Another rant on mental health

[kellinator]

From the August 23, 2004 issue of Newsweek:

"MIT admissions dean Marilee Jones says she's looking to enroll 'emotionally resilient' students. 'If we think someone will crumble the first time they do poorly on an exam, we're not going to admit them,' she says. 'So many kids are coming in, feeling the need to be perfect, and so many kids are medicated now. If you need a lot of pharmaceutical support to get through the day, you're not a good match for a place like MIT.'"

Wow, how wonderful to see such sensitivity in a person working with teenagers.

There are so many things that offend me about this statement that I don't even know where to start. Are Prozac and Ritalin overprescribed? Certainly. Are there students with mental health issues who would be better served in smaller, more supportive environments than the pressure cooker of MIT? Without a doubt. Is it fair to expect universities to bear all the responsibilty for the problems of troubled students? I don't think so. Do some of these students need to just suck it up and deal? Probably. But still...

To me, what Dean Jones seems to be saying is, "There's so much pressure on students to be perfect, and we want to make sure they can do it without drugs. Because, you know, it's not real if you can't do it without drugs. Antidepressants are for wusses."

What about diabetic students who need insulin? Technically, that's pharmaceutical support. Can you imagine the outcry if Dean Jones said this, and rightly so? I believe they have something called the Americans with Disabilities Act that says you can't do that.

Perhaps MIT is trying to dodge some of the responsibility it must bear for creating an environment where suicides and nervous breakdowns are very real issues. They may be legally adults, but most eighteen-year-olds aren't ready to deal with extreme pressure, especially on top of huge life changes like college usually involves (moving, being away from your support network...). Maybe MIT doesn't feel that expending funds on decent mental health care is a worthy use of their dollars. Never mind the old adage that says "an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure."

During a final exam at the end of my first semester of Vanderbilt, I burst into tears and left the room to sob for twenty minutes. I got an A on that exam and went on to graduate summa cum laude. I suppose Dean Jones would have called me one of those problem students and rejected my application?

Or maybe I'm just bitter because I couldn't cut it in my grad school experience (at a school whose mental health services were much harder to obtain than those at Vanderbilt). So let's think over some of the others with mental health issues that MIT might pass over. Lincoln, Beethoven, Churchill, Van Gogh, just about every great writer of the twentieth century... would you tell them they couldn't come to your school?

EDIT: the1mouse has helpfully provided this link to the article.

Comments

[dwivian]

Special forces don't want to be out there under bullets and bombs, either. They are strike forces that pre-empt combat, when possible. It's just demolitions/surgical-strikes/recon, for pete's sake...

Designing heart valve replacements is just as stressful as setting up a listening station, and comes with the same sense of personal satisfaction when you get it right, and the same worry about injury to others when you fail.

[kellinator.livejournal.com]

YES!! YES!! YES, DAMMIT!! This is what I was trying to say!!!

[dwivian]

Wrong.

Colleges are not paid to provide an education.

They are paid to provide an OPPORTUNITY of education.

If you aren't up to the task of learning, it's not their fault.

Too many people make that mistake -- you aren't paying me to make you understand, but to give you the opportunity to grasp the knowledge. Some people won't get it, and some will do very well. The methods I elect to employ to teach you determine where I will work, and the ideology behind 'tear down, build up' is a sound one. I don't teach that way, myself, preferring to use anecodal analogs in cognative schema instantiation, and even THAT method has a 30% washout rate.

Oh, and being 18 doesn't make you an adult. I dare say that almost NONE of the kids at a college are really adults yet. If you wait until people have a well-rounded sense of maturity, they are often too far into their careers to go back to college for the paper that says they can do what they already are doing.

[dwivian]

So, you'd be in favor of removing GPA and ACT/SAT score requirements, as well? Or are those just additional arbitrary methods of determining who will do well or not before they get a chance to try?

[the1mouse.livejournal.com]

I want to wade in here, but I don't like taking quotes out of context... could someone scan and post the whole article???

[kellinator.livejournal.com]

Where in the fuck did I say anything about that?

Shouldn't a person with the academic potential be allowed to try and fail on their own?

I was talking about people who do have mental potential. I thought that would be obvious from the context and sariane's comment.

[theashifaction.livejournal.com]

when it comes to colleges like mit and the like these kids arent there so much to get an education as they are to be drafted. they can get the same education at their state colleges, but they wont have the level of competition with their peers which is what theyre seeking out. the pressure cooker you speak of isnt created by staff, but by the students themselves. and if you were a major league baseball team and you could only recruit a select few players for each season, are you going to go for the most consistent players or will you take a chance on the player who may or may not be able to play on the hamstring he tore last season?

[ex-poonarif.livejournal.com]

I agree...MIT is hardcore education. If you can't cut it, don't go there. Period. Some of the smartest people in the world attend MIT and are successful.

I don't think the school will turn down anyone who is on meds, but will turn down people with a significant mental disability....and by doing this, they cut down on people having to be hospitalized for mental issues that might not stem from attending MIT, but are heightened by the experience there.

In the long run, the school is a great place. I've lived in Boston, and MIT does great things. I really don't think they have a policy of descrimination. :)

[kellinator.livejournal.com]

I tried to link to the article in my original post but it was only available from the Newsweek website for pay. The article was about depression on college campuses and I quoted that part exactly as written. The rest of the article mainly focused on the steps other universities are taking to deal with the problem, which in my opinion makes MIT look even more short-sighted.

[the1mouse.livejournal.com]

I think I found it... This one didn't ask me for money: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5626585/site/newsweek/

[kellinator.livejournal.com]

You rock. I will edit to include the link.

[dslartoo.livejournal.com]

so then my question is, why is it necessary to turn a school into a pressure cooker?

Note that I didn't say I approved of a high-pressure environment. :) I don't think it IS necessary to have Extreme College (I went to UGA and dealt with it quite nicely; no high-pressure environment there other than that which I created for myself by being perfectionistic).

The fact remains, though, that some schools ARE performance-oriented and demand nothing less than perfection from their students. This is why only the ones with the best grades, the best records, the best brains get into said schools. MIT is one of those and always has been. If you know about that sort of thing up front, you should be prepared to deal with it going in. Just my two cents.

cheers,
Phil

[thystle.livejournal.com]

Except that doing well on GPA and SATs can show that you can cut it academically even if you are taking medication. Colleges take a lot into account in deciding who to accept or not - grades, extracurricular activities, etc. If they want to take into consideration mental health as well, I guess that is okay. But they should not just boil it down to only that. I think the main issue with this is that the quote makes it sound like they will automatically decline anyone taking medication. If that is true, I totally think that is ridiculous. But I really doubt that is true, even if it is how the quote comes across.

Semantics quibble

[rocketmelee.livejournal.com]

Sorry, but I paid my college to provide me with an education.

My professors -- they strove to provide me with an education.

My classes -- designed for the sole purpose of providing me and my fellow classmates with an education.

The students -- did not all necessarily walk away with the same level of education, but all had the same education provided for them by the college (broadly speaking).

Imagine, if you would, that education is a delicious banana split with all of the fixings. Some of the people who have ordered the banana split will immediately yum it right up. Some will linger over it, and need to take their time to finish, lest they feel ill or experience brainfreeze. Others will start the banana split, but will at some point realize that they don't like nuts, or the flavor of some of the ice cream, or that they're lactose intolerant, and they will leave a portion behind. Others will enjoy their frozen treat but simply won't be able to finish, and upon reaching their banana split saturation point they will stop eating. However, they will all have paid to be provided with the damned banana split, not the OPPORTUNITY to eat a banana split.

And now I'm hungry.

[ariedana.livejournal.com]

Anyone who's been to a top-flight school (or heck, any school) has had their "crumbling" moments. Heck, I ended up having a panic attack in the middle of a religious studies exam at UNC. We've all been there.

However, the only thing that's going to happen when college administrators make statements like this is that bright students are going to go in the closet with their mental health issues. They're going to either not get the help they need because they're afraid of the repercussions, or they'll sneak around to do it. And both of those things could cause even worse problems. It's very dangerous to make a judgement call that someone is weaker because they've actually had the strength to seek out help for their problems. And if someone went to the trouble of doing an anonymous poll of MIT grads asking them how many had sought psychiatric help during their collegiate years and then tracked their later success, I daresay that those who did seek help probably had greater success than many who didn't.

That said, I don't think it's a college's job to "coddle" anyone. It's their job to teach them. But I think that most of them manage to strattle the line between the two. This particular administrator is an exception to the rule, I think.

[thystle.livejournal.com]

That quote really is a dumb thing to say.
Whether or not you are on medication is no indication of mental or academic potential. Other mental and emotional issues that are not being treated, maybe. Just the fact of having pharmaceutical support, no.

[maradydd.livejournal.com]

By and large, MIT does not turn students into drooling mental patients. One of my best friends attended MIT and got his BS in four years; he's now a PhD student at Caltech and is one of the best-adjusted people I know despite some particularly nasty tragedies (including his family basically disowning him when it came out that he was gay). He knew almost no one who fell apart while there, and the one or two people of his acquaintance who did had some obvious problems to start with.

Universities have always selected their students based on whether they think the students will succeed or fail; did you think the SATs were a popularity contest? As a high school student, I applied early-decision to Rice University, who liked my high SAT scores but were uncertain about my B+-average grades; they requested an interim grade report during the spring, and turned me down because my grades had slipped and they didn't think I'd be able to hack their program. They may very well have been right, considering that I very nearly didn't graduate from my second-choice school.

Regardless of whether I had the potential to succeed there or not (I eventually got my life straightened out, got my BA, and am now in a PhD program), they made the decision based on what they saw, and while I may always wonder what my college years would have been like at a small private university rather than a large public one, the admissions decision was their call to make.

My (Slightly More Educated Now) Opinion

[the1mouse.livejournal.com]

Now that I've read this article in its entirety, I feel like I can offer comment.

First off, let me preface with three things:

1. I have mental health problems, including a mortal fear of failure.
2. I gave up college because I was bored with it.
3. My cousin, who is very similar to me in personality, has been in and out of the post-graduate program at the University of Illinois and has attempted suicide (after one incidence of quitting school and going home because she was too stressed out), so I feel that I have at least some small frame of reference.

Assertion: I think it is perfectly reasonable for schools to psychologically screen applicants, and I think this is especially applicable to highly specialized schools such as MIT.

Qualification #1: I do not think it is appropriate to deny someone an education based on any disability - mental, emotional, or otherwise. I do, however, agree that certain schools are not equipped to deal with certain disabilities.

Qualification #2: I do not think it is fair to discriminate against a potential student because he/she is taking medication to manage depression.

Now, here is my totally biased opinion: The issue is not whether or not a person has trouble with depression, or whether or not a person needs pharmaceutical support to get through the day. The issue is whether or not this person will be capable of functioning on a day-to-day basis in the environs to which they are applying. If that means they are going to be under intense pressure to perform, then they'd better damn well have the appropriate support system in place and ready to go.

I think you could take me and my cousin as a good example... We are the same age. We are both clinical depressive borderline personalities (for lack of a more accurate stereotype). On top of that, suicide runs in my family. She's tried, and I've come damn close. She's still fucked up, and I'm not. I am, however, dependent on a pharmaceutical regimen to maintain that even keel. We are both equally intelligent, and would both be intellectually capable of succeeding at MIT.

Now, here's the difference: I focus on maintaining my support system, keeping my insurance up-to-date, going to counselling appointments, and taking my meds. If I went to MIT, I'd kick major fucking ass. I guarantee it.

My cousin doesn't have insurance and therefore doesn't get meds (or want to take them anyway) and can't go to counselling unless it's provided by the school (and we all know how well folks get paid doing that vs. private practice billing the shit out of insurance companies). If she went to MIT, chances are - even with equal ability to perform - she'd crack under the pressure.

That being said, I think that the statement, "If you need a lot of pharmaceutical support to get through the day, you're not a good match for a place like MIT," is blatantly offensive and potentially discriminatory, and I am of a mind to write a letter to Ms. MIT and let her know exactly that.

Should they screen people for psychological issues? Absolutely yes... but I don't think the issue ought to be whether or not a person has (or has a history of) emotional instability. I think the issue is to determine whether the individual is functional and is getting the appropriate care. EXACTLY like a diabetic on insulin.

Shit man... maybe we all oughta wear bracelets or something.

[crowyhead.livejournal.com]

I'm sorry, but that's just not true. If it were, people like Elizabeth Shin, the MIT sophomore who set fire to herself in her dorm room, wouldn't have been accepted in the first place.

[theashifaction.livejournal.com]

thats what im talking about. UNDER THE NEW POLICY.

[thystle.livejournal.com]

and if she had no past records of mental illness?

Hmmm.

[happy-buddha.livejournal.com]

To go through a program like the one at MIT, you need to have the complete ability to handle it. That implies intellect, responsibilty and stability.

Why, you ask?

Because the people they turn out tend to be the kind who do big things, and anyone who washes out of a slot has wasted the time of the school AND whoever was next on the wait list.

You are not entitled to an education at MIT. You are not owed it, nor is it divine right.

And as to your emotional examples of great writers, statesmen, artists and musicians...

Not a single one of THEM went to MIT and they did just fine.

So, yes. If there was soemone who did not fit my profile for success at a school I was responsible for, then you can be assured that I would refuse them. Anything else does an injustice to all parties- including the student. Why set someone up for failure?

Re: Hmmm.

[kellinator.livejournal.com]

Certainly, no one should be set up for failure. You're correct, it's a waste of resources and the loss of a chance for someone else. However, what I'm taking issue with is Dean Jones' statement: "If you need a lot of pharmaceutical support to get through the day, you're not a good match for a place like MIT." Hopefully the school has something more nuanced in mind, but I'm working with her words here, which I think pretty clearly state "don't even think about it if you're on meds, you're not our material." After learning from other LJers about statements she's made in the past explaining female students' performance with "Women have pheromones and things like that", I'm frankly amazed anyone at the university will let her anywhere near a reporter.

[kellinator.livejournal.com]

Thank you. This is what I was attempting to convey. Well, that and I find it highly disturbing to see a quote like this in a national newspaper... After hearing about some of Jones' other comments, I don't know why anyone at MIT would let her anywhere near a reporter.

[theashifaction.livejournal.com]

im imagining the tests to be like that one scene in Armegeddon.