palestra38
Professor
Posts: 32682
Reg: 11-21-04
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09-05-17 10:14 PM - Post#232655
In response to rbg
There have been many good comments here. I just wonder whether the massive change in competitiveness between Penn in the '70s and '80s and now has resulted in a student body that doesn't have other outlets to express anger and depression---such as spectator sports. I think it is not a coincidence that students are not interested in Penn basketball...or Phillies (or Mets/Yankee/Red Sox) baseball or pro football as was the case then. The kind of student who essentially has to work frenetically in high school to attend an Ivy university gets to college already burned out to a certain extent, yet feels tremendous pressure to achieve. That wasn't the case before AP courses (or when there were 2 or 3 of them in senior year at most), SAT tutors, private college guidance counselors and summer pre-college programs. I think that in moving from admitting more rounded students to the highest high school achievers, we select for this problem as well. A lot of the blame, I believe, goes to the common application---the highest achievers now apply to 20 schools or more rather than 3 or 4. Thus, the competitiveness of the application process has increased exponentially. I would like to see the statistics between the competitiveness of the school's admission process and the suicide rate.
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