & other threads) that would mean that schools that don’t have any Greek life don’t have issues with alcohol. NOT TRUE! </p>
<p>This thread was quite productive in discussing the difference between episodic sadness & clinical depression until post #96 once again took the wrong turn & brought this back to misinformation & false deductions. Let’s try to get back on track.</p>
<p>I was told today that my senior’s engineering advisor emailed all his advisees saying he & Cornell were available should anyone want to talk. Also, 1 prof gave an extension on a problem set until after break, and another told the class they could work in class today on their group projects rather than giving a lecture. I commend them for their efforts.</p>
<p>Cad seems to feel the need to drag every forum into a new pit of unsound reasoning and anger. Letting this thread turn into a “Frats are evil!! / frats are great!” argument is really not the point, especially since one student was a junior, and one was a sophomore. The Fraternity debate really has nothing to do with the suicide forum. Start a new thread on the merits/problems with Greek life?</p>
<p>I just received an email with this link to a message from the Dean of Students. Thank you for being there for those students who remain at Cornell during break. </p>
<p>[Cornell</a> University - Caring Community](<a href=“Mental Health at Cornell | Mental Health at Cornell”>http://caringcommunity.cornell.edu/)</p>
<p>"…why doesn’t the school shut the frats down already? "</p>
<p>I am not a frat-boy type myself, but given the concerns here I think that would be a very bad decision. Cornell is a very large school. Being able to carve out for ones self a more intimate social sphere of which you are a part can go a long way towards mitigating the anonymity that otherwise may develop there. Said anonymity can develop into a sense of social isolation which could provide yet another thing to feel bad about, a concern for those who react disproportionally to such bad feelings. Social life is a very important thing, at this age and stage of life. For those who fit, frats provide that more intimate social environment, and IMO this can only help with the feeling of well-being among their members.</p>
<p>For those in the majority who don’t join frats- and I was among them- they must find their own social niches.Which generally happens, just as it does in the world at large outside of college, but it is less convenient and pre-packaged. For that majority, frats are a non-issue after freshman year, I wouldn’t worry about them.</p>
<p>I for one can’t get too excited about college students drinking, because that’s exactly what I did myself at that age. I did not jump off a bridge over it, but I probably got sick once or twice which was a good lesson. Most nations on this planet have a much lower legal drinking age than the US has.</p>
<p>But if someone is adamantly opposed to the presence of frats, or any potential influence they may have on the virtues of youth for the helpless freshmen souls they allegedly prey upon, the simple solution is not to eliminate frats. The simple solution is to choose a different university. Because Cornell has frats, and everyone knows it.</p>
<p>That’s a perfectly fair thing to do. It was one of the main reasons my D1 did not apply to Cornell. I thought she was misguided, since there’s enough of all types of people there for everyone to find their own niche. But she didn’t even want any frat-types around, she didn’t like the idea of social exclusivity. So she didn’t apply. Fair enough. Much better, IMO, than going there and then complaining about what was obviously there already.</p>
<p>If one does get someplace and realizes they made a mistake, for whatever reason, and the environment there is actually not a good fit- then one can always transfer. No shame in that either, my D2 did it. Though she transferred TO Cornell. Transfer is a much more reliable way to get a preferred environment then trying to change the longstanding, ingrained nature and institutions of the college you are currently attending. And probably better than staying in an environment you don’t like and then feeling very unhappy with it and complaining about it all the time. Much better to be someplace you feel good about, so you won’t feel like complaining, IMO. There are those who love it, but Cornell is not perfect for everyone, far from it.</p>
<p>all of them were engineering students weren’t they? </p>
<p>as unfortunate as it is, maybe mental stability can be a hook for applicants in the future :p</p>
<p>Moneydad:</p>
<p>The whole point of this discussion is what needs to be changed about the nature and institutions in the college to prevent what happened this month from happening again. To a previous poster that claimed that a high pressure college environment prepares you for the outside world?? I attended a challenging top 14 school which didn’t have any suicides while I attended and didn’t have the curve system. The coursework wasn’t extremely high pressure, but high still quality. The level of difficulty on tests wasn’t based on the previous grading. A wide distribution of grades shouldn’t be mandatory or expected if the students that attend are high achievers and highly intelligent. Most everyone should do well and they did. I succeeded just fine in the world without the high academic pressure, dependence on a frat scene, drinking, etc. You simply just don’t need this. Many of my children’s friends, all through school were on prescription drugs for ADHD, ADD etc. Wonder what long term mental effects that has had on these kids. Another poster did mention that some financial aid outside of Cornell IS dependent on a GPA. Don’t forget the ridiculous high pressure college application process that they all experienced even before attending Cornell. Combine ALL of these factors along with parental pressure and something’s gotta give for god’s sake!</p>
<p>" I attended a challenging top 14 school which didn’t have any suicides while I attended "</p>
<p>Cornell didn’t have any suicides when gomestar attended.
Over the whole period they’v’e been tracking suicide rates, during which Cornell’s suicide rate is about average, Cornell has had about the same grading policies and practices. Many universities have courses that are graded on a curve.</p>
<p>There may be schools that are a better fit for your son than Cornell is, you should investigate. That by no means should suggest that something about Cornell inevitably drives students disproportionally to off themselves, because, absent this recent sequence of events, the data does not support this finding. It simply hasn’t been so, over the whole period where these same policies and environment have existed.</p>
<p>The current rate is not what has been going on there all along, it is a historical aberration.</p>
<p>Most importantly : it;'s M-O-N-Y dad, not $$$. I’ve had two kids in private colleges so far, with a third probably to follow, I have no $$$. So get that handle right.</p>
<p>this might help:</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.bju.edu/become-a-student/info-request.php[/url]”>http://www.bju.edu/become-a-student/info-request.php</a></p>
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<p>fixed…</p>