Man, they've lightened up since back in tha day (1971). I had to write an essay and IIRC had to get a teacher and a non-academic recommendation. My grades were OK but my SAT was smokin' for back then, 1240, Verbal 680, Math 560.

If his sister got into Princeton then some combination of parents and high school guidance counselers (motivated to get students into the best colleges) made sure the right boxes got checked. He was in the science club at Westfield, probably tested well and got good grades, and even with additional admissions officers would probably have no problems getting in.

Look, all the right steps were taken in line with trying to avail the best educational opportunities to everybody regardless of race/creed/color/etc. We err to the side of mainstreaming handicapped folks. We abhor locking up people unless they demonstrate violence. VT took him out of the classroom and provided 1 on 1 instruction. An official with the power of coerced treatment reviewed his case and concluded that incarceration was not called for.

What more could've been done without fundamentally limiting access? Is that what we want?

Cho could have downloaded a mainstream essay.

Va Tech is not the biggest school in the commonwealth - that would be George Mason.

I applied back in 1998, and got in (Class of '99). Even back then we had to do essays. I submitted my application in November of '98 and had heard back by the end of December. By comparison, JMU took much longer, and I didn't hear from them until April. They also had an essay requirement, and maybe even recommendations.

I ended up going to JMU. Not because of the application process, I just liked it better there.

Mr. Fisher is not an expert on college admission or psychology so he should keep his mouth shut. Why does The Washington Post let this man blather on and on?

VT is like many schools at every level in this country especially at the college level. Education should be just that - education. Unfortunatele, the schools care more about their profits than they do about teaching their students to be better adults. I have witnessed on several occasions my high school alma mater in Tampa (Tampa Preparatory) the administration ignore problems whether it was drugs or a pedophile teacher to say to prospective students, "We have no drug problem here..." That would explain why from 1992 to 1993 Tampa Prep had 3 students blow their brains out after partying. Just this year Tampa Prep suspended a swim coach after catching him filming the girls locker room in March. They didn't call the police and he wasn't fired until 7 months later when a PARENT contacted the police. By the way, it is a 1st degree felony in Florida to NOT report sexual abuse if you are an educator. This is how these schools operate; and while VT's administration did NOT pull the trigger, they should've have done what all these schools are aftraid to do - worry about the students best interests and not theirs. The blood is on their hands just as much as his. It costs an average of 25k-40k to send your kid to college at an out of state school. I think for that much money, the students deserve better. But this is how everything in this country has become. Watch people die that didn't have to, have a national day of mourning, let the politicians rape the event like 9/11, and nothing changes and we repeat the actions when it happens again.

Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. For you school administrators out there, who cares if you get sued, get the Cho's some help. Otherwise, you're worse than the Chos of this world because YOU SAW IT COMING AND CHOSE TO NOT GET SUED. I'm pretty sure it will turn out to be 32 wrongful death lawsuits in the lng run. Since, the bottom line is all you care about - that should motivate you guys to change. And you call yourselves "educators".

Wow, this article is pointless. They guy was unstable and snapped. It doesn't mean that he wasn't intelligent, or should not have been admitted initially. If Universities and Colleges start weeding out every young adult that doesn't fit a picture perfect profile, their enrollments will drop significantly. What happened was tragic, but trying to find someone, anyone to place the blame on is pointless.

I find today's blog disturbingly Nancy Grace-ish. You have, without any evidence such a Cho's high school records or college application, proceeded to find VT guilty of negligently admitting a madman. First, how do you know that his personality didn't change dramatically AFTER he went to Tech? Shouldn't a quiet, introverted kid have the right to attend an excellent school? Second, you assume that an additional essay or more probing assessments by an admissions counselor would have been able to weed out someone who would become a homicidal mainiac 5 years later. Mental health professionals are often unable to predict aberrant behavior 24 hours in the future, much less years in advance.

The real problem here is a mental health system that is grossly underfunded and is hamstrung by too many rules that keep people who need involuntary care from getting it.

Everyone must understand that VT did what it could for Cho within legal boundries for his own mental health issues, and that the other students protection would not have been furthered by Cho's expulsion. Remember with the open nature of our university campuses, the story could have read "ex-student" murders others on VT campus.

Re: above statement on relative size of schools. Va Tech has 22,000 undergraduates and Mason has 18,000, but Mason has more graduate and continuing students, so the overall university total is slightly higher there. I think the undergraduate population, because it is the core of the in-residence, full-time student body, is the salient number, but they're awfully close no matter how you look at it.

Forget how he got in; how the flip did he STAY in? All through undergrad and graduate school, 12 years apart, anywhere from 40-60 percent of my grade in class was class participation.

Has anybody considered he may have been a transfer student? SAT's don't always matter at that point and all he would have needed is passing grades at a Community College.

if cho had been required to write a personal statement, i doubt it would have said, "i am an extremely disturbed individual who is likely to murder his classmates in a sudden rampage. and i'd like to major in english."

So now the complaint is about VT's admission standards?

OK, let's tighten them up. Let's tighten up the standards of all universities.

Then we can look forward to the next Marc Fisher column where he complains about all those kids left behind because they can't get a college education. Heck, he might even throw in a euphemism like "inner city youth" or something like that.

"...anywhere from 40-60 percent of my grade in class was class participation."

Yes, and I believe that if Cho had wanted to be a business major, that is precisely why he switched to English - business courses after the introductory level require a very high level of group work/class participation.

I believe the article is pointless as it applies to Cho. He would have gotten into college somewhere. Had Cho been denied admission completely to a university of his choice, his rampage would have occured at a workplace, a community college, or even his old high school.

Who exactly do you think you are and what gives you the right to be attacking the university like this? Surely you were not preaching this before the shootings. The guy was psychotic. Insane. We learn and move on. Your article would be more appreciated if you did not waste our time with your accusatory tone. Suggestions for improvement are always welcome, but enough with the accusations.

We don't know exactly why Virginia Tech let Cho in, but we do know that he was not a US citizen, and that he likely took a spot that would have otherwise gone to a US citizen.

"As a first-generation Korean-American and Virginia resident, Cho had a couple of advantages right out of the gate."

Being a Virginia resident would be an advantage, but "first generation" in college admissions refers to being the first in one's family to go to college (and not being the first to immigrate ). Plus, being Korean American is no more advantageous than being European American/white in the admissions game.

Rofl. Guess you can add another subject to the list of faux expertise you pretend to have.

English classes, like business, also require an enormous amount of participation. And from reading "McBeef" (I was only disturbed by the horrible writing), I'm wondering how he stayed in the department. I would have been flunking out of my literature studies with bad writing and zero class participation.

HAH. The majority of these comments are way better than the narrow minded and short sighted article. Wash Post should get them on their payroll.

So let me understand this. You don't know his grades, You don't know his SAT scores and you don't know if he wrote a personal statement. So the value of this article is what?

The only advantage to being a resident of Virginia is the lower tuition. It has nothing to do with intelligence. The second, being an immigrant, really frosts my shorts because there are thousands of Americans who would love the opportunity to go to college but can't because we're giving everything to immigrants on a silver platter.

Furthermore, isn't there some kind of personal interview you have to go through to enter college. Surely it isn't all done by paperwork. Don't people have to show up in person to register? When I was going to AU (working two jobs 7 days a week, thank you, I'm an American) you had to register in person, then meet with advisors, not to mention taking part in class discussions. So don't badmouth Va Tech's admission policy. The guy was a nut, clear and simple.

Marc Fisher--I have asked you several times in email and in these comments to stop commenting on matters that you have no expertise in, which judging by your writings, are most topics. By your own admission, you don't even know how to buy shoelaces, man.

Get a grip, look yourself in the mirror, and admit that you are a moron.

The ONLY reason I refuse to pay for this paper is because of its poor judgment in keeping you on its payroll. It looks like I will have to write several more letters recommending your termination. Thank you for providing me so many outstanding examples of your incompetence.

Maybe you should start a DC radio nostalgia society and leave grown-up issues to the adults.

Cho's problem was the Korean American community. They encourage success but do nothing for those in trouble. They encourage their children to be engineers and scientist but not English majors. Reading between the lines his father was a failure in the yes of the Centerville Korean American community which is very active and very discriminating. Their stores in centerville cater only to Koreans and not the rest of the community.
And what about CHo's parnets could they have put too much pressure on him to meet the norms of Korean AmMerican young males etc. I see this pressure with a friend of mine hwo puts an inordinate amount of pressure on her son. Damn the kid hasnt been arrested and they dont get calls from the hospital it is a good weekend. Sorry the Centerville Korean American community is at fault. As is his family and his sister!

There is something really arrogant about assuming that you will screen out mentally disturbed people with a more selective admissions process.

With the proliferation of admissions consulting services, along with savvy parents, I'm sure anyone who has the resources -- intellectual or financial -- could beat the system.

Even a one-on-one interview would not necessarily eliminate a person like Cho from consideration.

Here we go, the 20/20 know-it-alls just cannot leave it alone. Surely everyoe had to see the sign Cho had on his forehead that said "I am crazy". Give it a rest.

This article is just pointless...The Kid Snapped, and it dosent have anything thing to do with his SAT scores or how he got in.

I understand some of the anti-Marc sentiment in the discusssion, but to be perfectly honest, this was my first question when I heard that it was a student.

And to respond to GCT, the point is that he did not just "snap." This was a trainwreck a long time coming.

The largest university in Virginia is VCU (30,000+), which surpassed George Mason (29,000+) last year. Tech is third (28,000+), I believe.

One would think that a paper such as the WP would have a fact-checker or two.

I thought I saw Cho's age posted as 23. That's 5 or even 6 years out of high school. Most universities have a back door to admissions that is seldom discussed. Usually there is no "test" for admission to night classes or continuing education classes for credit other than a high school transcript showing graduation or even a GED certificate. Once you take a couple of classes usually there is nothing preventing a "part timer" from signing up for a full schedule of day classes avoiding the SAT, essay, interview, business altogether. Of course the student is not associated with a "class of xx" but usually they don't care. In a commuting university of that size there is probably no expulsion for failing either. Just keep registering and paying is all you have to do.

"Why does one of Virginia's premiere state colleges not spend the marginal extra money it would take to hire a few more admissions officers so that it can use a more probing application and seek teacher recommendations and personal essays to get a fuller picture of the students it is admitting?"

This is absolutely a fair question to ask, and many people have already begun talking about this. Sorry if it hits a nerve, Hokies, but this is a relevant issue... unless you believe that VPI bears no culpability whatsoever. (Maybe it's only a tiny bit, but it is beyond naive to think that the university shoulders none of the blame here.)

By Mark Fisher's reasoning, UVA, George Mason, and hundreds of schools around the country have been effective in screening out mass murderers. Remarkably, even the many colleges and universities that admit every applicant have managed to accomplish this. Obviously, predicting rare events like this is virtually impossible...like predicting airplane crashes or earthquakes...even when experts with mountains of data are making the predictions. Oh, I forgot, this is America so we have to blame someone. Maybe we should appoint Mr. Fisher "Blamer-in-chief."

Spent extra dollars on mental health, not college admission administration. No matter if Seung-Hui Cho is at a university or not, he would still be suffering in ways most people cannot comprehend. He would still be a danger to others and himself. And thanks to all media for showing Seung-Hui Cho's tapes and writings. The public needs to see and read first hand to begin to understand how much pain and danger he was in. Hope for change in the future. My heart is bleeding for all the victims, including Seung-Hui Cho.

Let's not blame a college application system that has to deal with thousands of applicants. If that system were perfect, no one would ever flunk out or even go on academic probation. Besides, it's characteristic of school shooters that they take considerable pride in their ability to fool people who represent institutions.
What about Cho's parents? Surely they knew that there was something wrong with their son; accounts say that they never spoke of him.

It wasn't enough to blame the police, the University, his parents, etc. for failing to prevent this inhuman act - it's now the fault of the admissions office, for not somehow detecting potential psychopathy in their applicants? Mr. Fisher, you are way out of line on this one. If we're going to hold anyone responsible for these deaths, it should be the person who actually pulled the trigger: Mr. Cho.

Had he been denied admission to Tech, I can only assume that he would have taken his violent tendencies to JMU, Mason, or similar.

"You have, without any evidence such a Cho's high school records or college application, proceeded to find VT guilty of negligently admitting a madman."

The problem is, VT did in fact admit a madman. It's fair to ask how that happened, and what can be done to avoid it happening again. Yes, Mr. Cho's mental state could have deteriorated significantly after he was admitted. And no, we do not know (certainly not yet, at least) if an essay, or teacher recommendations, or interviews, or anything else Mr. Fisher suggests would have worked to keep him out of VT.

But it is clear that there were warning signs that Mr. Cho was seriously disturbed well before he went on his rampage. We're not blaming VT's admission department to look back and try to learn how to prevent this sort of tragedy. And one lesson seems pretty clear - colleges and universities should look at more than raw intelligence and academic scores.

And it's a total red herring to ask "[s]houldn't a quiet, introverted kid have the right to attend an excellent school?" The concern here isn't about someone who's reserved, but someone who's mentally unbalanced. There is a difference.

A play that Cho wrote, besides being violent and wierd, exhibited poor grammar, spelling, and sentence structure. I realize English was his second language, but how could he be a senior ENGLISH MAJOR in apparently good academic standing at a major university without being able to speak the language? Was VT about to grant this guy a degree? If so, why?

Mr. Fisher,

What's the point of this article? Are you saying that if he had not gotten into VT, he would have gone to another school and done the same thing? This article is pointless and waste of everyone's time.

How did you get your job at Washington Post?

My son had a fairly high SAT, 3.5+ GPA, won academic awards and sports awards, was in clubs, was a good citizen-no discipline ever, participated in church activities, etc. Most importantly, HE WAS AN AMERICAN CITIZEN!!!! (Our family working hard in America for over 290 years!!!) They let Cho in and turned my son down....what a country!!!!

Some of the comments on this page express anger at Mr. Fisher for wondering how Cho got into Va Tech. If you ask me, Fisher didn't go back far enough. If Cho never spoke in school, how did he get promoted out of first grade? Second grade? Third grade? Did ALL of his teachers "look the other way"? For twelve years? Incredible.

I suspect in this case the term Korean-American may be a misnomer, since the Chos are all resident aliens and remain Korean citizens. Being a Virginia resident has an effect on more than tuition. The in-state admissions are set by the legislature at 65 percent, out-of-state 35 percent. When my daughter applied to VaTech and UVA in 2002, the difference in the application process was striking. Tech`s application did not require much beyond a transcript and SATs, UVAs was much more extensive. Cho`s silence in class was noticed by other students all the way back to middle school, this problem has been on the way a long time.

Oh, I get it, keeping as many people as possible out of college is now a GOOD thing. My mistake.

A better screening process may have kept Mr. Cho out of Virginia Tech. So instead, he very likely would have carried out his rampage at a school with less rigorous admissions requirements. And even if all schools screened him out, there is no reason to presume that his rampage would not have occurred somewhere.

Wait a minute, what the heck does a citizenship got to do with the admission process? Are you a bigot?

Spencer, you must be kidding! Americans should be admitted before aliens. No bigotry, just the right thing to do!. Do you think an American would be admitted before a Korean is S. Korea???? I think NOT!!!!

I wouldn`t read too much into Cho`s age. His family moved here when he was eight and his language skills may have slowed his progress in school early on.

Why all the Fisher hate today? There's nothing "pointless" about this article. For crying out loud, Cho was a 23-year-old who couldn't write, didn't talk, creeped everyone out, had a prior history of mental disturbance and even had some ex-classmates who thought he might go on a shooting rampage, yet somehow Virginia Tech kept him enrolled as an English major. You mean to say you never once asked yourself "how'd he get in, anyway?"

Jas, America is a country of immigrants. You did say your family immigrated 290 years ago, right? Remember, you were once an alien too. Think, before you say something.

This article is worse than pointless, it's offensive. If Cho had been kept out of college, he may still have gone on a rampage elsewhere. This article suggests that were he went on his rampage and who he killed is important, as if some lives are more valuable than others and some peoples feelings of being secure are more imporant than others. The media has already celebrated the lives of the Tech students far more than anyone who died in Iraq in the last week. No offense intended to the victims of this tragedy, but the media has completely lost perspective and this article is one more aggregious example!

Mr. Fisher, usually I enjoy your columns and agree with you on many topics. I have to say today that you were reaching and off base. I'd almost think you had nothing else to write about today. You have nothing to base your writing on other than the admission requirements, which can be found on the website. You don't have the killer's grades, application, hs grades, recommendations, NOTHING. My brother's went to Westfield and if their college application process is anything like Centreville's then the killer was required to submit an essay and recommendations, even if the school didn't require them. The killer was at Tech for 4 years. If he had murdered these 32 innocent people within even a year of his admittance then maybe you'd have something. But 4 years? You're reaching.

To P, I applied to Tech at the same time you did, was accepted, and as you can see, graduated. Tech DID NOT require an essay but my HS required us to send one anyway. Please get your facts straight.

Hey, we all originally came out of Africa, does that make Europeans immigrants as well? That "we were all immigrants onece" is a tired, hackneyed way of avoiding a serious conversation on immigration and what it means to be an American.

If Cho had not snapped and gone on this horrible rampage, he would have been lost in the crowd, passed through college and gotten a degree when he couldn't speak or write. An illiterate with a Va Tech degree. A lot of other kids who get passed through school and go out into the world, barely functional. Look at all the professional athletes who get basketball scholarships and can't speak in complete sentences. Some are making millions of dollars a year. Meanwhile people who really want to go can't because the cost of tuition is out of sight.

Who died and made Mr. Fisher keeper of the college admissions key? He is obviously "fishing" for a way to prolong a storyline that may finally be losing steam. Many of us have family members with some degree or another of mental illness who move along in their daily lives undetected and perhaps rightfully so. Rather than attach VaTech for making education assessible, let's tackle health care reform-- most insurance plans do not adequately cover mental illness treatment-- and patients' rights-- family members are basically helpless in pursuit of getting loved ones into effective treatment without their consent and really sick people will never consent because their perceived reality is warped, etc. There but for the grace of God go many of us.

Fred, the Centerville Korean American community is as much to blame for Cho as the African American community is to blame for Malvo and the U.S. Army is to blame for Tim McVeigh. Which isn't to say there isn't any community blame-- just don't point fingers where they come right back at yourself.

As for his parents, now THEY may genuinely share some burden of guilt. How could you not be aware that your child is insane?

Stick, are you saying that Europeans are not immigrants to America?

according to Jas, no international student should ever step foot on an american campus because people like him worked too hard to have to be turned down.

Uh, yeah...an essay. That would have solved everything.

"Why do you want to attend Va. Tech?"

"So I can kill as many of my classmates as possible once I'm a student there. I couldn't accomplish this goal at my safety school."

This article proves that the media have absolutely nothing else to say about this entire tragedy. From second guessing security procedures with talking heads the very day the tragedy was still unfolding, to this blather about how paying a few more admissions counselors to review applications.

A number of commmenters have argued that if VT had screened Mr. Cho out, his rampage would simply have been shifted to another, less selective school, or occured in a workplace somewhere.

First, we don't tell people not to lock their doors at night because doing so just shifts any potential robbery down the street to another house where the residents are less careful about security. All colleges and universities should share a concern about avoiding the kind of tragedy VT has suffered. If there are practical ways to change the admissions process to identify seriously disturbed students, then they should be generally adopted.

Second, no one has argued that this should be the only response - and it could help make other responses more effective. There appear to have been plenty of warning signs - but Mr. Cho was also apparantly moving through the normal stages of life. Being told "no, you aren't ready to move on to our university - you need to get help first" by each of the schools he applied to might (and this is only a "might") have been one more wake-up call for the family, and for Mr. Cho himself.

This is only one small piece of the puzzle - but we shouldn't rule it out of bounds.

Jas.,

Wah. Maybe you should thank VPI for saving your son's life by not admitting him.

Marc is wrong on yet another detail. "First generation" does not mean first generation American, but first generation in the family to go to college.

It makes sense to encourage and help people whose families have not been to college before.

Why should one community or ethnic group take blame for one person's action, whether it's Cho, Malvo, McVeigh, Columbine kids, and etc?

Good comment, Patrick.

I am very dissapointed in the lack of logic in this article. Apparently all the good stories were taken. It wasn't enought that in the past week the US has seen the worst shooting in history, a deadly air show crash in a residential neighborhood, a failing World Bank leader who is from our curent administration, a tumultuous increase in violence in Irak, and a close election in France which could elect the first woman to the presidency in a western nation. I appologize, university admissions are clearly more important than all of those issues, combined. You work for a newspaper, how about reading the front page from time to time? I am very dissapointed that such a blog was written for big and prestigious newspaper. For shame.

I went to a small Jesuit university in New Orleans and I really think that Cho would 1) not have gotten in as an essay was mandated and 2) would not have stayed in as MANY classes counted attendance as 30 percent of your grade, so you cannot possibly do well if you don;t show up. Cho missed classes for a MONTH! Also when I had academic problems I saw the DEAN of Arts and Sciences directly, can't imagine that would ever happen at a larger school. I DO think that someone can slip through the cracks more easily at a larger school (my school was 5,000, and at the time, largely commuter). Noone has talked about psycological profiles. Why can't we at least give prospective students the Rorscharch??? IMHO the system failed this individual LONG before college. He had serious sensory intergration and behavioral issues in elementary school. I think this case is terribky sad and needs to be a wakeup call for our society. From what I have read kids who went to school with him could not have been suprised when they heard what he ultimately did with his life

"Many of us have family members with some degree or another of mental illness who move along in their daily lives undetected and perhaps rightfully so."

I have to strongly object to this. We're talking about a severe mental illness that made Mr. Cho a mortal danger to everyone around him. This is a far cry from the depression, panic disorder, what have you, that is a real challenge for an individual - but not a threat to the life or health of anyone else.

Mr. Cho needed to be detected, and dealt with - just as much as the drunk driver or armed robber. Sensitivity to the rights and dignity of people with mental illnesses is a good thing, but we have to be able to draw the line at a place that gives us a fighting chance to prevent mass murder.

I'm wondering why, once again, we're hearing how an institution has somehow "failed." Lets wonder instead what his parents knew and what they were thinking, to launch such a troubled child into the world.

No brainer here Marc. *Ethnicity* is number one on VT's list-read your own copy. A state mandated policy of social engineering to dilute the human population of every government and corporate entity in the US. Cho turned out to be an affirmative action killer.

Don't colleges interview prospective students anymore? In the 60's they did.

Also, why did no one make a big deal of this kid's refusal to speak in class and friendless life from the age of elementary school?

Uncle Cracker, hmmmm.... your comment sounds a lot like Neo-Nazi.

I don't disrespect VT for admitting Cho, but I sure do disrespect VT for giving passing grades to anyone who writes as poorly as Cho did and as poorly as some of its alumni who have posted comments here. Tech's engineering programs may be pretty good, but its undergraduate liberal arts programs don't seem too impressive.

However, Cho's academic performance is far less important to me than his mental health, and I wonder if this tragedy may have been avoided if (a) the university had expelled Cho or required him to undergo treatment as a condition of remaining there following the complaints about his behavior by the English professors and the students whom he stalked, (b) he had gotten a high-quality mental evaluation in 2005 after he discussed suicide, (c) a judge had ordered his commitment rather than outpatient treatment, and (d) the state of Virginia barred the sale of guns to anyone whom a court has declared mentally ill and dangerous.

Spencer: My ancestors came here from Germany and Ireland 160 years ago. They came for a better life and they worked hard, learned the language, sent their kids to school. None of their kids turned out to be mass murderers, drug dealers, wife beaters, gangsters, (or professional basketball players). My ancestors came here for a better life for themselves and their kids because life in their native countries was too unbearable. Famine in Ireland, civil war in Germany. Can you imagine how horrible life had to be to risk an unpredictable ocean voyage just to get away from it? They called those ships 'coffin ships' because many who stepped aboard died enroute to America. Now, 160 years later, I consider myself an American, and damned proud of it, too. Don't get me started on the number of relatives who served, and some died, in the military for your rights, bub.

Those who are claiming "ethnicity" as a reason why Cho got accepted should know that in most universities, being asian doesn't help you get in anywhere at all. Why? There are too many qualified Asian-American applicants for the "quota" that universities want to fill up.

Affirmative action is for other ethnicities, not asian.

Even if VT had required essays, Cho probably would have written a bland enough essay not to freak anyone out and still would have gotten in. I think the bigger question is how he was able to stay. Between the stalking and the poor class performance, he should have been asked to pack his bags long ago. It doesnt make VT look good that they allowed such a poor performer with such major issues to stick around.

Hey anonymous, did you day "Don't get me started on the number of relatives who served, and some died, in the military for your rights, bub"? What the heck does that mean? My ancestors are from Englad 200 years ago. You did say your ancestors are from Germany, right? No wonder you speak like you do.

I'd also wondered how Cho made it into VT. Not because he was antisocial or exhibited any signs of mental instability, but because he was an English major who couldn't write. Having read a little of the play he wrote for class, I was struck by how poor and how young the writing was, like something written by a really angry adolescent.

So here was a kid applying to a big, fairly well-respected engineering school as an English major, even though he didn't seem to have an aptitude for writing or language. Why go to VT at all? Or is it that getting into a top liberal arts school would have been significantly more difficult, but non-engineering majors can slip into VT more easily because they don't have much competition? And I wonder why he even picked VT in the first place. Not an engineering major, and it's hard to believe he just fell in love with the campus.

The lack of an essay requirement is interesting to me only because it seems unlikely he would've been admitted -- as an English major -- on the basis of a writing sample. But I don't think it's appropriate to fault an admissions department without training in psychological evaluation for not spotting psychological disorders in a (missing) admissions essay. Besides, should antisocial kids not be allowed to go to good colleges? Depressed kids? If it became known that someone was denied admission to a school because the admissions department had "profiled" the student on a psychological level, I think people would be kind of upset...

"it became known that someone was denied admission to a school because the admissions department had "profiled" the student on a psychological level, I think people would be kind of upset..."

Agreed. But perhaps we need to rethink our approach to handling the most severe mental illnesses. I'm not talking about stigma, but simply finding a way to identify individuals who are a danger to themselves and the people around them, and requiring them to get appropriate help.

how bout just asking the media to just STOP IT with the coverage. it is sickening. just go away.
let them heal. where were you before so stop the faux pandering. now.

Cho's story brings up many questions. What are the obligations of others to intervene when a fellow human being is in such obvious pain? Could his roommates have done more? Why didn't his family try to get him more help? What did his sister think to do when he was briefly admitted to a psychiatric ward? However, this being said, it seems that Cho did a very good job of concealing the depth of his derangement. Though it seems that the English Department made a reasonable effort to try an help this young man, it seems that he got away with a lot of bizarre behavior which ought not to have been tolerated. You could argue in retrospect that the school system from elementary school onward failed to be accountable and to make him accoutable. Our system is not conducive to making a difference when the individual is not aware of his own problems and is in many respects hiding how disturbed he really is. Afterall, he was sharing a suit with other students for months and they really had no idea he was buying guns, taking target practice, etc. The whole situation is just extremely sad.

Jas,
blamed your son not the school. Maybe your son was just not smart enough to get in.

I did the math. VT is not a "selective" school if it accepts 12,600 out of 19,000 applicants. That is close to two thirds. There is a lot of confusion about the difficulty of getting into college today, and the misuse of terms like "selective" perpetuates that confusion.

Mr. Fisher raises the same questions that I had relative to Cho's entry into VT. Another issue is how he graduated from high school? If I had sat through an English class (or any class) and refused to respond to my teacher (as has been reported by numerous classmates of Cho), then (a) my parents would have been notified of my impending dismissal, (b) my grade would have suffered immeasurably; therefore, I would have not graduated, or I would have been very low in my graduating class.

Cho was most likely a boiling cauldron
of "messed up" under the surface for a long time. People can hide behind a facade of "quiet, reserved, shy" for any reason. He was troubled, no reflexion on his ethnicity, acceptance to college, or
anything else. He tragically could not cope with whatever was within him and took
all those promising lives away as a result.
There are a lot of unstable people in the world, just hope they aren't in the midst of a large group of innocent souls when they lose it.

we seem to forget that things like this are mere "blips" on the scope, anomalies that crop up in the larger picture. there is little or nothing that can be done to stop these things. you could limit or restrict things, legislate and enforce things, but in the end they will happen someplace, somehow, to someone.

Sorry, guys, there is no law against being insane, only against certain insane acts--and many sane ones I might add. Had Cho survived his lunacy and stood for his crimes, most of you would be clamoring for life imprisonment or the death penalty. His final heroic (or cowardly) act of taking his own life at least granted you that wish. So what if his parents knew he was insane? They were powerless to "fix him" or to control his interactions with others. He was an adult. (Read Bebe Moore Campbell's "72 Hours," try on his parent's moccasins, and walk a mile.) And to my sister Diane-- speaking is not a pre-requisite for being promoted in primary school or at any other level. What if Cho had been mute, would that make you feel better about his social prowess or lack thereof? As a painfully shy child, I spoke to few people outside my immediate family circle. Had I been assigned to a less astute 1st grade teacher, I might have been labeled "special ed." and subsequently denied lots of experiences afforded my peers. I didn't find my voice until my teen years. Then I was a cheerleader, class president, homecoming princess,... a "normal" popular kid who ultimately graduated from high school and college with honors. Today, I have a wonderful marriage, great kids, successful career, am well-traveled, etc. and I have yet to murder anyone. So much for the non-speaking theory. Incredible, indeed.

Offering admission to 12,600 out of 19,000 who applied - or about 2 out of 3 - doesn't strike me as being all *that* selective.

Sue, thanks for speaking out for the shy and quiet people.

As one who grew up in Virginia, attended a Virginia state college (not Va Tech), and now facing sending my oldest child to college (hopefully!) in four years, the topic of admissions, especially in Virginia, is quite interesting to me. Yes, requiring at least one essay should give a college admissions committee better insight as to an applicant's virtues, weaknesses, passions, and overall character. However, in this day and age of the "helicopter parents" who hover constantly over thier children's every moves, one cannot even be sure that the students have written these essays themselves. In fact, I would wager that most have not. Most have paid expensive college coaches or had their parents "feed" them thoughts, correct their focus or slant, and correct their grammar. Many schools are accepting students now based on their "packaged person" and not the real person they are getting. At least the test scores and grades are most likely their own. Comments from the guidance office and teachers, sent DIRECTLY from those teachers and offices (with no interference from students) would be the most truthful reflections of students of those that are designed to enhance the scores and grades.

Mr. Fisher,
Your article is an insulting stretch of logic and reason. Clearly, the only thing left unquestioned by the vultures that have descended on Virginia Tech and its Administration was the admissions process. You have thankfully righted that in assuming that any change in a process largely replicated at thousands of other schools could have identified (and rejected) one individual who was to commit this atrocity two years later.
If only there had been an essay requirement, this never would have happened!
How astute of you further to imply a comparison between the "marginal extra money" of a few extra admissions officers and the 33 lives lost. Certainly, a fair statement.
Thanks for your latest constructive contribution to the general mass of media refuse surrounding this horrible event. I speak for myself when I ask you to apologize for this absurd claim, but all of us at Virginia Tech wish the media would end its rampant and uninformed speculation as they attempt to place blame under the guise of seeking answers.

Cameron Lewis
Class of 2009
Virginia Tech

A lot of severe mental illness doesn't manifest itself until the late teens and early twenties. Schizophrenia is a prime example. It's a mistake to try to diagnose Cho without real information, but it is likely that his function and his sanity both decreased significantly during the time he was at VT. There may not have been any markers on even the most thorough application.

Schools need a system to get help to those kids who go off the rails due to late-manifesting mental illness. It's too common--and while there are seldom wholesale school shootings, there are few colleges who don't have handfuls of suicide attempts every semester. Yes, these kids are legally adults, but perhaps part of the school policy could include requiring people with certain red flags to be treated by a counselor in order to continue as students.

I have actually had a little experience with the admissions process at Georgetown, and one thing I can say is that essays are the bane of the admissions committee's existence. With essays schools are mainly trying to see if possible candidates can express themselves grammatically and logically. Too many applicants feel the need to be "original" in their essays. I remember one kid from a WASP suburb tried to show his diversity sensitivity (I suppose) by writing his essay in his best rendition of urban street language. Then there are the essays in orange crayon, the visual aids. In other words, a well-written essay that happens to express a dark view of the world would not necessarily set off any red flags.

To those questioning the selectivity of VT, check out the acceptance rates at a cross-section of schools. Most accept virtually everyone who applies and sends a check that clears. By the standards of all 3000 or so colleges and universities in the US, VT is pretty selective. There is only a handful of schools that accept less than half of all applicants and those with truly low acceptance rates like the Ivies are very rare indeed.

How ironic that Tech doesn't require these requirements for an undergraduate degree, however, for me to be admitted to the Masters Program which will require me to shell out about 40K, I have to submit a resume, a letter stating why I want admission to the program, and a letter from my supervisor.

After doing a little more research, which was accomplished via an internet search engine freely available to the public, it would appear that the Americans with Disabilities Act created a right that mentally ill people could attend college.

In other words, even if VT expended scads of money to perform a stringent background check on Mr. Cho, even if his mental illness came to light before he was admitted, VT couldn't deny his admission for that reason alone, especially if he "tested well."

Demos, we do not necessarily have different viewpoints, perhaps just different vantage points. I have seen this up close and personal a few times. Mental illness doesn't usually start out "severe," it is progressive and can begin as the mild depression, anxiety and other disorders of which you speak. I have (at least) three bi-polar family members (one immediate). One was a self-medicating drug addict for decades until he became compliant with his treatment. Now he runs his own successful business. One was committed multiple times before giving in to a lifetime of medication and psychotherapy. She is a tenured, published, award-winning university professor. The third, a university student, took her own life just over a month ago, within months of diagnosis and commencement of treatment. In hindsight, all three exhibited signs from childhood. It's complicated, but I agree, there has to be a better way forward. Healthcare and patients' rights reform are a good start.

All the stretching and grasping to find out why Virginia Tech let the gunman in and let him stay are no different than speculating on whether a woman who was raped somehow brought it on herself by a history of flirtation, dressing provacatively, etc. That is completely immoral as is blaming Virginia Tech or its administration for being the victim of this horrible act of a madman.

Stop blaming the victim and blame the perpetrator.

A waste of bandwith, Mr. Fisher. This piece is unsubstantiated and based wholly on conjecture. There is no evidence that his admissions information would have even yielded hints of a mental illness, and even if it did, admissions officers are not mental health practitioners.

Cho was a Gook of Hazard

to leslie, aside from the 40k, how is that process any real different than applying for another job?

The irresponsible and reprehensible Monday morning quarterbacking by the media continues unabated as we head into week 2 since the tragic events of April 16. Fisher, when are you going to get into your head that it is impossible to prevent every danger, tragedy, and horror in society?

Mr. Fisher implies that because Cho's sister got into Princeton that he must have been academically proficient as well. That is a huge, misguided assumption.

I agree that there should have been an interview process.

"The real problem here is a mental health system that is grossly underfunded and is hamstrung by too many rules that keep people who need involuntary care from getting it."

No, the real problem is we don't have a bunch of pre-cogs lying in a pool somewhere telling Tom Cruise who to arrest before they commit a crime.

Look, from what we can tell this was a sick individual who went to great lengths to hide what he was planning. He went about preparing intelligently, renting vans and hotel rooms to prepare his videos.

This hindsight stuff is all 20/20 but just wait until the avalanche of lawsuits starts hitting the academic sector in a few years because they've been secretly psychologically profiling and invading their student's privacy all in the name of security.

This is an example of why Virgina Tech has asked the media to leave their campus.

Cho was in semester #8 at Tech. He was a capable student and part of Tech. Live with it.

Alberto Gonzalez, what's up with a racist remark "Gook"? Should we call you "Yo, hombre or amigo"?

"Sorry, guys, there is no law against being insane, only against certain insane acts--and many sane ones I might add."

That's righ, insanity is not a crime - nor should it be. It is, in fact, a generally recognized defense against criminal liability.

However, certain forms of severe mental illness can make someone a serious danger to society. It is neither unreasonable nor unjust to say that we must identify such individuals and require appropriate treatment - including institutionalization, if necessary - to protect both them and the people around them.

I don't think there's any real question about the legal principle involved - involuntary commitment was actually considered in Cho's case. The issue is whether we're identifying people who are a threat to society, and whether we're making the appropriate decisions once they are identified. We have, as a society, made real strides towards destigmatizing mental illness and "mainstreaming" individuals with less severe mental illnesses. We may have been to quick to commit people in the past - have we in reaction become too slow to commit people like Mr. Cho?

"Cho was in semester #8 at Tech. He was a capable student and part of Tech. Live with it."

Unfortunately, he wouldn't let all of the students and teachers on the Tech. campus do exactly that. That's the problem.

phoaglan: "Mr. Fisher implies that because Cho's sister got into Princeton that he must have been academically proficient as well. That is a huge, misguided assumption."

I think the implication is that he would be admissions savvy, not necessarily academically proficient.

There were many opportunities to to identify and treat Cho's psychosis before he went on a shooting rampage. Every organization that dealt with Cho: the Fairfax County Public Schools, Virginia Tech, the police, the mental health community, and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, ineffectively dealt with the symptoms Cho presented. Most of the reasons for the lack of effective response can be described as too much deference to Cho's right of privacy.

Cho was severely autistic, not mentally ill, beginning as a child. He never should have been in Virginia*s public school system; there are many children who should not be attending our public schools. They need to be in special schools receiving professional mental health care. We know he had problems in middle school dealing with other kids because of his inability or unwillingness to talk. Once the public school system permits a child to stay in the system despite his extremely asocial behavior typified in autism, then there was no doubt that he would graduate from a Virginia public high school, no matter what problems he had, as long as he did reasonably well academically. Given that he graduated, one of the state universities, which VT is, would have accepted him as they would any other student. Even if he had gone to a two year community college, if his grades were at least a C, he would have been automatically accepted at a four year state university. This is more or less what the laws are in Virginia. That*s why the graduates of four year colleges are so much less educated and skilled than they used to be, not just in Virginia, but especially in Virginia. Since Americans decided to be politically correct and especially after threats of litigation by every *special* group on the grounds of *discrimination* (racial minorities, disabled, poor children, you name it, there*s an advocacy group) the doors have been flung wide open to taxpayer funded support of everyone rather than implementing selection processes that determine those students most worthy of education and accepting only them. There*s just no such thing left that says that a person must show his *worth* to attend college. More taxpayer dollars are spent in public K-12 for a child *with disability* than for a regular normal child, at least twice as much. That*s why we are going down the tubes as a nation in educating our kids. As for Cho and how he ended going ballistic, the fault lies with his mother who vastly favored his sister, never even tried to get him mental health care, prayed for him to change as if that would do anything, and went to work because she said the family needed money. Her behavior is not a result of her being Korean; her behavior is a result of being a parent who blames herself for his autism. Many mothers especially end up feeling guilty, although some do just the opposite by pretending their child is perfectly normal. In this case, her guilt made her ignore him and pretend he was not there; it seems that she simply would not accept him in her life. Cho*s father was at fault for not stepping in and doing something about his wife*s ignoring her son or perhaps he felt as guilty as she did. Anyway, it*s obvious that Cho*s rant is directed at his parents - not anyone he went to school with. It seems to me that his pent-up anger was actually at his parents. In the old Korean culture, if she had chosen to ignore him, another relative would have picked up the slack and taken care of him, keeping him at home and not sending him to school - ever. This is where things went hay-wire for the Cho family because in America he was expected to go to school, unlike Korea. But the mother did not want to hear anything about his autism or mental illness. It*s also obvious that they did not socialize with others in the Korean community because of their shame about their son. This could happen to any family, not just Koreans. The sad part is that social services will get involved when they see physical abuse of a school age child, but psychological abuse of this kind (being ignored, knowing your parents are ashamed of you, getting no attention from your family) is not on the radar screen. Getting back to VT admission policy, Marc Fisher should understand that Virginia state universities allow just about anyone to attend. And just about everyone graduates. So this was a pointless exercise and not worth a column at all.

It is ignorant to assume that this young man's troubled past would have shone through in a more rigorous admissions application. He was smart enough to orchestrate this blood bath - presumably he would be smart enough to doctor up an essay to come off as a well-adjusted teen. Furthermore, it is not the responsibility of university admission officers to diagnose mental illness. That is not what they are trained for, nor is it appropriate.

It's alot tougher to get into VT now. I graduated high school in 1998 and got into VT with a 3.1 GPA and an 1150 on my SATs. I didn't write an essay. I actually wanted to go to Florida State and got in.. then I visited both VT and Florida State and immediately fell in love with VT's campus. Choosing VT was the best decision I've ever made.

VT is not very selective - they let in 2/3 of those who apply. Cho went there most likely because he could not have gotten into Princeton or other such selective colleges which require interviews, personal essays, teacher referrels, etc.

VT is not at fault here, folks. No one could really have predicted that THIS very sad young man would snap in such a violent way. There are a LOT of depressed, unhappy, lonely people in this world every day and some of them are college students. VT reached out to him but he would not be helped.

Mr. Fisher, I think you ask some valid questions, as clearly Cho was unable to function properly in a university setting. I ,too, wondered why he chose VA Tech (as an English major), and why he remained enrolled dsepite his obvious difficulties and lack of classroom performace.Having gone through the college application process with two of my children in the past several years,I can attest to the fact that other public and private universities and colleges here in Virginia require a great deal more information from their prospective students.That begs the question, did Cho chose VA Tech because he perceived the admissions process to be lax, and that, once in, he would be "under the radar" in such a large student body?

He got in because he was qualified. If some US citizen did not get in, then that citizen was NOT qualified. If we admitted people to universities based on their citizenship status, we would quickly become less-than-mediocre. Thank God for the non-citizens who are raising our standards!!!!

my daughter applied to george mason and they did a personal interview of each applicant they thought was qualified. sounds good to me.

Hey, what about public high and middle schools? Who's protecting us from guys like that?

The article lists what the college considers for admission: ethnicity is right at the top of the list although this guy was most likely admitted for other reasons. Ethnicity is code for: American Africans and more of that diversity crap that haunts education in this country and has resulted in dumbing down of the curriculum. This guy being an American Asian probably had good grades, good SAT score and paid the full tab.

I, too, had questions about how Cho got admitted to VPI. Thanks for answering them, Marc. I have even more questions about how he stayed in the English program exhibiting such poor writing.

I get the sinking suspicion that if the univeristy had held fast to strict academic standards, he would have been kicked out of the English department.

So for me, I think the shooting inadvertantly revealed a "dirty little secret" at VPI: the deteriorating standards of its undergraduate liberal arts program. It might not be the story of the shooting itself, but it's a story about the university as it struggles to regain its reputation.

Fred:

I can't believe you are blaming the Korean American community and Cho's family for what he did. You astound me. Anyone can turn out to be crazy, including your own son or daughter. We'd hope the family would recognize the signs, but in this case they clearly didnt and the school was negligent in doing something about it that could have saved 32 lives. Personally I blame you for what happened. How does that feel?

"Yes, these kids are legally adults, but perhaps part of the school policy could include requiring people with certain red flags to be treated by a counselor in order to continue as students."

The average age of undergrads at most universities is around 26-27 years old. Can we please stop referring to college students as kids! Many students are in their 30s, 40s and 50s (myself included).

Colleges exist to provide education on general and specified topics, but are not institutes for social engineering, and they are not mental health facilities. But they do provide unprecedented access to those and many other resources.

Alot has already been written about this sad event. I think there are two aspects of our current society that are obstacles to change: the accessiblity of guns (The gun lobby is way powerful). And new privacy laws that define 18 yr olds as adults. What teen or young adult will go into therapy for a mental problem without
being forced to? What about that student at GWU who went for help nad was outed for it?

Alexandria

I'm amazed at how quickly people want to blame people other than the killer. Cho is the only one to deserve 100% blame. Why must there be an excuse for everything? Perhaps he was mentally ill. So are many people who never shoot anyone. Should they be barred from college? How about shear meanness? Is there any way to detect that? There is no label for evil. It just is what it is. I grew up in Virginia and attended a Virginia college. It is very selective and required three essays for admissions. Guess what? We still had plenty of weirdos, loners, losers, etc. I can think of several of them who were very much like Cho, but they didn't shoot anyone. They could have just as easily. I also spent a lot of time at Va Tech visiting friends there. I didn't see anyone as weird as the folks at my own college. I have read that most serial killers and mass murderers have high IQs. In a way, they have to be unusually smart in order to pull it off. So, Mr. Fisher, I suspect that you're more likely to find whackos on the most selective campuses than you are on the less selective ones. Va Tech has super-brainy people in some of its programs (i.e. engineering, architecture, sciences) and more average people in others. Tech was just unlucky, and the only one to blame is Cho himself. He was an evil demon, and it was Tech's misfortune that he ended up there. It could have just as easily been UVA, W&M, Harvard, Middle Tennessee State, or some other fine (or not so fine) institution of higher learning.

Alot has already been written about this sad event. I think there are two aspects of our current society that are obstacles to change: the accessiblity of guns (The gun lobby is way powerful). And new privacy laws that define 18 yr olds as adults. What teen or young adult will go into therapy for a mental problem without
being forced to? What about that student at GWU who went for help nad was outed for it?

Anne, Alexandria

Sue,

we very well may not disagree. Part of this tragedy is that if Mr. Cho had received the treatment he needed - even if it was involuntary - his life might have taken an entirely different path.

I don't want to "punish" anyone for being mentally ill. On the other hand, no one benefits if a mental illness is left to fester, or if an individual with a mental illess is allowed to harm themselves or someone else.

I really am sympathetic. I don't want to go into it too much, but I've had to deal with a late adolescent who was borderline depressed and very, very angry. We insisted on counseling (we did have to insist, and we were lucky enough to be dealing with a minor so that we could insist), and things have turned out very well so far. It turns out that the situation was not as bad as we were concerned that it might be.

But, we had to know. It would have been irresponsible not to have the child evaluated and treated - and had there been a danger of suicide or harm to other members of the family, we would have had to have dealt with it.

one of my relatives is a mental health professional and works with many college students (privately, not through a university). At times she has been required to submit a treatment/progress note AND a letter stating to the best of her professional judgment, the student should be allowed back at school and is no longer a threat to him/herself. So SOME colleges do take mental health seriously...

Cho was a grad student. So what is the point of this dicussion.

I do not find the fact that Cho got into VT or stayed there despite showing a lack of academic prowess very surprising at all. Read any blog nowadays and you will see that the most high school students can't even use the proper form of "your" or "you're" or spell something as simple as admissions.

This blog http://ahfb.blogspot.com/, maintained by a University of Michigan student, shows you just how intelligent many of the kids who get in to college are nowadays. This blogger takes essays and things left behind at University printers/copiers, scans them, and uploads them. Most are horribly pathetic attempts at writing. It is very alarming to know that people like these graduate from college.

Even my own graduate experience shows that teachers aren't that stringent - I feel that I have been graded FAR too generously in some cases where I put forth hardly any effort, yet still received an A. And I go to private school in DC that I have paid $45,000 for. The professor would rather pass the student and not have to deal with them or their temper tantrums when they don't get the grades they have to expect from our too-lax education system.

Long before there were laws protecting the rights of disabled persons to attend public school, colleges, work, etc, I went to both private and public colleges. In each of them were several very odd students who scared off people or just kept to themselves in an obviously abnormal way. Some were taunted. Some were ignored. None of them killed anyone on campus. Maybe they snapped later, maybe not. You just can't predict every behavior.

Since we are talking about Cho, who was it that filmed part of his video that he mailed to the news station?? If you watch, the camera is hand held and is shaking during one of his communications to us. Why was there a report early on of a second shooter?? It the school is under Federal jurisdiction, why were local police and school security told to stand down until the arrival of federal agents, some two hours after the 1st shooting -- and possible apprehension of "one" of the shooters?? Who was that was arrested and handcuffed after the 1st shooting, and how come he looks so much like Cho?????

Bob, you are right. NOT! Racial quotas are the culprit.

"The Cold Splash of Reality, With A Side of Sizzle."

Haha...what an idiot...I can't believe I wasted the 5 minutes to read your article. I mean, it's almost as bad as "Richard McBeef"...

Seriously? You've found a way blame the admissions department? I think that's stretching it a bit Mr. Fisher. Actually, it's utterly and completely ridiculous because what would have been prevented had Tech had stricter admissions requirements? Nothing. Granted Cho might not have shot up Tech students, maybe he'd decided to just start shooting people in the parking lot outside of a Redskins game. If a guy's going to lose it, he's going to lose it and we shouldn't point fingers just for the sake of finger-pointing, which is exactly what this article does. If you want to write about stricter admissions requirements for colleges and universities, then more power to you, but don't do it under the pretense that it's related to this tragedy because it really isn't.

The movement to prevent unnecessary commitment of mental patients coincided with the movement to reduce government spending on social services--with many tragic results. We don't have enough resources for outpatient treatment or monitoring. And sometimes a mentally ill and dangerous person escapes commitment only because of a lack of beds in the local mental facility or because of pressure to keep costs down, not because release is the best option for the patient or public safety. Budget cuts sometimes lead to mental health diagnoses made by undertrained and/or overworked staffers after too little time spent with the patient. I don't want to return to the days when we locked up harmless eccentric individuals too readily, but the homeless persons I see every day at Union Station remind me that our current system is not good for many of our neighbors with mental illnesses.

A more relevant question Mr. Fisher might have asked: Why was Cho allowed to obtain guns? A question not for VT admissions office, but directed to politicians. Would this tragedy likely to have happened in Great Britain of Canada with stricter gun laws?

Rediculous point I think. Couldn't Cho have just lied like he did when he was buying his guns? He never showed violent behavior in HS as far as I've heard. How hard would it have been to get a teacher to give a pat answer if his grades were good?

Also whoever rants that universities are supposed to teach young adult how to behave is asking a lot. They aren't supposed to be parents, and neither are any level of schooling. It is kind of rediculous to blame them for not having "do not kill your fellow classmates" seminars.

I'm so tired of the media type of Cho's being a Korean - such racism! His being born in South Korea has no brearing on what happened. He was just mentally ill and delusional, that has nothing to do with his race. Are you also suggesting that all mentally ill people should be barred from attending a good college because they are guaranteed to become a mass murderer? Such an over-generalization, on top of a racism.

WP is smarter than everyone here. They post a piece of sensationalist crap and everybody responds with indignation. I bet this guy is going to get a big fat bonus for generating a high volume of "clicks".

Let's all play the blame game!

Marc, you seem to be blaming the university for not having an adequate admissions screening process. Many of those commenting blame the university, his high school, his family, his ethnic community, the mental health system, so forth and so on.

Why isn't anyone blaming Cho? This lack of personal responsibility is partly what is wrong with our social system.

It seems as though any time such a tragedy happens, we all have to find someone else to act as the scapegoat, especially if the perpetrator is dead. Does that negate his or her responsibility?

Was Cho mentally ill? Who knows -- it seems a moot point now. I read the plays he reputedly wrote. I saw anger and poor writing skills, not derangement. Of course, as a lay person I am scarcely qualified to make such an assumption, but anger does not mean the individual does not know right from wrong.

I believe his careful planning indicates he knew exactly what he was doing and knew that it was wrong. Quit blaming everyone else and put that blame right back where it belongs -- on Cho.

The problem with Mr. Cho would not be solved if Virginia Tech had required teacher references and essays. Assuming Cho would be excluded from admission to Virginia Tech on the basis of a reference or essay, he would likely be admitted to some other school where he would be free to do his horrible deeds there.
America needs tighter gun control. Part of that would be a system to prohibit the sale of arms to those suffering from mental illness. We need better treatment for those suffering from mental illness.

I was actually quite interested in this piece and find the responses to it fascinating. I, for one, have very much wondered how this boy made it all the way through a school system that has been described as "excellent" without *ever* speaking, and then, how he ever got into a halfway selective college (though VT, frankly, sounds as if it is not terribly selective at all, or at least, is only moderately so) -- it just seemed bizarre. Every spring the media is full of stories of valedictorians being turned away from their chosen schools, including state schools, as the percentage of people who attend a college of some sort goes up. So I have been curious about this...and was glad to see it. The piece did go off the rails a bit at the end, when it strayed into criticizing VT's admission policy. As others have said, he just would have done this somewhere else, and an admissions policy can't adequately weed out mental illness, if it has been hidden and ignored for so long by so many! Obviously, there is lots of blame to go around here, starting with a school system that did not flag his (apparently) obvious disabilities when he was much, much younger and intervention might have helped and a paralyzed, dysfunctional family unable to deal with him (and I have found the family's statement, that they had NO idea he was so troubled, rather odd. Clearly, they knew all too well how weird he was, including the sister! they obviously just hoped he would miraculously wake up one day and be normal). But I know that many school systems look the other way when children like him come along, as helping such disabled children, especially ones with serious illnesses as autism, can be so incredibly expensive...and they wait for parents to make a stink before doing so. And clearly, these parents were NOT going to agitate on behalf of their son, they were too deep in denial and shame. But still...this whole story really reveals just how inadequate our country's mental health system is. There are probably so many like him out there, who have fallen through the cracks, if they do not have families aggressively fighting for them.

I am from VT and just went down there this past weekend to see how my community was doing. Just like suspected the media was not allowed in any Restaurants or local places on campus. People just can't relate to a isolated incident that is trully horrific and very sad. What is sad is that in a Information age like we are in today the media speculates and beats things to death with coverage and stupid articles like this.

What is also interesting is everyone in here is debating on VT acceptance policy, how many of you even realize the amount of student population growth in the past 15 years? They will let anyone in ? Well, go for it and try. The numbers you see for acceptance rates are skewed due to the growth and change of policy over the years.

What I am proud of is to be a Hokie and always a Hokie. My visit to campus over the weekend reassured me why I love VT so much.

Now let people grieve and get on with their life and stop stupid articles like this from being written.

The first responder at 12:11 who did not leave a name is dead WRONG about Virginia state universities not being very selective. In fact, they are among the MOST selective state universities in the country. The only equivalent system is California and Michigan in terms of selectivity. Some colleges in Virginia aren't as selective as others, but for a school of its size and scope, Virginia Tech is rather selective. UVA and W&M are extremely selective, usually accepting only between 20-30 per cent of applicants. JMU and Mary Washington are also quite selective. Virginia is full of excellent schools of varying degrees of selectivity. There are ultra smart people at all colleges, and there are evil people everywhere. Cho did not want to be helped, and he resisted help at every opportunity. Stop blaming Va Tech, Fairfax Schools, his parents, Koreans, or anyone else.

Fisher: "Why does one of Virginia's premier state colleges not spend the marginal extra money it would take to hire a few more admissions officers so that it can use a more probing application and seek teacher recommendations and personal essays to get a fuller picture of the students it is admitting?"
----------------------------------------
Well, since they are such a great school, what would this accomplish? The "marginal" extra money (there is no such thing as extra money, btw) could be better spent elsewhere. Marc, your entry this time is completely pointless.

The issue of greater concern to me is that Virginia's gun laws are so lax that young man who was clearly psychotic had no trouble buying not just one, but two! That, to me, is the bigger public health and safety issue.

EL: "I'm so tired of the media type of Cho's being a Korean - such racism! His being born in South Korea has no brearing on what happened. He was just mentally ill and delusional, that has nothing to do with his race. Are you also suggesting that all mentally ill people should be barred from attending a good college because they are guaranteed to become a mass murderer? Such an over-generalization, on top of a racism."

EL: Being Korean was a big part of the person we call Cho. It's not like he was fifth-generation. It's an important part of who he was. Deal with it. No one other than racist loons is blaming this on Koreans in general.

Your article didn't answer the question of how did Cho get in and stay in? You assume failings on the part of the school. Cho was obviously suffering and mentally ill, not able to do his school work and teacher and students were afraid of him and had complained to authorities. How did Cho get in and stay in? When will the newspapers start working on this question? Who was pulling strings to keep him in school and get him admitted?

To campus_security:

That was your little brother. Why don't you stop in the office and we can talk?

If you're going to blame Virginia Tech for admitting Cho, you also need to blame Fairfax County Public Schools for passing him year after year. Instead of VT spending extra money on admissions counselors to read essays, maybe Fairfax County should spend money investigating why two of their graduates decided to go on shooting sprees.

Wow! I'm with 'ch'.
This article was totally pointless.
Perhaps the Post can have an article, without reference to Cho, that focuses on 'why does a student get into college'.
Seems that some people are really into this issue ...

Cho is an "affirmative action killer"?? Unless you know absolutely nothing about the state of college education in the US, Asians are the ones being discriminated against in admissions. It's very interesting that whites always compare themselves to the black and hispanic community and complain about lower standards. However when Asians are thrown into the mix, conservative whites always dismiss the academic achievements by saying "oh those asian kids only study and don't play sports, blah blah blah" Hypocrisy at its best.

Luckily my sister and I both played varsity sports and did well academically (Yale and Duke grads), but do not come to this forum and pretend this is an affirmative action issue. Asians do not get favored in undergraduate or medical school admissions. Not at all.

As Joseph Samaha said at Saturday's service for his daughter, it is important to remember that the Cho family "has also lost a son." Debating VT's -- or any other university's admission's policy -- won't bring these souls back or prevent future incidents from occurring.

To all the bigots who l