<p>out of curiosity... what is the suicide rate at cornell? why do people say that cornell has the highest suicide rate? Is it the ready availability of bridges to jump off of? Is it the dreary weather? Is it the impersonal attitute of the administration? Is it that the school is just really really hard?</p>
<p>Cornell does have a lot of bridges to jump off of. It does have pretty sucky weather. The admin is pretty impresonal. And the school can be pretty tough.</p>
<p>...But it's suicide rate is right around the national average.</p>
<p>Isnt it below the national average?</p>
<p>The suicide rate is NOT the highest suicide rate ( I don't know what it is in relation to the national average- I do think that it is a bit below). The only reason this rumor exists is because in the 80's, one of the newsmagazine shows did a special on suicide at college, and naturally, they picked Cornell, and the association has been the same since. The rumor is also propogated because Cornell is known for having a rigorous course of study for any student.</p>
<p>norcalguy - Cornell does have a lot of really high bridges to jump off of... didn't they just put a fence or barrier on a bridge to prevent Cornell students from jumping off it?</p>
<p>They probably put a fence or barrier to prevent drunken idiots from jumping off it.</p>
<p>Cornell's suicide rate is below the national average and I think I also read it's below the ivy league average as well.</p>
<p>100%</p>
<p>everyone that goes there dies</p>
<p>One reason we're reputed for having a higher suicide rate is that the townspeople--not college students--use our campus when THEY want to commit suicide.</p>
<p>shizz ~ y do u think people there die?</p>
<p>probably, at niagara falls there is a suicide everyday- well maybe not everyday but often, but they are never reported in the news. my science teacher told my class that last year.</p>
<p>We haven't had any this yr...none last yr, just a drunken accident</p>
<p>There was on last year, but not on campus. It was during thr winter break.</p>
<p>To clear the story up the death last year was an accident, not suicide. The student's name was Dan Pirfo, he was trying to get back to his dorm after a party, and tried to take a shortcut by hopping a fence.</p>
<p>Very sad, but not suicide.</p>
<p>So for at least two years there have been no suicides.</p>
<p>And yes, cornell has a lot of high bridges. Yes, there are railings. The bridges have great views of scenic waterfalls and gorges. They have higher railings on the suspension bridge, but it obstructs the view somewhat. You would have to physically climb the rails or jump over them. . .to accidentally fall in, even while intoxicated, would be pretty unlikely without physically climbing over them.</p>
<p>here is my oft repeated canned response on this tired red herring...</p>
<p>Here are some quotes from the February, 2001 Boston Globe article on college suicides, the only such study I have seen. It was mostly about MIT.</p>
<p>"Students at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have been far more likely to kill themselves over the past decade compared to those at 11 other universities with elite science and engineering programs - 38 percent more often than the next school, Harvard, and four times more than campuses with the lowest rate - a Globe study has found."</p>
<p>"MIT's rate stands at 20.6 undergraduate deaths per 100,000 students since 1990. For the comparable age group in the United States, 17- to 22-year-olds, the rate is 13.5 per 100,000. At all colleges, experts estimate, about 7 undergraduates per 100,000 kill themselves. Calculations based on 100,000 are used by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and other experts to compare deaths among populations."</p>
<p>"The rate at Harvard, with total annual enrollment of about 18,500, was 7.4, with 15 suicides since 1990. The rate at Johns Hopkins was 7, and at Cornell, 5.7. At some public universities that compete for students with MIT, incident rates were also lower: The University of Michigan, which enrolls about 37,000 students a year, had a rate of 2.5."</p>
<p>The full Boston Globe article can be purchased from Boston.com.</p>
<p>The student newspaper at MIT published an article in February, 2000, which provides a snippet of information about Cornell:</p>
<p>"Cornell University is one peer institution that does maintain moderately complete records of their student deaths in response to a common perception that they have a high suicide rate. Cornell had eight students take their own lives in the past ten years. With about 19,000 students on campus, Cornell has a suicide rate of about 4.3 per 100,000 student years for that time period, far below both MIT and national rates."</p>
<p>The full MIT article is located here:
<a href="http://www-tech.mit.edu/V120/N6/comp6.6n.html%5B/url%5D">http://www-tech.mit.edu/V120/N6/comp6.6n.html</a></p>
<p>My summary: The national college undergraduate suicide rate is 7 per 100,000, which is actually much lower (about half) than the rate for all people of college age. Cornell's rate, likely taken from 1990-2000, is around 4.3 to 5.7. MIT's rate is much higher, but there is no full national study of all universities to show which school has the highest. In fact, both of the above articles state that several schools refuse to provide suicide data or do not keep track, including Princeton, Stanford, Columbia, the University of Pennsylvania, Carnegie Mellon, and Yale. </p>
<p>This is the latest data I could find on school suicides. Draw your own conclusions.</p>
<p>It's not that high, just dramatic (high bridges). Here's how it goes:</p>
<p>Freshman: "Wow that bridge is high"
Sophomores: "If this gets any worse I'll jump of the bridge"
Juniors: "I'm so mad I'll throw someone off that bridge"
Senior: "Bridge? What bridge?"</p>
<p>When I visited I had a chat with a professor about this and he said they had considered putting up fences on some of the bridges, but in the end they decided not to because it would be an eyesore. Translation: either Cornell doesn't care about it's students or, the more likely choice, it's really not as big a problem as they make it out to be.</p>
<p>
[quote]
the more likely choice, it's really not as big a problem as they make it out to be
[/quote]
</p>
<p>BINGO!</p>
<p>You broke the code. This is a non-issue. Not sure who "they" are in your sentence. Probably the same people that traffic in all urban legends...these are the same folks that say that Cornell is "pressure cooker" and is "the hardest ivy to get out of"</p>
<p>Cornell offers an amazing educational environment in a vacation-land setting. End of story.</p>
<p>Are there any bridges without fences at Cornell? Anyway, the bridge linking north campus to the main campus is undergoing renovation. According to the Cornell Daily Sun, this renovation is to widen the bridge and include bike lanes, and part of this renovation "will include higher railings and additional lighting."</p>
<p>Whoa there are bridges without fences? isn't that super dangerous</p>