Suicide at Penn

Colleges and Universities A-Z University of Pennsylvania
21

Suicide is interesting demographically.

On average there are 120 suicides per day in the US. Men commit suicide at three and a half times the rate of women, and white men commit suicide more often than anyone. 7 in 10 suicides are committed by white men. Black women rarely kill themselves.

In 2015, the highest suicide rate (19.6) was among adults between 45 and 64 years of age. The second highest rate (19.4) occurred in those 85 years or older. Younger groups have had consistently lower suicide rates than middle-aged and older adults.

22

Disagree with the logic above. If the college in question is too high pressure for you, too “pressure cooker”, make another choice. There are so many great colleges out there. Choose one that fits. Choose not to be part of that game if it bothers you or it is an environment you don’t like. If you are a parent, counsel your child in a different direction. We have free will, do we not? We don’t need to compete in anything, march like a lemming, or join the rat race if we don’t want to. There are many paths to success (including med school) that don’t hinge on US News rankings.

23

While I agree that students should find environments where they can balance their educational and social interests, suggesting that students avoid the “Pressure cooker” might be a bit too much to ask of 17 and 18 year olds. This website basically exists to help parents and the occasional student find the secret path to the most selective, most reputable, “most ivy” (looking at another popular thread right now) school possible. There is the occasional guilty thread about “did I do the right thing”…but this site exists because of the rankings so many find worthless or deplorable.

Imagine the conversation at home and school when Johnny walks in and says “I got into Penn, but I’m going to Elizabethtown because I have to step off the rat race”. ROI, prestige…all of the reasons it is a mistake will flow at that person for the rest of their lives.

I don’t believe that schools are to blame for a lot of the pressure (I think they enjoy the struggle to get into their schools, but once you’re there I don’t think they try to make things harder), but as custodians of these young adults I feel they have a responsibility to find ways to support those who struggle to cope with their coming of age and the pressures that accompany it. Penn should be doing everything possible to find these kids and help them. These are generally the kids you admired in your children’s class…who are being bombarded with messages about their difficult futures and the need to be the best. They already are the best…and can’t stop to appreciate it.

24

"“I got into Penn, but I’m going to Elizabethtown because I have to step off the rat race”

There’s a big range available between those two examples but I’ll let you have your literary hyperbole. :wink:

There are actually many stories and threads on CC of taking the less prestigious path for a variety of reasons - fit, health, financial to name a few. Sure, there is a lot of focus on this website on prestige but where does that desire for prestige get created in the first place? All I’m saying is don’t blame the colleges for that kind of outlook and worship.

I do think places like Penn are doing a whole bunch to help students but you can’t force students to use the resources at hand.

25

About “weeder classes”

Yep, it’s stressful when “Johnny 4.0 gpa” gets his first D in Calc 2 or Organic Chem 2 and feels like his world is crumbling. How could he gasp fail one of these classes?

Weeder classes are important and they are helpful. They teach you one of two things…

  1. How to fail and get up, try harder, and persist. How to buckle down, develop a new strategy, and cope with adversity. All of these are valuable lessons...particularly for kids who have never had any experience with true academic challenge.

or

  1. That the major you've been talking about is realistically not something you're cut out to do. That the classes will only get harder and more demanding and maybe you'd be smarter to cut your losses and change direction.

We need weeder classes.

Many of these students are going into careers that make the stress of a difficult class look like child’s play. They’re a rite of passage. They test your metal.

So, No, IMO “kinder gentler weeder classes” is not the answer. Infantalizing students does not help them…it pushes the point they hit the wall father down the road and can cost tens of thousands in coursework for a major that can’t be completed.

26

I am a huge Penn fan, but I Just want to throw out here to all of you who are saying that Penn is doing a great job w CAPs and mental health initiatives that you are sadly wrong. My son has heard CAPS is worse than the food and he HATES the food and dining. He is not a picky eater- If its known for being worse than the food/ dining- trust me - it is not worth a grain of salt.

My son hasn’t needed any help so he hasn’t tried firsthand, but he knows students that have reached out, and he says they are always complaining… He has heard its next to impossible to get an appointment and then you are only allowed a couple of appointments and they aren’t helpful anyway.

To any parent reading that has a student with any remote mental health issues considering Penn -get them set up with real access to real mental health care in Philly and do not rely on the school! Philly has some of the best medical care in the world, I am sure the mental health care is probably top notch too.

What I have noticed as a parent at Penn trying to navigate the system -sign up, pay for things, etc is that the computer website system is archaic and disjointed. Different departments don’t coordinate with others. Everything is way more stressful to do than it has to be. They expect the students to be advocates for themselves but trust me dealing with the administrative aspect of this school is really stressful, IMO. I hear so much info about things that help the school year run smoother through word of mouth only and I cant find that info online. (even little things Like when you can convert swipes to dining dollars in the semester and at what rate? Before you know it you missed the deadline) I have another son at a state school and its so much easier to navigate and run more efficiently.

They need to update the whole website /server /how it runs and link things together so things can be processed electronically better. I think that would relieve some stress on students.

27

I have 15 years of experience in suicide prevention and intervention. I’m not a psychologist or psychiatrist but I’m a link in the chain of resources. As @doschicos said, if a student is experiencing depression or anxiety, the school counseling center is not the answer nor is the family doc. This requires special treatment that is beyond a licensed clinical counselor in most cases. Increasingly I think stressful situations amplify existing depression/anxiety, not cause it.

There are two pressure cookers being discussed here, admissions and success in an elite college. The admissions pressure is not the fault of the Ivies or any other college. The internet, CC, Common App, and other similar factors have driven up applications to top schools. More applications equals more competition. Colleges don’t arbitrarily drive up SAT requirements, supply and demand does.

This is a tangent but the biggest thing parents and posters can do is defeat the dream school premise. D1 applied to two Ivies, USC, and a mix of public/private with shots at merit. There were a couple she didn’t favor but knew she would be fine at one of the two state schools in her list just as much as her number one choice. I was proud of her for that attitude and it’s the one that helps manage stress in competitive situations.

I think it was Money Ball (the book) that discussed the philosophy of the best hitters in baseball. When taking a group of equally talented hitters, the one who could shake off the strike out as “the pitcher won that one” was the hitter who would have the best average. The one who stepped up to the plate the next time fearing another strike out was likely to have a self fulfilling fear.

Back to depression, I read recently that the mind is the final frontier more than space or the depths of the oceans. We are a long way from solving depression/anxiety but identifying it and treating it from a multitude of angles is key. That is counseling from the right professional, meds if necessary, and a change of environment if necessary.

There are no simple answers or easy targets to blame.

28

If you don’t think colleges are intentionally turning the screws, read this:

https://mobile.nytimes.com/2010/11/07/education/edlife/07HOOVER-t.html

29

The linked article is still about admissions, not life as an undergrad. Colleges play a part in the admissions circus but I still maintain CC, parents, students, common app, etc. are part of the decrease admission rates.

But the issue at hand in this thread is pressure by colleges to undergrads. I believe colleges offer far more than they did in the past and parents and students must accept individual responsibility for getting the help they need whether that is outside medical care or making the difficult decision to transfer.

Most attend the top colleges because they want to enter competitive professions. The stress doesn’t go down in the workplace. Adults must learn to deal with stress or make the decision that certain situations are too much stress for their personality, situation, etc.

Adults self-select to some degree in the work force. I work in a semi-stressful field but even if given the opportunity, I would have no desire to go into investment banking on Wall Street. It’s not for me. If I was given that job and complained about the stress, that is my choice of a poor fit, not the fault of the institution.

30

@Sportsman88 - if you create a more crazed admissions culture, and accept students that are accomplished in fairly narrow ways (SAT scores, grades, etc.), why would the madness stop once they set foot on campus? Students at top schools are constantly told how their class is the best, most selective class ever, that they were selected from 30,000 applications, etc. Why would that culture stop when they arrive?

31

@Cue7 and @Sportsman88 I think you are both right, and both make good points regarding this issue.

But @Sportsman88 lets not forget these aren’t adults. You keep mentioning adults. These ages aren’t able to self select the amounts of stress they are able to handle for the simple reason that their brains haven’t fully matured/developed and just flat out dont work in an adult fashion.

From https://www.urmc.rochester.edu/encyclopedia/content.aspx?ContentTypeID=1&ContentID=3051
"It doesn’t matter how smart teens are or how well they scored on the SAT or ACT. Good judgment isn’t something they can excel in, at least not yet.

The rational part of a teen’s brain isn’t fully developed and won’t be until age 25 or so.

In fact, recent research has found that adult and teen brains work differently. Adults think with the prefrontal cortex, the brain’s rational part. This is the part of the brain that responds to situations with good judgment and an awareness of long-term consequences. Teens process information with the amygdala. This is the emotional part.

In teen’s brains, the connections between the emotional part of the brain and the decision-making center are still developing—and not necessarily at the same rate. That’s why when teens experience overwhelming emotional input, they can’t explain later what they were thinking. They weren’t thinking as much as they were feeling."

IMO, @Cue7 is dead right when he says the colleges are feeding the emotional impact frenzy of crazed admissions process and do have further responsibility towards lessoning the stresses during the school year and I personally don’t think weed out classes and a hyper-competitive club culture is the answer. Throw in a stressful administrative/financial aid/ archaic computer class scheduling finding/ user system and you have a recipe for overload.

My opinion is the school(s) need to do more and I think reducing the number of students in classes and maybe not throwing them into killer curve classes designed to weed them out their freshman year (just as they are being rejected by multiple clubs) and having a more user friendly administrative system are good starts…

I have just been informed by my son btw that Penn is actively working on the new computer platform (he said it was like 18 yrs old?) and limiting the hyper stress club process so I do think they want to reduce the stress and rejection…

I was on campus last weekend and saw in every building and all over campus posters of the love sign and a message that read “hate has no place at Penn”… it made me feel good to see and I think little steps like that do matter… I really do get the feeling that students here want each other to succeed and don’t necessarily want a cut throat sink or swim environment even if they want to enter a competitive profession.

edited to add esp when some of them are spending their entire family savings - lets not forget that stress component.

32

“IMO, @Cue7 is dead right when he says the colleges are feeding the emotional impact frenzy of crazed admissions process and do have further responsibility towards lessoning the stresses during the school year and I personally don’t think weed out classes and a hyper-competitive club culture is the answer. Throw in a stressful administrative/financial aid/ archaic computer class scheduling finding/ user system and you have a recipe for overload.”

There are plenty of outstanding colleges that don’t have things like competitive club culture and stressful administrative and scheduling systems. Folks need to focus away from the prestige, kick the tires, and find better fits. It’s out there.

33

I have to say that I am perplexed that after a suicide posters often blame the high pressure environment and competition for grade.

Then on other threads, some of the same posters talk about the rampant grade inflation and how everyone gets an A at Ivy League schools.

How can it be both?

34

^^because there are some Ivies that do inflate grades and others that don’t. It’s also dependent on the major

35

@Much21eam Went on a Princeton campus tour couple years ago, hearing the presenter spoke that the school now used deflate grades (grade curve) to respond previous perception of grade inflation. Then I asked the student tour guide how Princeton students would be able to compete with other top schools’ graduates for post graduate school entrance. The student tour guide said Princeton would send (maybe request by the student) out letter to the graduate schools explain the deflate grade policy along with the general curve chart to the graduate schools to figure out what the applicant stands within the general student body in the same field of study (sort like HS class rank, I guess).

36

Please remember that for someone who has a mental illness, even “just” anxiety, it’s not the rigor of the school but the pressure they put on themselves that can lead to suicide. So the effort really needs to be on getting kids into therapy who need it. My daughter tells me that plenty of kids at her school, Susquehanna U., are stressed. She has cajoled several of them into seeing counselors, and it has helped them a lot.