I believe the discussion would be so much more valuable if “Campus Suicide” were one thread, and “The Pressure of Perfection” were another thread.
The pressure of perfection has many serious consequences, the vast majority of which do not end in suicide attempts. It is a topic which deserves (and has received, here on CC) close scrutiny apart from the issue of suicide. Should one assume that the five suicides at MIT in the last couple of years were due to the “pressure of perfection,” just because an applicant must be nearly perfect to gain admittance there? Absolutely not, IMO. Correlation does not always equal cause. Each person who has died–or who has attempted but survived–was a complex individual who may have had some shared similarities with the others, but who certainly also had unique traits or circumstances.
@LBad96 If you google “suicide contagion,” you’ll see why the experts would not have been surprised by App State.
@cmsjmt There was a suicide by a popular, well-liked student athlete at Ohio State last year. There was A LOT of press coverage and, in the aftermath, thoughtful discussion by the deans and by psychologists about the incidence of attempts (way higher than anyone wants to believe), the triggers and the demographics. It was an enormously helpful community discussion.
@fractalmstr Call it “rampant,” “somewhat prevalent,” or whatever. Mental illness affects large numbers of people at some point during their lives. And it occurs across all socioeconomic levels. Because of continuing stigmatization and lack of resources, treatment is not always sought as it should be. And the results of inaction can range from devastating to a person’s family, to truly horrific for entire communities.
“Our media isn’t helping at all. Anytime you read about colleges in the NYT or WSJ, it’s almost always about an elite school. The only time state schools get mentioned is about football, or some incident like mass shooting or fraternity problems. Hate to say it but websites like CC also adds to the feeding frenzy.”
Well, unless you are in the Midwest, South or West where state schools are fully fine. Please stop projecting the role of state schools in the Northeast to the rest of the country.
Sorry all- I live in the Northeast and our papers are chockablock filled with news stories about alums of Fordham and Villanova and Buffalo and Rutgers doing amazing things. CUNY has an aggressive PR machine- and some wonderful news stories to justify the machine.
The student featured in this article, whose roommate intervened to prevent a suicide attempt, was struggling with her sexual identity. Yet in the same article, the reporter blames suicide clusters on parental indulgence and pressure. Huh?
I really get tired of mental health issues being blamed on parents. True depression is a biochemical illness and often genetic. Impulsive suicide may not even be related to clinical depression.
Our local high school has been experiencing an increase in student distress and even suicidality. When I asked the superintendent what he thought was the cause, he answered without a beat: “social media.” I was surprised. But the article helped me see how that could be.
Some of us older folks cannot even imagine what social life with all these screens is really like.
I too am sick of true mental health issues being blamed on parents.
And give me a break, cms. The vast majority of Americans read neither the NYT nor the WSJ and couldn’t give a darn about elite schools. Mental illness is mental illness; it’s not “bad parenting” and it’s not just oh-dear-poor-Johnny-was-rejected-at-Harvard-and-had-to-settle-for-CMU. .
Back when I was in public high school (the '90s), it was completely normal for even the salutorian to get a few Bs on semester grades. It was normal for teachers to hand out only one straight A in the class of 25 students. Our English teachers frequently graded essays so that almost no one got higher than a B+.
When I got to (a very elite) college and got into engineering, it was like, “Grade that’s not as good as I wanted… big deal, has happened a zillion times already.” Anecdotally, the few people I knew who had gone to high schools with grade inflation (e.g. the top 10% of the class is separated by who got more A+s) weren’t really able to handle the concept of working your tail off for a B or a C - and that being a completely acceptable grade, given the class.
I also don’t think it is anything new or can be blamed on social media. When I was at Penn in the late 70s-early 80s, there were several student suicides. About the same time, Cornell had to extend the walls of the bridge that went over the gorges after several student suicide jumpers.
There was a suicide at NU when I was there. It was a young woman who had broken up with her boyfriend. The boyfriend is now someone famous that you’d all know. The pain of heartbreak, however, is not restricted to lovers at elite schools of course.
^^^ I was going to mention that point, that perhaps there were personal issues like that going on that had nothing to do with the school. Maybe one of the students was brutally raped and felt to conflicted to report it and was so distraught that they took a fatal step. I don’t know, I’m just throwing out other options.
“The great majority of people who experience a mental illness do not die by suicide. However, of those who die from suicide, more than 90 percent have a diagnosable mental disorder.”
^^^ So… did the girl in the story have one? It can’t be that she’s lesbian, that wouldn’t be PC to even consider, but I guess she was likely depressed by all the other stuff as well.
Post #32 was right on the money:
"Sorry @oldfort but that simply isn’t true. The suicide rate has been relatively constant over the past 40 years in teens. Your generation committed suicide as often as this generation, it just wasn’t as commonly reported back then. "
Bingo. I am really tired with people thinking that the “good old days” were so good. It is just that everything that happens in the world, let alone the US let alone whatever metro area you live in, gets over-reported and sometimes mis-reported.
If you don’t have data, you don’t know what is happening. If suicides were being hidden, and they most definitely were in the past, as with some violent crimes, you wouldn’t know if your neighbor’s kid killed himself, they’d report it was an accident of some sort. Even in within the past 10 years, a relative was shot and killed by a jealous boyfriend, and everyone was told it was a “car accident”. The NY Times covered it though, and everyone found out the gory details (which were pretty bad as well as sad).
Listen to “Mrs. Robinson”. “Most of all you’ve got to hide it from the kids” Think about if Ms. Holleran’s suicide wasn’t publicized, think about if there weren’t follow-up stories. Would Ms. DeWitt still be with us? There can certainly be a benefit that now people don’t hide their kids who have learning differences, now people will admit if they are going to counseling, now if someone has a tragedy in their family, they are more likely to talk about it and try to help others.
Getting back to the thread vis a vis the pressure of perfection, I believe that top colleges MUST be better about informing students about how college grading works. My general rule is 1/3rd As and Bs, 1/3rd Cs, and 1/3rd Ds and Fs. I have given no As if no one reaches the cutoff. I have given 50% Fs one semester; it is my job to teach students, not to give them better grades than they deserve, and especially not grade based on effort.
What drives me nuts is when a student complains about their grade, and they have NEVER talked to me or emailed me before that final grade complaint. Students need to put their big person pants on and reach out - I’m not going to email my son’s prof if he gets a bad grade on a test. I’m not even going to double-check his accommodations like I did in HS. But I am going to tell him to reach out to professors and to keep careful track of his grades so HE is the one who takes responsibility.
If you have 300 students in a freshman class, you are not going to give them all As even if they all are Penn students. Even if 75% of them were valedictorians in high school. In some ways, I’m happy my son had a checkered HS career because he knows that getting a C is not the end of the world, and he also knows that if he gets a D (or worse), he will be retaking the class.
My extremely smart spouse was on the Dean’s List at Penn, and sophomore year was failing physics. He dropped it and retook it in the summer and got an A. Why college students aren’t aware of such options early on - and by the way, his adviser told him to drop it, because he was upset about his test grades and went to his adviser - is beyond me.
Truth is much about what this girl in the article said is true. At elite schools people have the pressure of having to be perfect in every sense-academic, athletic, social ext…
The most important thing to realize is that people, and especially college students, have a limited amount of time in the day. My strategy is to characterize the things I need to do in order of importance. For me, academics are most important since I am pre-med and so I will devote more time to academics than anything else. If given the choice between academics and EC’s I would pick academics because it is by far and large the most important aspect.
@anon9362 your doing it all wrong. Don’t focus on the ECs first. Those are just gravy. If you have 6 hours of homework which I doubt you do, then you need to be coming home and studying not doing ECs. Study for things like APs and SATs for about 90 minutes a day everyday and more on weekends. If you come home at 10pm every night because of ECs your doing something wrong. I can tell you first hand that ECs are important but people get into top schools without the most impressive ECs but rest assured no one gets in without impressive grades save for athletes and donor kids.
Prioritize your time, have back up plans, speak to friends about your problems often, and rest assured that good things happen to those who work hard to the best of their ability
Read the obituaries. “Died unexpectedly at his (or her) residence” is very often code for suicide when you see it in the obit of a 30, 40, 50, and sometimes even 60 year old. Otherwise, people will write things like “after a brief/lengthy illness” or "after a courageous battle with _____” or “of a heart attack.” Suicide is alive and well, in all age groups, in all socio-economic groups. It’s hardly a special problem of students at elite colleges. Maybe those cases see so much coverage because that is the group we think should be least susceptible to suicide and we are surprised to see these very gifted people are really just like everyone else in so many ways.
This is everything wrong with the “pressure of perfection”.
“Johnny, I know you like basketball, but Harvard doesn’t! You have SAT tutoring tonight!”
“Johnny, I know you wanted to be entrepreneurial and open a small business, but you can’t! You should be studying!”
“Johnny, are you writing again? You need to spend more time on the writing section of the SATs, not your own writing!”
@anon9362 Focus on whatever you want to focus on. Numbers are an obstacle to overcome (read: get the numbers however you can–whether it’s by studying ahead of time in the summer or pulling all-nighters [both of which I did]) but never, ever, EVER, sacrifice your passions for those numbers.
When I visited CMU’s admitted students/UVa’s Echols’ Scholars day on the lawn-thingy, I met a lot of students like the above–and they had absolutely no personality (some of the kids were even talking about their SAT scores; “I got a 2300” isn’t as great of a conversation starter as “I’m an author/entrepreneur” or “I volunteered in the NYC school system” or almost any other EC). Focus on time management, but never let the “pressure of perfection” force you to stop enjoying hs/exploring the world outside grades. (Note: This isn’t to say you don’t have any personality, Spuding, just an observation about kids I noticed who did what you’re suggesting–focused first & foremost on academics, completely ignored EC’s b/c “numbers matter!”.)
I’m all for making goals, finding out what you need to do to achieve those goals, and following that path; but spuding’s advice to cut out EC’s isn’t universally applicable. I agree with the underlying message (you can’t get around bad numbers), but you’re not doing anything wrong at all bud. Look into a few different resources for time management to help you deal with a rigorous schedule, and if you can’t do it all then you’ll have to cut some things out, but it’s inane for someone to tell you to cut out an EC over an AP–they don’t know the intricacies of your schedule.
Work hard in every area of your life. Your grades, your EC’s, your relationships, &c. But you need to balance those three things out through time management. In the bigger picture, life’s not all about grades. It’s equally about what you do outside of school and the network you build. Sure, you won’t get into a top school if you don’t have grades, but it’s not like you’ll suddenly become an interesting/personable person b/c of your school’s network. Always keep in mind that there’s more to life than grades. There’s a reason for the longstanding “C students work for A students” maxim. Keep developing as a person, even if it means only taking 3 APs instead of 5.
Edit: And if you’re worried you can’t balance the schedule, something has to give. Don’t stretch yourself too thin. Take a step back and plan out your schedule–allot time for EC’s, studying, and friends. Don’t worry, once you get better at time management the pieces will all fall into place and you’ll be able to take on more.
Spuding, I’m pre-law, so I get your focus on grades (familiar w/ med school admissions, law school admissions is also numbers-driven), but don’t assume academics and EC’s are mutually exclusive. Anon needs to prioritize, but (s)he doesn’t need to choose between academics and EC’s, especially not as a high schooler still figuring themselves out. The correct answer to their problem is to focus on time management, one aspect of which is prioritization, but anon’s not doing anything “wrong” in focusing on EC’s > academics. (“Wrong”, maybe, for admissions; but not for anything else.)
Adding to the above, I’m stunned that so many students’ top goal is to get into the best college even at the expense of personal development. No wonder the “pressure of perfection” is resulting in so much anxiety. Some of these students are stunting their personal growth for perceived success, and can’t handle it when that objective success (top grades) starts to falter.
Note: This is only some of the students at the top colleges. Most of the people I met were extremely capable, unique individuals who added to the schools’ communities in many ways
Rather than quibble about changes in suicide rates (which we may never get a good handle on, due to underreporting) I recommend we acknowledge that today’s situation is Bad Enough to try to change. I know I’m guilty of pressuring my kids and also of doing too much for them. I don’t let them fail very often. It is a constant struggle to know where to push, where to help, and where to pull back. I should probably tell them that even though I did make Deans list some semesters, in other semesters I didn’t. They already know I failed a college class (ok, I’m kind of proud of that achievement) and that I changed majors (without telling my parents right away). I still turned out okay.
I watched a number of high school students load on the ECs in addition to their academic successes. They ended up at our (highly regarded) state university having not gained acceptance to lottery schools. The state u where they would have been joined by my relatively EC-poor S14 except he chose to go elsewhere. My recommendation is to focus on ECs that are you really care about, as it isn’t quantity it is quality. Help students understand that name-brand schools don’t automatically mean success nor does lack of a name-brand school mean failure. Find realistic role models and have them read about imposter syndrome. Model for them that life is a long-haul process and paths to success are not usually straight or rapid. Hug your kids. Mine is away at camp now (his choice!) and I wish I could.
To some extent, we experience similar desires and wants, especially at this specific age bracket. In college, every student desires to be popular and noticeable. Its called the duck syndrome. The pressure to attain ultimate perfection without actual effort. A duck appears to glide calmly across the water, while beneath the surface it paddles relentlessly. Unfortunately, a fraction of the college students who realize that they are not living up to their standards develop psychological problems that may result in seclusion or suicide. This is alternatively attributed by consistent oppression from more popular students. Ms.Dewitt, who graduated with straight A’s was continually oppressed due to her acne.
At first, I feared that this pressure for perfection may be attributed by inconsiderate peers. However, if that was the case, then such repeated suicides in Penn wouldn’t be apparent unless the institution consists of an undying breed of inconsiderate bastards.