On Jan. 27, Luchang Wang, a sophomore at Yale University, bought a one-way ticket and boarded a plane from New Haven, Connecticut to San Francisco, where she jumped off the Golden Gate Bridge into the abyss of the San Francisco Bay, leaving only an eerily vague Facebook status in her wake.
“Dear Yale,” the status, posted on Jan. 27 as reported by The Atlantic, begun, “I loved being here. I only wish I could’ve had some time. I needed time to work things out and to wait for new medication to kick in, but I couldn’t do it in school, and I couldn’t bear the thought of having to leave for a full year, or of leaving and never being readmitted. Love, Luchang.”
The grief-stricken student body has begun to speak up about the tragic event, noting their frustration with Yale’s withdrawal and readmission policies. They say the policies make it difficult for students who need time off for mental health reasons to feel comfortable requesting a leave of absence, even if it may improve their health. They fear that the policies will not only allow the administration to force mentally ill students to leave campus, but also ensure that students who must leave will not be readmitted.
“The fact that [Wang’s] suicide note specifically mentioned the role of withdrawal and readmission policies was pretty inflammatory among undergraduates,” Caroline Posner, a sophomore at Yale who advocates for mental health reform on campus, told The Atlantic. “There are a number of people who are not seeking out help because of the threat that they will be withdrawn or hospitalized for their conditions. There’s no clear standard established that says exactly what students will get involuntarily hospitalized or withdrawn for. So people will lie to their therapists.”
Part of the reason Wang was likely so worried about her eligibility for readmission is because of Yale’s policy about a second readmission. Wang had already withdrawn from and been readmitted to the school once, and the university’s policies state that second readmissions are only considered “under unusual circumstances, ordinarily of a medical nature.”
Even after a first withdrawal, Yale’s policies for readmission are vague and convoluted. A student has until 10 days into a semester to decide whether or not they want to take a leave of absence. If they decide within this 10-day window, there is no need for them to reapply for admission. However, the policy is less kind to those who do not meet this cutoff. They must formally withdraw from the university and must satisfy several requirements if they wish to return.
The policy states that students must be “constructively occupied” and have maintained a “satisfactory standard of conduct” during their time away from Yale, although they do not explain exactly what that means. And students who withdrew for mental health reasons may be asked to seek counseling in their time away before returning to campus for interviews with a member of Yale University Health Services.
In an email to The Atlantic, Yale spokesman Tom Conroy wrote that the acceptance rate for readmission is much higher than that of regular applicants, which is 6.3 percent.
“The way the policies play out is that the vast majority of students who withdraw are readmitted,” he said. “The purpose of the readmission process is to determine that the issue or issues that led to a withdrawal have been resolved and that the student will return and be successful and have a rewarding experience.”
However, students who have had experience with the readmission process say that it is shrouded in uncertainties and stressors. According to Alexa Little, a junior at Yale who took a leave of absence in 2013 and came back this past fall, “Students who get sick later in the term, or whose chronic health issues flare up unexpectedly, are treated as if they chose to fall ill and punished severely with financial burdens and this complicated process,” she told Bloomberg.
It is entirely unfair that students who worked so hard to get into Yale in the first place are now being punished if they want or need to take time off for their health. The fact that a student who chose or was forced to take a leave of absence from the university is now trying to come back speaks to how badly they want to be there.
It seems as if the university is treating these students as a liability rather than someone they need to take care of. It’s a lot easier for schools to be difficult with items like mental illness because it’s not a physical manifestation. It’s not as if you broke your leg and are now hobbling around on crutches. It’s not something other people can easily see and therefore understand.
Students will be just as smart, just as successful and just as willing to work when they return, but the difference is that they will be a better version of themselves who is more ready to take on a challenging and fast-paced work environment. The administration should almost encourage students taking time off if they need to. No school should be looking for students to fail out or worse, like in Wang’s case, harm themselves because they’re afraid they won’t be able to return to school.
Yale is treating a leave of absence as if it’s a negative thing or a choice to be lazy, when in reality, it’s a really brave decision. When people take leaves of absences, they need to have that longevity, something to look forward to, especially for a student who feels there’s nothing worth seeing past today. When you are dealing with someone who is suicidal, one small step toward supporting them is showing them that this isn’t forever. Shouldn’t Yale be standing with their students and assuring them that they will be there for them when they return, rather than acting as if they’re going to mess with these students’ future?
Yale is acting as though they’ll be there for their student body, but in actuality, they only offer support so long as the student is paying tuition. Instead, it’s time to start caring about students because they are the fabric of the university.
