<p>No, there are not suicide schools, but there are, unfortunately, as you pointed out, suicide clusters, which is why the second one happens most institutions get on it with a passion. Kids know this too, since they are educated about this issue these days, and I think they start to really “watch” each other more closely, as well.</p>
<p>It’s stressful when this happens at a school, for all involved, but Cornell did really address this as quickly and effectively and directly as they could, imho. (No kids at C, but I do work in the MH field and think they did as good a job with it as they could.)</p>
<p>I truly believe that one of the Cornell man/child that fell off the bridge was an accident, according to my friend that knew the family well. I do worry about the clusters. My son knew one of the Caltech kids who was very sociable, doing well, and has no reason or ability to understand that particular death. He also knows the FA of the MIT student, and has only positive things to say about this professor. </p>
<p>Its so sad, for the teen, the family, and the friends.</p>
<p>I agree. To me it is no worse to say “might have had a health issue as a young person” than to say “might be a suicide”…unless of course you personally think the victim and their family should feel shame about the latter. </p>
<p>In this day and age, among the most educated people in the world, you would think we could openly mention the possibility of depression and suicide without being called names for uttering such ‘bad words’. Depression IS an illness, just like diabetes. Until people wrap this around their heads, we will continue to cloak it in whispers and it will continue to not receive the medical attention it deserves. That is a big tragedy.</p>
<p>Like I said, I personally didn’t care about the Cornell suicide rate when I decided to apply. For me as a prospective student, it was a non-issue. But my mother was worried. Which I can’t exactly blame her for, as a parent of a child who has struggled with the burden/stress of academic pressure.</p>
<p>Just noting, not everyone who commitments suicide is depressed or has another mental illness–suicide can be an impulsive act, with little or no predisposing history. Yes, in the majority of cases, there probably is a history of depression or other mental illness, but not all.</p>
<p>Regardless of the cause of death, my thoughts and prayers are with the family and the MIT community. :(</p>
<p>Do you have suicide rate statistics for Stanford that show significant differences between pre-1994 and post-1994? 1994 was when the generous late drop policy and no F grades were changed to be more like other schools’ policies.</p>
<p>Generous late drop policies would not likely be done at public universities, which want to run as close to capacity as they can (so allowing someone to drop late can deny someone else the opportunity to take the course) and do not want to have students sticking around (or being forced to stick around because of difficulties getting the courses the need) for extra semesters (with extra in-state subsidies for the majority who are in-state).</p>
<p>Re Cornell: The suicide rate actually isn’t unusually high (although there was one recent atypical year).</p>
<p>But because of the bridges over the gorges, which is where suicides have traditionally occurred, suicide at Cornell is far more conspicuous than suicide at most other universities.</p>
<p>The bridges have also provided opportunities for something that another poster brought up: impulsive suicides. An individual who is temporarily despondent can jump into a gorge with no premeditation. Most other forms of suicide require at least a little advance planning, and during the planning phase, the person may well change his mind. Thus, on the advice of experts, Cornell and the city of Ithaca put up barriers to make it more difficult to jump off the bridges. This is consistent with the best current thinking on how to decrease the number of suicides.</p>
<p>My daughter went to Cornell, and the suicide rate did not play a role in her decision to choose that school. Nor was I concerned about it. My only concern about Cornell, really, pertains to its Greek system, but my daughter was the last person in the world who would ever be interested in joining a Greek house.</p>
The article also says the death was ruled a suicide. Obviously, I haven’t seen the actual death certificate and am no expert on such things anyway, but don’t they generally list both cause of death and manner of death? On the few I’ve seen, at least in my state, they generally list a few causes and contributing causes and under manner they might put “homicide” or “suicide”.</p>
<p>I believe someone could have cancer and a whole host of other things contributing to their demise and if their heart just stops while they are in the hospital they might put “heart failure” as the primary cause. But like I said, I’m not doctor.</p>
<p>Of course, nobody on here can know for sure. And yeah, I guess that is a sloppy interpetation of the term “cause” in the headline.</p>
<p>And it’s still very sad no matter how you look at it.</p>
<p>I hate to say this but that ^^^ was exactly what some of the Japanese youth automatcally speculated the moment when the first news broke, knowing what this boy looked like.
let’s not go down to their mindset. We are parents, no?</p>
<p>^^^I’m not speculating about anything. I’m just talking about how they write death certificates. I do feel a little weird talking about it at all, but it is a news item.</p>
<p>We are parents and therefore are concerned about young people being aware of all of the dangers that could take their lives, whatever they may be.</p>
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<p>The article doesn’t say it; the headline does. Headlines are not necessarily accurate, and are often written by someone other than the person who wrote the article.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, autoerotic asphyxiation is too common, and does cause unintentional/accidental death. And it is listed as self-inflicted asphyxiation on death certificates. This thought process is not going down to a bad or immature mind set, but accepting that this may be a tragic accident, as poetgrl stated, rather than a desire to end his life. </p>