<p>Ok as I read these posts I can't help but notice a large percentage of them saying Cornell has a large suicide rate. This is a really scary thought. I hope this not to be true and these are just people giving the school a bad rep because they got rejected. How true are these rumors. And if they are true, did they commit suicide in the dorms?</p>
<p>I think it has the reputation because many of the suicides are dramatic (jumps off bridges into the gorges inevitably end up being a public experience), and because sometimes several happen in a short span of time. For example, there were two suicides a day apart in March 2010, preceded by one in February, and three more in the fall semester. But before that they had been suicide-free since 2005.</p>
<p>Why does this happen?</p>
<p>I think since it’s an “easy” ivy to get into people underestimate the workload and get overwhelmed and stressed. Just what I think though.</p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/cornell-university/951598-mom-has-misconceptions-because-suicides.html?[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/cornell-university/951598-mom-has-misconceptions-because-suicides.html?</a></p>
<p>Cornell’s rate is the same as or below average. [MetaEzra</a> – Cornell’s Suicide Rate: Still Lower Than Average](<a href=“http://www.metaezra.com/archive/2010/07/cornells_suicide_rate_still_lo.shtml]MetaEzra”>MetaEzra -- Cornell's Suicide Rate: Still Lower Than Average)</p>
<p>I hate to inject facts into the discussion, but:</p>
<p>[Hopkins</a> suicide rate in line with national college trend - News](<a href=“http://media.www.jhunewsletter.com/media/storage/paper932/news/2006/04/20/News/Hopkins.Suicide.Rate.In.Line.With.National.College.Trend-2242150.shtml]Hopkins”>http://media.www.jhunewsletter.com/media/storage/paper932/news/2006/04/20/News/Hopkins.Suicide.Rate.In.Line.With.National.College.Trend-2242150.shtml)</p>
<p>According to the 2006 article,</p>
<p>The national average suicide rate for college students is 7.5 deaths per 100,000 students
MIT has a suicide rate of 10.2 deaths per 100,00 students
Johns Hopkins has suicide rate of 7.7 deaths per 100,000 students
Harvard has a suicide rate of 7.4 deaths per 100,000 students
Duke has a suicide rate of 6.1 deaths per 100,00 students</p>
<p>Cornell has a suicide rate of 5.7 deaths per 100,000 students</p>
<p>Clearly those statistics were before Cornell’s cluster of suicides in 2010, but there were NO suicides at Cornell between 2005 and 2010. </p>
<p>Clusters of dramatic leaps off bridges make headlines and they color our perceptions.</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Cornell does not have a high suicide rate. If NYC had 1000 suicides in 2010 and a small rural town in Idaho had 12, would you claim that NYC has a high suicide rate? Cornell is lower than average.</p></li>
<li><p>Like others said, some of them at Cornell are just more visible. At other schools, suicides are more likely to be in private places so others can’t find out about it, they won’t say whether it was a suicide or not, so it doesn’t get counted, or the cause of death is just not released by the family.</p></li>
<li><p>There is no evidence that any of the few suicides are Cornell was due to “stress” caused by academics. In fact, it is more likely that something like breaking up with a girlfriend would be the cause, but people like to jump to conclusions - “Obviously he had too much work, so we should make classes easier and put fences around everything!”</p></li>
</ol>
<p>Hope this settles the topic and people can stop posting about it (/■■■■■■■■?). If you are serious and are worried by these posts, stop worrying, there is nothing to worry about. Cornell’s beautiful gorges are so awesome to view that they probably prevent suicides by cheering people up (when they are without fences, at least).</p>
<p>Personally I get jokes about Cornell suicide a lot, and I almost never go home without someone joking about jumping into a gorge when the topic of Cornell comes up. Honestly I don’t understand how people continue to believe these things when, as previous posters have pointed out, the facts point to Cornell actually having rather few suicides considering its size. I used to try to explain to people that this was a myth, but people just don’t want to hear it. they want to believe that Cornell is some awful, stressful, boring place. So now I just nod and go along with it. It all comes down to the fact that Cornell has a large student body and, as mentioned, plunging to death in a gorge is a lot more notable than, say, hanging yourself in your room. You don’t walk into a dorm room and think “oh someone may have committed suicide in here”. However, you can look out over the beautiful gorges and instinctively feel a fear of falling/heights and can be constantly reminded of the possibility of death. Or, if you’re a normal person, you can just recognize the gorges as a unique and “gorgeous” part of Cornell.</p>
<p>suicide rates, as above posts, are not above the average. it is only because the media tends to emphasize these events a lot more that causes people to have a preconception that schools like cornell have a high suicide rate (which is not at all true)</p>