College Roommate Suicide Rule
photo taken from wikimedia.org
This is a popular urban legend that circulates around many colleges. It is said that if your college roommate commits suicide, you would get a 4.0 GPA that semester. This belief is well-known among many college students. Despite the fact that it is true that many colleges and universities do usually provide special counseling and support for students in these particular situations, there is no institutional rule for dealing with these types of situations by awarding a perfect grade. This is, however, based on official procedural manuals of institutions. As a result, whenever this legend comes up around a college or university campus, the local or school newspaper would investigate the claim and publish a debunking.
The 1998 film Dead Man on Campus was based on this urban legend. After this film was released, in Mansfield, Ohio, News Journal quoted an Ashland University junior:
“My boyfriend’s sister knew a girl whose roommate killed herself, and she got a 4.0 (grade-point average) for the year. It was at Bowling Green. It happened last year or two years ago.”
Despite this quote, the article kept disproving this rule claiming that it is not officially documented anywhere.
(Source: Brunvand, Jan H. Encyclopedia of Urban Legends. 2001.)
