Story from Princeton of two sons dying by suicide by train . . . No words. How could you keep on living yourself, as their parents? Heartbreaking. And heartbreaking that so many college students are in such despair. We are at 50,000 suicides per year in the US, so the problem is not confined to college campuses. It is staggering the despair and depression.

These kids are on a never-ending treadmill. It makes me so sad. Within a few months of showing up at a top school after knocking themselves out in HS, they are already worried about getting a succession of impressive, crowd-pleasing summer internships. Everything has been pulled forward from my own experience in college. I have a college sophomore at a top school and she started her sophomore summer search last July and just got an offer for this summer, but had already begun the junior summer (2025) internship search — a year and a half away. There was an overlap period of several weeks where she was doing parallel internship searches for 2024 AND 2025. There is so much pressure to do well academically, get all the right internships and job experiences and granularly plan out one’s life for the next 10 years. And, then post the whole thing on Instagram, LinkedIn etc., for the world to see. This occurs against a backdrop of a sea change in the job market. We shouldn’t be surprised when they wonder, “is this all worth it?” and “why am I doing this?”. I try to convince my DD to take one day at a time and figure it all out as she goes along, as I did, but that hasn’t been especially persuasive to this generation. I worry that the opportunities for today’s kids coming out of a place like Princeton perhaps really are fewer and that is what they see and feel. 30 years ago the vast majority of the graduating class would go on to have productive and meaningful lives and maybe a much smaller subset of the class will do that now, or perversely really big opportunities for a very select few.

Anonymous wrote:I know one of the victims.

It’s a bad environment right now. Toxic. Too much pressure. Grade deflation.

Can you speak more about the toxicity? Inflicted by faculty or self imposed by high achieving students?

Sometimes I wonder if you get the thing you want (admission to princeton) - and it doesn't turn out to be what you had hoped for / or solved all your problems .... I can see that sending someone spiraling

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Grade deflation, which really isn’t an issue at Princeton - is way over simplifying it. Another student recently was struck by a train and died. His mother is the director of the creative writing program, and has written about her own suicide attempts and depression. In a separate incident some years ago, her older child was also struck by a train and died by suicide.

This is a heartbreaking story

Saddest thing I have ever read. That poor woman.

Dartmouth has also had quite a few student deaths in recent years.

Anonymous wrote:Grade deflation, which really isn’t an issue at Princeton - is way over simplifying it. Another student recently was struck by a train and died. His mother is the director of the creative writing program, and has written about her own suicide attempts and depression. In a separate incident some years ago, her older child was also struck by a train and died by suicide.

This is a heartbreaking story

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Grade deflation, which really isn’t an issue at Princeton - is way over simplifying it. Another student recently was struck by a train and died. His mother is the director of the creative writing program, and has written about her own suicide attempts and depression. In a separate incident some years ago, her older child was also struck by a train and died by suicide.

Twos two children dying by suicide and same method?

Yeah - so sad.😞 It is now at least 7 suicides at Princeton in less than 2 years.

Anonymous wrote:This is sad, news of suicides mostly came from U of Penn and Cornell, Princeton was supposed to be a better place for mental health support.

It is so sad we have to even discuss this statistic but mental health is a pervasive issue among all colleges. The Cornell data is outdated and is randomly brought up as a major fixture related to the school. Not to say mental health is all hunky dory everywhere. Yale has even sadder reports.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Grade deflation, which really isn’t an issue at Princeton - is way over simplifying it. Another student recently was struck by a train and died. His mother is the director of the creative writing program, and has written about her own suicide attempts and depression. In a separate incident some years ago, her older child was also struck by a train and died by suicide.

Twos two children dying by suicide and same method?

Seems to be the case, though I believe the more recent death that occurred last week is still under investigation.

Anonymous wrote:Grade deflation, which really isn’t an issue at Princeton - is way over simplifying it. Another student recently was struck by a train and died. His mother is the director of the creative writing program, and has written about her own suicide attempts and depression. In a separate incident some years ago, her older child was also struck by a train and died by suicide.

Twos two children dying by suicide and same method?

Grade deflation, which really isn’t an issue at Princeton - is way over simplifying it. Another student recently was struck by a train and died. His mother is the director of the creative writing program, and has written about her own suicide attempts and depression. In a separate incident some years ago, her older child was also struck by a train and died by suicide.

This breaks my heart. How absolutely unbelievably sad.

Yale’s avg gpa is 3.82

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Grade deflation at Princeton makes it worse than other places

The grade deflation policy was lifted in 2014. The average GPA is 3.56 now.

I think the issue just has to do with the pressure that the types of kids admitted to top schools typically feel now to excel at everything. If the first real challenge in your life happens when you’re away from home surrounded by other high-achieving kids, you’re more prone to think of yourself as a failure or an imposter.

That's still pretty low. The Crimson estimates the average GPA at Harvard at 3.8.

Anonymous wrote:Grade deflation at Princeton makes it worse than other places

The grade deflation policy was lifted in 2014. The average GPA is 3.56 now.

I think the issue just has to do with the pressure that the types of kids admitted to top schools typically feel now to excel at everything. If the first real challenge in your life happens when you’re away from home surrounded by other high-achieving kids, you’re more prone to think of yourself as a failure or an imposter.