I don’t know but my first assumption would be that thia ia just a symptom of the zoomer ghosting epidemic. Even in a professional context, zoomers a year younger than me have always displayed this incredible inability to respond to important text messages. (Can’t stop grumbling about this to anyone I know LOL)

If you want a really wild explanation consider that, if you’re really not supposed to be there, the police are catfishing for adults who want to date 17 year olds. They see you, check if you’re real, and have no purpoe to caffish you,

I do wish people wouldn’t treat a good university performance as essential to their self worth though

Honestly never. The problem is that if you have other stuff in your life that takes priority, like a family, you might not pull your weight OR you might not understand how to manage time. This can happen to people of any ages; kids with family issues or disruption in their home life see a dip in school performance, for instance.