<p>Greenshirt,</p>
<p>You're correct on all counts...</p>
<p>Wharf</p>
<p>All kidding aside, the image thing is a problem. I'm very surprised at how pervasive the myth about Cornell's suicide rate is. I think Cornell should emphasize the fact that stats show that their suicide rate is around the national average. Maybe they can come up with a catchy slogan or something: "The statistics don't lie, Cornell kids don't like to die."</p>
<p>Yeah. A lot of people I know think that Cornell is the "suicide school."</p>
<p>Why commit suicide when you can just eat delicious, collegemade ice cream to soothe your depression? =P</p>
<p>Seriously, the suicide rumor has probably been exacerbated by kids from other colleges who are jealous of Cornell's beautiful gorges.</p>
<p>that's what I'm talkin about funkyspoon! lol, the ice cream is really amazing though :D :D</p>
<p>Hey Guys,
I suggest that you just let this thread die. If you check the OP's other posts, Cornell is not one of the schools he/she is interested in. This thread is clearly meant to start a "flame war".</p>
<p>yeah, but it gives us an oportunity to talk about the ice cream :) !! hahaha</p>
<p>Funkyspoon, your post was very much appreciated around here. Thank you. Brown is an awesome school and I can only wish was innovative enough to pick some of my own curriculum. :)</p>
<p>As for the creator of this thread -- Just another statistics wh0re obsessed with prestige and numbers, not Cornell's wonderful colleges and majors. I agree, this can die now.</p>
<p>Overall, if you tell someone that you are going to Cornell, their mouth is going to drop down to their knees and hang for a while until they remember to pick it up. Cornell is one of the best universities out there, period, and unless you're talking to a complete snob, people will congratulate you on such an achievement. </p>
<p>And you get ice cream.
And pretty gorges.
And freaking WEGMAN'S. ;-)</p>
<p>yeah, some ppl have looked at me like i'm wierd or something...it freaks me out.</p>
<p>Cornell has suffered as of late because going to college in an isolated enclave of academia is not in vogue at the moment.</p>
<p>As falling crime rates and gentrification of the bad neighborhoods in which all urban Ivies managed to find themselves progresses, being in an urban environment becomes an asset, not a liability.</p>
<p>This is not just for students, but for faculty as well. All the other Ivies (except for Dartmouth) are along the Northeast Corridor, and some (Columbia, Penn, Harvard) are located in major cities that provide cultural and recreational opportunities that you just won't find in Ithaca.</p>
<p>Then again, other potential faculty might really like the beautiful scenery and still prefer the ideal of the academic 'city on a hill.'</p>
<p>So in the end, it's a wash and I just like hearing myself talk...er...type.</p>
<p>The upside of Common App is higher admissions...the downside is lower yield.</p>
<p>And FroGro is sooo much better than Wegmans</p>
<p>i still don't see many yalies venture very far from Yale....whereas with us...we have treman park and buttermilk fall (because the waterfall looks like it) when we venture just a little farther out. i'm training with a former bio professor at cornell, and although he's retired, he is still at cornell. he loves it here.</p>
<p>Can anybody comment on Cornell's biology and premed program? Any stat bout it?</p>
<p>HEY U GUYS
Is it true the Cornell is the best architecture School...US news doesn hv architecture rankings!!</p>
<p>It is not newsworthy for the ranking to stay the same year to year. With that said if you dig, not even deep, you will find plenty dissatisfied alumni from H, P, Y, and C along with the articles about how each school is slipping. Last I heard US education in general was slipping. </p>
<p>The highest suicide rate in the country? Well somebody got to be the highest. I mean how many people per year are we talking about? Cornell is a HUGE school! Anyhow I dont think Cornell has Golden Gates bridge syndrome. </p>
<p>Not to long ago I heard over and over that William and Mary had the highest suicide rates in the country. I must be having a death wish, as I applied to both.</p>
<p>P.S. One funny (not funny) thing I read on Cornells site in regards to suicides was, there were no reported suicides during 1995 by students CURRENTLY attending Cornell. DUH!</p>
<p>Although Cornell's one of my two first choices and I'm accepted,
i think what JohnnyK said was true in fact.</p>
<p>I mean, basically I would choose Cornell in a heartbeat, if it were in Boston or San Diego. (I really like city and want to get out of my slow moving rural town)</p>
<p>Yet I still think Cornell's up there in academia and industry</p>
<p>P.S : btw, at least people I've met (I am not trying to say it is true, I am just saying my experience), Cornell is NOT so popular (or whatever) as much as LilacGirl mentioned. My friends do not know Cornell at all. Many others, many are college graduates, do not even know it's an ivy, do not know where it is, or compare to state schools. (i've never had that jaw dropping experience)... Yet I love Cornell. (except it's location.. eww -_-)</p>
<p>dreaming, where are you from? I'm from NY, so everyone knows it's tops here. I have a hard time believing there's a lot of people in the country that haven't heard of it, but whatever you say. Regardless, we all know it's a great school. So why care what <em>other people who don't go there</em> think?</p>
<p>true, people who need to know, know it's a great school.</p>
<p>i'm from florida and perhaps my friends are not so college-bounded.</p>
<p>Yeah dreaming, where do you live? Maybe in Ithica? (Joke from other thread.) To back up the New York crew, Jerseyans know how awesome Cornell is as well. :) Around here it has more name recognition than Brown or Dartmouth.</p>
<p>Here is a reprint of a 2001 article from the Cornell Daily Sun discussing a Boston Globe survey regarding college suicide rates. [I haven't yet figured out how to include a link.] I hope this contributes to dispelling the myth that Cornell is the "suicide college." In the period evaluated, MIT and Harvard had higher rates than Cornell. I never hear of students turning down Harvard because of its high suicide rate. </p>
<p>Relatedly, I recall reading a newspaper article appearing last year (after the 5th or 6th suicide at NYU) that reported that in general, college students have lower suicide rates than their non-college age peers.</p>
<p>"MIT, Harvard have highest suicide rates; Cornell U. not as high as believed </p>
<p>By Ariane Bernard </p>
<p>Cornell Daily Sun (Cornell U.)
02/13/2001 </p>
<p>(U-WIRE) ITHACA, N.Y. -- Dismissing the popular belief that stress and competition at Cornell University lead a greater-than-average number of students to commit suicide, the Boston Globe published a survey last week revealing that Cornellians are actually less likely to take their own lives than students at colleges nationwide.
From 1990 to 2000, nine students killed themselves at Cornell, representing 5.7 student deaths per 100,000 per year, according to the article. These statistics put Cornell in the fourth position out of the eleven peer institutions the Globe ranked. </p>
<p>With eleven suicides in the same number of years, a student death rate of 10.2, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) far surpassed Harvard University (7.4 deaths per 100,000 per year) and Duke University (6.1 suicides per 100,000 per year). MIT's suicide rate is also 53 percent greater than the national average among college students, which is 10 per 100,000 per year. </p>
<p>Although each suicide remains a personal tragedy, "the data that we have suggests that we have lower than average suicides; we have done relatively well," said Dean John E. Hopcroft, College of Engineering. </p>
<p>With an undergraduate rate of 7.4 students deaths per 100,000 per year (according to the survey data), over the last two years, the engineering college is on the high end of the University's suicide rate. The college, which enrolls 2,700 undergraduate students each year, still had two voluntary undergraduate deaths in the last 10 years. </p>
<p>To increase suicide and crisis prevention, the college expanded its student services, which, in conjunction with University Health Services, work to identify suicidal students and "try to make them feel connected" with the school, Hopcroft explained. </p>
<p>Other programs during engineering students' first year seek to develop this connection, such as the mandatory weekly meeting with advisors, or the Freshman Writing Seminar, which ensures that "all engineering freshmen have two courses with fewer than 30 students" each week their first semester, the Dean added. </p>
<p>Across the University, Counseling and Psychological Services (CAPS) identified 589 students last year who presented signs of depression as their "entering complaint," making it the most common grievance of the student body, said Dr. Phil Meilman, director of CAPS. He did stress, however, that not all students with signs of depression were suicidal. </p>
<p>Surveys estimate that 20 to 65 percent of students have, at some point in their lives, entertained suicidal thoughts. Suicidal thinking "is actually not uncommon," Meilman said. </p>
<p>"Completed suicide" at Cornell remains scarce, although "each suicide is one too many," Meilman noted. </p>
<p>Whether it is because of good counseling or circumstances, "it's hard to really trace (this rate) to cause or effect," said Tanni Hall, the acting dean of students. "Statistics are tricky." </p>
<p>Zeynep Kayhan '04 was one student who was not surprised by the Globe's survey. "At other schools that don't have the same academic reputation, [student suicides] don't catch the eye as much as they do here," she theorized. </p>
<p>Despite the wealth of services the University offers to find guidance and counseling in times of crisis or doubt, "students who commit suicide tend not to seek mental healthcare," Meilman said, adding that this was a common finding at Cornell, and at other college counseling services in the country. </p>
<p>"People need to look after one another, that's what caring means," Meilman said. "I am absolutely convinced that a significant number of lives have been saved by the timely intervention of friends, Resident Advisors, parents, and faculty," he said. </p>
<p>The Empathy, Assistance and Referral Services (EARS) trains students to answer their fellow Cornellians' distress calls. </p>
<p>The service, generally staffed by two student volunteers every night, answered 640 calls last year, 20 of those being from "students in distress," Simpkins said. The counseling hotline provides referral to University and outside advisors and therapists and creates a link with the caller. </p>
<p>"Listening is really helpful," said Sarah Simpkins, advisor for EARS. </p>
<p>Nevertheless, in regard to the nine student suicides over the past ten years, Simpkins feels that "the need for counseling has increased and the ability to meet that demand has not quite increased." </p>
<p>Echoing this position, Hall added that she felt the North Campus Residential Initiative and the West Campus Living Learning Community would have "a lot of support services built into them." </p>
<p>The Globe survey used data provided by the ranked colleges. Among 12 others, fellow Ivy League schools Columbia University, Princeton University, University of Pennsylvania and Yale University, declined to provide information to the daily. "</p>