

A student's grandmother is far more likely to die just before an exam - DK007
http://pike.psu.edu/dongwon/pro/grannies.pdf

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btilly
This is indeed a strange and worrying phenomena. I am in fact aware of cases
where a student has managed to lose 3 or more grandmothers while pursuing an
undergraduate degree. This leaves the student with a negative number of
grandmothers. The underlying mechanisms allowing this is highly mysterious and
is certainly deserving of further research.

~~~
waiwai933
The author addresses this point, and how it is possible, but why so many
grandfathers choose to remarry so quickly is still mysterious.

> As more people go to college, their families find that, for safety reasons,
> it is wise to increase the number of grandmothers per family. Since there is
> currently no biological way of doing so (though another grant proposal in
> preparation will ask for funds to look into the prospect of cloning
> grandmothers, using modern genetic engineering techniques), the families
> must resort to in creasing the pool by divorce and remarriage.

~~~
dudus
Which Author?

Although it seems to be stored on Dongwon Lee user dir, he states this
document was written by "Mike Adams". I couldn't find this Mike Adams and I
find it a little disturbing to read a Study that has no references, no date
and the Author doesn't bother about writing his own name in it.

~~~
Steuard
As I said below, my tentative assumption is that this article is a humor
piece, not based on actual data.

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droithomme
Yes, every teacher has experienced this.

A lot of teachers have become jaded and will assume every student who brings
this up is a liar and a cheat.

The problem though is that although the majority of the cases are made up to
get out of exams or assignments, a small number aren't. These students, in
addition to losing their beloved relative then can become very distraught to
find themselves unexpectedly saddled with a false accusation of being a liar.

Because of this, when I taught, I would nod and sympathize, then say that
because there had been some abuse of this in the past, they could have an
extension or such only if they provided an actual published obituary from a
newspaper or funeral home. Some other teachers use another method, of having a
certain number of exams or assignments that can be dropped without penalty. Of
course what often happens in those cases is students drop an early exam, and
then later claim injustice at not getting an extra one for the deceased
grandparent.

~~~
1123581321
My senior year of college I wrote to the provost expecting a close relative
would die close to my exams. His sympathy was immediate, and separately from
that, an obituary or other certificate would set the incomplete/rescheduling
machinery in motion. He did not apologize or explain, so by presenting his
personal sympathy and his professional administration of a system he was able
to protect both the school's expectations and an emotional, stressed student.
I think this is the best approach.

~~~
Evbn
Bingo. This was even covered in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, of all places

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kenthorvath
Of course, students have no reason to report deaths of relatives when there
are no consequences to missing class. So, deaths most likely only get reported
during exams.

~~~
rflrob
Furthermore, more conscientious students are more likely to grin and bear it,
thus giving the A students a lower rate of reporting.

~~~
michaelt
I agree, but that still doesn't explain why the reported death rate for
grandmothers is 24 times higher than that for grandfathers.

I suppose it's possible students care about their grandmothers more than their
grandfathers.

~~~
jiggy2011
Men also die earlier than women so it's possible most students grandfathers
are already dead before they reach college. I know this was the case for me.

~~~
michaelt
There's not really an age when women outnumber men 24:1 though [1]

[1] Figure 2,
[http://cnx.org/content/m42935/latest/?collection=col11407/la...](http://cnx.org/content/m42935/latest/?collection=col11407/latest)

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lightyrs
This is one of the best submissions I've seen on hn. So often these days,
people are treating 'SCIENCE' as a completely objective enterprise when it is
usually the interpretation of objective observations that is fed to the
public, which is a very subjective matter.

~~~
NamTaf
I actually did have a grandmother die 2 days before a final exam. Needless to
say, no one believed me. :(

Agreed though that this is a great representation of using educated
subjectivity to draw reasonable conclusions from data. That's the one thing
that a science degree should be teaching over all other aspects. Remembering
equations, careful experimental technique, etc. all pale in to significance
compared with critical analysis skills.

------
pkaler
I can add one more anecdote. My grandmother passed away before my first
semester final exams in my first year. My parents didn't actually tell me
until after my exams finished.

The thing is that she passed away in India. My grandmother would spend summers
in Canada and winters in India. She passed away the same week a cousin
married.

My hypothesis is that stressful things happen at the end of seasonal quarters.
Final exams just happen to be one of those things. Flu season also happens to
be December/January. Allergy season is around May/June.

I did a quick Google search but I can't find any information regarding death
rate and monthly distribution. I would assume that it is evenly distributed
but I wouldn't be surprised if the assumption was incorrect.

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Steuard
This is really amusing, but I'm a little skeptical that it's based on real
data. Where does this author get the data on "number in family" for each
student presented on p.3, for instance? (The article would be _fascinating_ if
it were true, but I'm tentatively treating it as a humor piece.)

In case it is true, let me second kenthorvath's comment: students have much
less incentive to tell a professor about deaths in their family when there's
no exam coming up. (I can't judge the grandmother/grandfather ratio
information, because the article presents absolutely no data on that point at
all. Hence even more skepticism.)

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pseut
Just as a comment to any current students who do experience the death or
illness of a relative: it's probably best to discuss things with your academic
advisor (grad or undergrad) before or instead of contacting individual
professors. An email from another prof has infinitely more credibility than
one from a student; you only have to discuss it once, with someone you already
know; and your advisor should know what resources are available to you and can
help you plan the rest of the semester.

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bonchibuji
Reminds me of the old joke.

Four students, all roommates, thought about skipping an exam since they
haven't prepared well. They arrived really late for the exam, and gave the
excuse that they had a flat tire on the way. The Professor agrees for a re-
exam.

After a week, they come really well prepared. But, the question paper was a
shocker.

"Which tire got punctured?"

~~~
hmsimha
I've changed a flat and then completely failed to remember a week later
whether it was on the left or right side, so I guess I would have been in some
trouble.

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Turing_Machine
When I used to TA a very large freshman class, we handled it by letting the
students know on the syllabus that in such cases we would send a sympathy card
to their home address.

The theory was that if the story was legit, it would be a nice gesture by the
course staff. If it wasn't, the student would have some 'splainin' to do at
home.

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josephagoss
Last year my granddad died the day before an exam. I'm not sure if the point
of the paper is that students use this as a excuse or that we just don't
mention relatives dying at times when they do not conflict with other major
events in someones life.

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sesqu
Some of the data seem a little suspect. The grade correlation result is
unreasonably strong, and the bin sizes aren't specified, among other
shortcomings. That said, this was a very entertaining read.

 _edit:_ Appears to be from 1990.

~~~
gus_massa
Exactly. I was reading skeptically and trying to guess what were the errors in
the methodology that create this effect. Until I see the Figure I, with the
almost aligned dots (If you ever made some physics or statistical experiments,
you would be happy to get a measure like this.) The dots are almost aligned
and one of the axes is the A/B/C/D/E grade, that is very indirect nonlinear
measure. A graph like that usually means that the data are cooked.

Apparently this is only a humor piece, but many of the comments seams to take
this seriously.

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clarky07
I can't believe how much serious discussion is taking place here. When I read
the article I thought it had to be from theonion or something.

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bherms
The sad thing is I actually did lose a grandmother and grandfather a few weeks
before exams. :(

ninja edit: this was years ago, to clarify

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lucraft
This suggests to me that saying your grandFather has died instead of your
grandmother is a far more plausible excuse.

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baby
Confirms this :
[http://www.ted.com/talks/nicholas_christakis_the_hidden_infl...](http://www.ted.com/talks/nicholas_christakis_the_hidden_influence_of_social_networks.html)

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jmcgough
reminds me of the fmri of a dead salmon
(<http://prefrontal.org/files/posters/Bennett-Salmon-2009.pdf>)

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gus_massa
This article is apparently only a joke. I found some indirect report of the
opinion of author (near the end of the article):
[http://host.madison.com/news/local/doug_moe/doug-moe-
poking-...](http://host.madison.com/news/local/doug_moe/doug-moe-poking-fun-
at-students-and-their-excuses-
to/article_1a9ec28e-dedc-11de-b50f-001cc4c03286.html)

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beerglass
Hilarious! Reminds me of another paper suggesting a game theoretic approach to
the toilet seat problem - <http://home.tiac.net/~cri/1998/toilet.html>

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nasir
Many academic papers just follow the same flow and they get published.

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gregwong410
For me, truth. My grandmother died my Junior year of college right before
midterms.

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sriram_sun
I would strongly advise grandmothers of this risk.

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triplesec
old, but funny

