Medicine: Suicidal Students

Good grades, Psychologist Leif J. Braaten and Psychiatrist C. Douglas Darling told the American Psychological Association, are not merely the sign of a successful student. The man who gets high marks, the Cornell University researchers said, is also the man most likely to attempt suicide.

The investigators did not claim that all bright students are suicidal; but after a study of Cornell students suffering from serious emotional problems, they were convinced that "patients with suicidal tendencies were, as a group, good, or very good students." Nonsuicidal students, they learned, "were doing more poorly in their academic work." The statistics of their study...