Lily Ma would be much luckier than her most peers, since she, at age 19, was to graduate from a top science university in east China.

Her road ahead could have been rosy, if she had not stealthily turned down the matriculation certificate a US university had mailed to her classmate Chen Xin.

Ma and Chen, both bright younger students at the Chinese University of Science and Technology in Hefei, capital of east China's Anhui Province, had applied to the same graduate program at the University of Minnesota.

Ma was jealous upon learning that Chen had been admitted to the program. She stole Chen's mail from the public mailbox of their class and wrote an email in Chen's name to decline the offer and recommended herself.

Chen had been held in the dark till she wrote to the admission office of the U.S. university asking why the matriculation certificate they had promised never responded. The whole class started to probe into the case and soon found out it was Ma's fault.

"I've been narrow-minded and cynical," said Ma in a letter of apology she posted on the school's BBS. "I was disappointed and became skeptical. I even hated those around me. I did what I shouldn't have done without the least consideration of its consequences."

Ma was dismissed on April 1, three months before her graduation. The school authorities also said they respect Chen's will to file a lawsuit against Ma, and are ready to help.

Amid controversies from the public whether Ma really deserved the penalty, Cheng Yi, vice president of the Chinese University of Science and Technology, admitted that the school authorities are also liable in the event, which reflects their inadequate ethics education.

Ma and Chen were both teenagers of the school's "program for gifted teens", a program for prodigies who can skip years of primary and secondary schooling to enter colleges at a tender age -- mostly under 15 and the youngest at 11.

The program has recruited more than 1,000 talented kids since it was set up in 1978, most of whom have become elite in the international science and engineering circles.

But the school authorities are increasingly aware of the psychological and ethical problems of these teenagers in recent years.

"We should all draw a lesson from Ma's case," said Kong Yan, a campus counselor who was once supervisor for the gifted teens program. "Teachers and their parents have for long overlooked the importance of the students' holistic development."

The long-standing worship for higher grades at Chinese schools and pressure from the job market have led students to vie each other on the campus, which many experts fear such competition may do them more harm than good.

Kong, who heads the campus psychological education center, said that it is crucial to teach kids, the advantaged kids in particular, under such circumstances, to love and be ready to learn from others so as to acclimatizes themselves to the intense competition at school and later on jobs.

Kong and her organization have taken substantial steps to remedy the situation in the past two years.

Starting from the fall semester of 2002, the psychological education center has been offering free psychological checkups to all freshmen and offering counseling services to those with problems, according to Kong.

"We've kept files of each student's psychological condition and, on this basis, we've built an early warning and intervention mechanism to stem minor problems from escalating," said Kong.

These files are confidential, she acknowledged. "So we've been confident the students will not suffer a loss of face to get counseling -- in fact, it helps them improve the quality of their lives."

Zhang Qian, a senior student, registered himself for counseling when he was in a dilemma whether he should go on to a graduate school or find a job to help support his family in a poverty-stricken rural area.

"After the counseling, I was convinced to make the more desirable choice -- and keep to it," he said in an interview with Xinhua. "I feel it's not that hard to make a choice now. After all,I wish in my heart to attend graduate school, and if I do, I can find a part-time job to make some money for my family."

A recent survey conducted by the students' association, nevertheless, shows most college students feel their burden coming from, among others, heavy school assignments, unpleasant dating experiences and frustrations in interpersonal communication.

"It's quite natural to feel the pinch of the pressure -- the problem is how to ease and resolve it," said Kong. "Adequate support from classmates, friends, families and teachers often help out."

Apart from counseling services and lectures, the university has offered a selective course on interpersonal communication. A most popular game at the class is for each student to present himself to the class and then anyone else spoke highly of him.

"Most students feel the game helps regain their self-confidence," said Kong, "This is very essential in building up their psychological health as each one of them used to be top student a thigh school but many are at a loss at college, where every one else is top student, too."

Lack of self-confidence, she said, is very often the cause of ethical problems and psychological crises that are troubling many college students in China today.

According to a survey by the Ministry of Education in 2004, half of the undergraduate students in China who prefer suspending schooling or dropping out of schools each year suffer from some sort of psychological handicaps.

"The problem has to be rooted out," said Kong. "Schools have to foster students' sound personalities, broad-mindedness and good physical and psychological health condition while providing them with qualified academic training."
 
(Xinhua News Agency April 19, 2005)