8 ms·

Princeton is a strange place. What on earth could be the objection to proctoring? I'd much rather have a proctor than have to narc on a classmate. And even t

Princeton is a strange place. What on earth could be the objection to proctoring? I'd much rather have a proctor than have to narc on a classmate. And even then, the proctor just reports the matter to a student-run body? Wild.

alephnerd 4mo ago
As someone who has attended this kind of program, it's because some students will cheat and view proctoring as an annoyance. Imo it's both on the students (plenty of students are optimizing just to get a class out of the way to do more interesting stuff) and the programs (some classes just aren't up-to-date or are rightfully viewed as busywork). Personally, I found courses that were output heavy and regurgitation light tended to be the most successful from an honor code perspective - you can't cheat your way out of "learning by doing" when you are held accountable for the output (eg. A research grade paper or implementing a fully functional Linux kernel). Sadly, even at Ivies most lower div classes are just rote memorization because class sizes would be massive for plenty of core classes (100-500 students for some classes).
- gnerd00 4mo ago
  I dont know what it means, but you missed an important category that was mentioned elsewhere ... brutal, even sadistic levels of work to filter students. I was in these kind of classes in my undergrad.
JumpCrisscross 4mo ago
> What on earth could be the objection to proctoring? There is a unique pride in being part of a community built around honor. You see this on the Swiss metro and in small-town vegetable stalls. Unproctored exams force every student to weigh the value of their honor against a better grade. That's a personal moral reckoning that might be worth the entire degree.
- jimbokun 4mo ago
  All of that is sophistry in defense of fucking over those who choose not to cheat.
  - traderj0e 4mo ago
    In this case yes. In general, the point of an honor system is supposed to be honor. It's great when it works, but unfortunately it's not working at Princeton.
  - rixed 4mo ago
    If one is honorable only for the reward, is one really honorable though? Either it is a principle or it is a strategy, can't be both.
- alephnerd 4mo ago
  You'd hope, but humans are humans - even if they attend an Ivy. Some individuals have heady thoughts and morals like you mentioned. Others are using it as a checkbox.
  - JumpCrisscross 4mo ago
    > humans are humans - even if they attend an Ivy I specifically called out two non-Ivy examples. Humans are humans. And one of those capacities is for behaving with honor. The enemy of honor, it turns out, isn't dishonor, but cynicism. (It isn't surprising that the dominant emotion on a Silicon Valley board towards an honor system is scorn.)
    - alephnerd 4mo ago
      No argument there. Tbf given my professional and personal background, I automatically assume the worst in all people so even though I never abused honor codes (and honestly never had the need to anyhow because I liked the classes I took with one as they tend to be the kinds of classes where professors and teacher staff are the most engaged) I think it is almost impossible to enforce one in classes beyond 30 students, because anonymity does beget some amount of bad behavior.
    - traderj0e 4mo ago
      I agree about the cynicism thing, I like the idea of an honor code if/when it actually works, but the bad reaction here is because 1/3 of students admitted to cheating.
  - TitaRusell 4mo ago
    As I understand it Americans pay tens of thousands of dollars for university. In my country if you can't hack it you just transfer to something else. Much less pressure. And let's face it if you can't even pass the exams maybe it is not your career? Don't live in a lie and go do something you'll enjoy.
    - alephnerd 4mo ago
- bdangubic 4mo ago
  > There is a unique pride in being part of a community built around honor. It has been 100(s) of years since community like this existed, now this is utopia
  - twoWhlsGud 4mo ago
    Princeton was that way in my lifetime (and I'm not that old : ) - corruption is not inevitable nor should honor be considered some sort of utopian dream.
    - alephnerd 4mo ago
      > I'm not that old I'm not sure. Most HNers appear to be in their late 30s to early 40s, which is a massive generation gap. Classes and incentive structures have changed for people who graduated in the early 2010s compared to the late 1990s or early 2000s and neither would understand students who graduate in the mid-late 2020s.
      - bdangubic 4mo ago
        exactly this
      - aidenn0 4mo ago
        ggp said 100s of years. I am certain that gp is not 100s of years old.
  - galleywest200 4mo ago
    I definitely still see honor system pay boxes in the USA. Maybe not in big cities, but outside of them. Disc golf courses, fire wood piles, that day’s chicken eggs in a wooden box on the side of the road.
    - bdangubic 4mo ago
      I came to this country as an immigrant and one of the first memories I have was walking to the gas station to get the Sunday paper for my host father. I remember opening up the door and seeing tens of Sunday papers and was taken aback thinking how can this be, wouldn't someone just put in a quarter and take ALL of the Sunday papers home with her/him. In today's society (and especially if we are talking Princeton-like places) I do not believe honor-anything "works" anymore and am wondering just how small a place needs to be where this exists today... just as a small recent-ish example, I live in a white-collar affluent area and this Halloween we took our daughter to her friend's neighborhood but left a dish full of candy outside with a sign to take a couple. we have a camera outside and the very first "group" of 3 kids (with two adults) that came took all of the candy that was there...
- palata 4mo ago
  What is "Swiss metro"? Curious now.
  - yeahwhatever10 4mo ago
    I assume they are referring to systems like TPG in Geneva. Basically you buy a pass and when you get on an off a bus or street car there is no checking of payment it is just assumed everyone is "honoring" the agreement to pay. Every once and a while transit cops will board and check that everyone has a pass/has paid somehow and if you get caught not paying it can affect your ability to rent housing etc.
    - paganel 4mo ago
      > it can affect your ability to rent housing This is insane, but I guess it fits the Swiss (and Geneva more specifically) quite well. And before anyone starts babbling here about the Swiss's rectitude, Geneva itself is host to this giant international money-laundering abomination: > Geneva Freeport (French: Ports Francs et Entrepôts de Genève SA) is a warehouse complex in Geneva, Switzerland, for the storage of art and other valuables and collectibles. It is the world's oldest and largest freeport facility, and the one with the most artworks, with 40% of its collection being art with an estimated value of US$100 billion But yeah, not pay the tram ticket once or twice and suddenly you're not worthy of renting in that shithole called Geneva, meanwhile the city itself launders hundreds of billions of dollars. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geneva_Freeport https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geneva_Freeport
      - rcbdev 4mo ago
        Just wait until you learn of other countries' "Freeports" (Zollfreilager) like i.e. Vienna's vie:artport. It's common practice. Adding to that, the airports and the freeports are sometimes privately run. It's not like the municipal government could do something even if they wanted to in some cases. But sure, be angry at things you don't fully understand. That's surely healthy.
    - traderj0e 4mo ago
- throwup238 4mo ago
  That’s just the propaganda they sell during college visits. When I was at Caltech the honor code didn’t inspire any pride, because the only way anyone got through that course load was by “cheating”*. No one had any time for pride (GO BEAVERS!) An honor code is an admission that your curriculum is so sadistic, not even cheating will help. Princeton just isn’t prestigious enough to keep up that charade. * At Caltech the line between collaboration and cheating was whether you listed your collaborators or not. Unless the professor explicitly indicated that it was a solo exam, group work was implied. Proctoring explicitly forbidden so every exam was take home except a few where we needed lab access (professors and TAs were forbidden from attending).
  - osculum 4mo ago
    Im surprised to hear that. I went to Caltech for my postgrad and never collaborated on an test, and it would have never ocurre me to do so (and no, the professor didn’t have to explicitly say they collaboration was not allowed. It was just the standard honor code). We all suspected of people that didn’t adhere to the honor code and it was frowned upon, and they could have faced repercussions if anyone had reported them.
    - throwup238 4mo ago
      I did ChemE for undergrad and aerospace focused on systems engineering for postgrad so that colored my experience a bit. The former was brutal and the latter naturally collaborative with a bunch of projects, so we all worked together. The postgrad continuum mechanics class (I think taught by the geophysics department?) was the biggest exception so I’m betting there’s quite a bit of variance among fields. I don’t doubt there’s academic fraud (living in the dorm my first year wiped away any illusion) but within my major it didn’t end well.
    - lazyasciiart 4mo ago
      > they could have faced repercussions if anyone had reported them. Did people report them?
      - 4mo ago
- ndiddy 4mo ago
  The article says that according to a survey of Princeton seniors from 2025, 29.9% admitted to cheating on an assignment and 44.6% admitted to knowing of cheating that they chose not to report. I guess they could continue acting as if they were a community built around honor, but when they have been empirically proven to not be honorable I think acknowledging this reality is the more practical solution.
  - gregw2 4mo ago
    It would also be interesting to understand how much "imposter syndrome" seen at Ivy institutions stems from just the inevitable "little fish big pond" dynamic and how much stems from cheating. (And how much that "imposter syndrome", from either source, then drives later hard-work/success and how much doesn't.)
- Krasnol 4mo ago
  Seriously, if you are a lazy or too slow son of a wealthy family, do you care about "honour" or what your daddy will give you if you pass? It smells like a backdoor.
  - gnerd00 4mo ago
    don't know about the phone era, but previously schools were widely separated by reputation and practice. "lazy or too slow son of a wealthy family" went to certain schools that had that element. The really competitive and state-of-the-art schools really did not do that "directly". There were approaches for example sports, and niche majors that were easier for sure. Another observation is that some advanced students were into specific and dedicated cheating in order to win. Others had a "party" orientation and just did not do as much schoolwork. A criticism based on "rich kid" also does not ring true as a general statement about University in the USA to me.
  - red75prime 4mo ago
    In a truly honorable community anyone who thinks that it's a backdoor will find out that it's not.
- bluefirebrand 4mo ago
  Does this actually matter in a culture that doesn't reward or value individual honor in any way?
- throwaway2037 4mo ago
  > Swiss metro I guess you mean they don't have fare gates? I quickly Googled about it and found this article: https://lenews.ch/2025/03/21/the-rapid-rise-of-fare-dodging-in-switzerland/ https://lenews.ch/2025/03/21/the-rapid-rise-of-fare-dodging-... To quote: "In 2024, more than 1 million cases of fare evasion were recorded in Switzerland, reported RTS. The number has more than doubled since 2019." High trust, eh? Here is a better explanation: Someone smart did the math and discovered that for many Swiss mass transit systems (there are many), they could get better overall revenue by (1) removing the expense of buying and maintaining fare gates, and (2) adding fare dodging penalties and enforcement staff. FYI: Berlin is similar.
  - bcye 4mo ago
    This is the standard across Europe outside of a few metropoles (really is there anywhere else in Europe outside Paris & London that does this?)
  - etherealG 4mo ago
    And a meta-point on top of the objectively better revenue argument swinging back to the other point about honor: if some or even most of the people involved in the honor system believe it works for the purpose of maintaining honor between each other, then it will encourage honorable behavior, even when there's significant dishonorable behavior. The fact that most people don't know that the honor system is about money not honor is part of what makes the money part of the honor system work.
lll-o-lll 4mo ago
Right, but there’s really only two directions you can go. 1. Install a culture of honour/virtue/accountability. Rely on duty and moral justice to keep the majority in-line. 2. An arms race to prevent ever more sophisticated methods of cheating, and the reduction in human dignity this implies. (E.g. the proctor must follow you into the toilet). We all want the systems to be fair and just; but we also all want to be treated with dignity. No easy answers.
ddp26 4mo ago
Stanford has this policy too. Students get livid when proctoring is proposed, even though cheating is rampant (afaict)
- gowld 4mo ago
  https://news.stanford.edu/stories/2026/04/faculty-senate-proctoring-open-access-policy https://news.stanford.edu/stories/2026/04/faculty-senate-pro... April 23rd, 2026 The Faculty Senate voted to allow proctoring of in-person exams following a pilot overseen by the Academic Integrity Working Group. The Faculty Senate unanimously voted to permit proctoring of in-person assessments following a presentation from the Academic Integrity Working Group (AIWG) on Thursday. Formed in 2024 after updates to the Honor Code and Fundamental Standard, the AIWG was charged with studying the scope of academic dishonesty at Stanford and overseeing a multi-year proctoring pilot study, which launched the same year. Historically, proctoring was not permitted at Stanford; students were expected to report peers for academic misconduct. “What we’re finding is that a lot of the expectations we might be putting on our students is creating an unsustainable moral burden on them,” in which students must choose to cheat to keep up or report their peers, said Jennifer Schwartz Poehlmann, AIWG co-chair and senior lecturer in chemistry. During the pilot, instructors reported that it helped them better assess students’ learning goals, clarified academic integrity standards, and reduced student frustration, said AIWG Student co-Chair Xavier Millan, ’26, an undergraduate in computer science. The proctoring policy was previously passed by the AIWG, the Board on Conduct Affairs, the Undergraduate Senate, and the Graduate Student Council. Poehlmann and Millan highlighted some of the student feedback that showed support for proctoring, including one who said proctoring feels like “more of a fair level playing field.”
- 19skitsch 4mo ago
  yeah it is interesting. when I was at Stanford I was a TA and we just had to leave the room during exams after passing them out and come back at the end to collect the exams. just as I was graduating they started doing the pilot for proctoring exams and I remember students were really upset about it, though my fellow TAs were mostly in agreement that it was a good idea. side note is that it’s kind of funny because sometimes the seating would be auditorium style so you could easily see papers in front of you if you were higher up… probably difficult to avoid accidentally glancing at someone else’s paper while taking a break, lol.
teaearlgraycold 4mo ago
Some schools love to pride themselves on their students' integrity. They don't proctor because they think their students don't cheat and can be trusted. I don't know about Princeton but a college my family attended had stats showing no difference between test scores in proctored vs. unproctored exams. That was before LLMs would have made it so easy to cheat. Maybe that school has changed its policy as well.
- asdff 4mo ago
  As a former TA the cheaters were never acing the test. They were like a turd circling the drain desperate for anything to grab on to. Often they'd cheat off eachother, sitting next to eachother, turning in identically incorrect exams. That being said if they were smart enough to cheat off the smart kids instead, maybe they wouldn't be so dumb to cheat and get caught. Oftentimes they had their head fully turned staring at another students exam without even hiding it. Very blatant cheating a lot of cases.
expedition32 4mo ago
I would never NARC on someone shoplifting or dealing drugs but cheating on exams? Yeah no fuck you we're not India here. That's your future cardiologist.
- s5300 4mo ago
  [dead]
- Schlagbohrer 4mo ago
  Why did the other comment by s5300 get downvoted literally to death? Many people who have suffered first hand at the depravity of the american medical system are right to be furious about it. Is this forum full of cardiologists and medical staff?

alephnerd 4mo ago

As someone who has attended this kind of program, it's because some students will cheat and view proctoring as an annoyance. Imo it's both on the students (plenty of students are optimizing just to get a class out of the way to do more interesting stuff) and the programs (some classes just aren't up-to-date or are rightfully viewed as busywork). Personally, I found courses that were output heavy and regurgitation light tended to be the most successful from an honor code perspective - you can't cheat your way out of "learning by doing" when you are held accountable for the output (eg. A research grade paper or implementing a fully functional Linux kernel). Sadly, even at Ivies most lower div classes are just rote memorization because class sizes would be massive for plenty of core classes (100-500 students for some classes).

gnerd00 4mo ago
I dont know what it means, but you missed an important category that was mentioned elsewhere ... brutal, even sadistic levels of work to filter students. I was in these kind of classes in my undergrad.

JumpCrisscross 4mo ago

> What on earth could be the objection to proctoring? There is a unique pride in being part of a community built around honor. You see this on the Swiss metro and in small-town vegetable stalls. Unproctored exams force every student to weigh the value of their honor against a better grade. That's a personal moral reckoning that might be worth the entire degree.

jimbokun 4mo ago
All of that is sophistry in defense of fucking over those who choose not to cheat.
- traderj0e 4mo ago
  In this case yes. In general, the point of an honor system is supposed to be honor. It's great when it works, but unfortunately it's not working at Princeton.
- rixed 4mo ago
  If one is honorable only for the reward, is one really honorable though? Either it is a principle or it is a strategy, can't be both.
alephnerd 4mo ago
You'd hope, but humans are humans - even if they attend an Ivy. Some individuals have heady thoughts and morals like you mentioned. Others are using it as a checkbox.
- JumpCrisscross 4mo ago
  > humans are humans - even if they attend an Ivy I specifically called out two non-Ivy examples. Humans are humans. And one of those capacities is for behaving with honor. The enemy of honor, it turns out, isn't dishonor, but cynicism. (It isn't surprising that the dominant emotion on a Silicon Valley board towards an honor system is scorn.)
  - alephnerd 4mo ago
    No argument there. Tbf given my professional and personal background, I automatically assume the worst in all people so even though I never abused honor codes (and honestly never had the need to anyhow because I liked the classes I took with one as they tend to be the kinds of classes where professors and teacher staff are the most engaged) I think it is almost impossible to enforce one in classes beyond 30 students, because anonymity does beget some amount of bad behavior.
  - traderj0e 4mo ago
    I agree about the cynicism thing, I like the idea of an honor code if/when it actually works, but the bad reaction here is because 1/3 of students admitted to cheating.
- TitaRusell 4mo ago
  As I understand it Americans pay tens of thousands of dollars for university. In my country if you can't hack it you just transfer to something else. Much less pressure. And let's face it if you can't even pass the exams maybe it is not your career? Don't live in a lie and go do something you'll enjoy.
  - alephnerd 4mo ago
bdangubic 4mo ago
> There is a unique pride in being part of a community built around honor. It has been 100(s) of years since community like this existed, now this is utopia
- twoWhlsGud 4mo ago
  Princeton was that way in my lifetime (and I'm not that old : ) - corruption is not inevitable nor should honor be considered some sort of utopian dream.
  - alephnerd 4mo ago
    > I'm not that old I'm not sure. Most HNers appear to be in their late 30s to early 40s, which is a massive generation gap. Classes and incentive structures have changed for people who graduated in the early 2010s compared to the late 1990s or early 2000s and neither would understand students who graduate in the mid-late 2020s.
    - bdangubic 4mo ago
      exactly this
    - aidenn0 4mo ago
      ggp said 100s of years. I am certain that gp is not 100s of years old.
- galleywest200 4mo ago
  I definitely still see honor system pay boxes in the USA. Maybe not in big cities, but outside of them. Disc golf courses, fire wood piles, that day’s chicken eggs in a wooden box on the side of the road.
  - bdangubic 4mo ago
    I came to this country as an immigrant and one of the first memories I have was walking to the gas station to get the Sunday paper for my host father. I remember opening up the door and seeing tens of Sunday papers and was taken aback thinking how can this be, wouldn't someone just put in a quarter and take ALL of the Sunday papers home with her/him. In today's society (and especially if we are talking Princeton-like places) I do not believe honor-anything "works" anymore and am wondering just how small a place needs to be where this exists today... just as a small recent-ish example, I live in a white-collar affluent area and this Halloween we took our daughter to her friend's neighborhood but left a dish full of candy outside with a sign to take a couple. we have a camera outside and the very first "group" of 3 kids (with two adults) that came took all of the candy that was there...
palata 4mo ago
What is "Swiss metro"? Curious now.
- yeahwhatever10 4mo ago
  I assume they are referring to systems like TPG in Geneva. Basically you buy a pass and when you get on an off a bus or street car there is no checking of payment it is just assumed everyone is "honoring" the agreement to pay. Every once and a while transit cops will board and check that everyone has a pass/has paid somehow and if you get caught not paying it can affect your ability to rent housing etc.
  - paganel 4mo ago
    > it can affect your ability to rent housing This is insane, but I guess it fits the Swiss (and Geneva more specifically) quite well. And before anyone starts babbling here about the Swiss's rectitude, Geneva itself is host to this giant international money-laundering abomination: > Geneva Freeport (French: Ports Francs et Entrepôts de Genève SA) is a warehouse complex in Geneva, Switzerland, for the storage of art and other valuables and collectibles. It is the world's oldest and largest freeport facility, and the one with the most artworks, with 40% of its collection being art with an estimated value of US$100 billion But yeah, not pay the tram ticket once or twice and suddenly you're not worthy of renting in that shithole called Geneva, meanwhile the city itself launders hundreds of billions of dollars. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geneva_Freeport https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geneva_Freeport
    - rcbdev 4mo ago
      Just wait until you learn of other countries' "Freeports" (Zollfreilager) like i.e. Vienna's vie:artport. It's common practice. Adding to that, the airports and the freeports are sometimes privately run. It's not like the municipal government could do something even if they wanted to in some cases. But sure, be angry at things you don't fully understand. That's surely healthy.
  - traderj0e 4mo ago
throwup238 4mo ago
That’s just the propaganda they sell during college visits. When I was at Caltech the honor code didn’t inspire any pride, because the only way anyone got through that course load was by “cheating”*. No one had any time for pride (GO BEAVERS!) An honor code is an admission that your curriculum is so sadistic, not even cheating will help. Princeton just isn’t prestigious enough to keep up that charade. * At Caltech the line between collaboration and cheating was whether you listed your collaborators or not. Unless the professor explicitly indicated that it was a solo exam, group work was implied. Proctoring explicitly forbidden so every exam was take home except a few where we needed lab access (professors and TAs were forbidden from attending).
- osculum 4mo ago
  Im surprised to hear that. I went to Caltech for my postgrad and never collaborated on an test, and it would have never ocurre me to do so (and no, the professor didn’t have to explicitly say they collaboration was not allowed. It was just the standard honor code). We all suspected of people that didn’t adhere to the honor code and it was frowned upon, and they could have faced repercussions if anyone had reported them.
  - throwup238 4mo ago
    I did ChemE for undergrad and aerospace focused on systems engineering for postgrad so that colored my experience a bit. The former was brutal and the latter naturally collaborative with a bunch of projects, so we all worked together. The postgrad continuum mechanics class (I think taught by the geophysics department?) was the biggest exception so I’m betting there’s quite a bit of variance among fields. I don’t doubt there’s academic fraud (living in the dorm my first year wiped away any illusion) but within my major it didn’t end well.
  - lazyasciiart 4mo ago
    > they could have faced repercussions if anyone had reported them. Did people report them?
    - 4mo ago
ndiddy 4mo ago
The article says that according to a survey of Princeton seniors from 2025, 29.9% admitted to cheating on an assignment and 44.6% admitted to knowing of cheating that they chose not to report. I guess they could continue acting as if they were a community built around honor, but when they have been empirically proven to not be honorable I think acknowledging this reality is the more practical solution.
- gregw2 4mo ago
  It would also be interesting to understand how much "imposter syndrome" seen at Ivy institutions stems from just the inevitable "little fish big pond" dynamic and how much stems from cheating. (And how much that "imposter syndrome", from either source, then drives later hard-work/success and how much doesn't.)
Krasnol 4mo ago
Seriously, if you are a lazy or too slow son of a wealthy family, do you care about "honour" or what your daddy will give you if you pass? It smells like a backdoor.
- gnerd00 4mo ago
  don't know about the phone era, but previously schools were widely separated by reputation and practice. "lazy or too slow son of a wealthy family" went to certain schools that had that element. The really competitive and state-of-the-art schools really did not do that "directly". There were approaches for example sports, and niche majors that were easier for sure. Another observation is that some advanced students were into specific and dedicated cheating in order to win. Others had a "party" orientation and just did not do as much schoolwork. A criticism based on "rich kid" also does not ring true as a general statement about University in the USA to me.
- red75prime 4mo ago
  In a truly honorable community anyone who thinks that it's a backdoor will find out that it's not.
bluefirebrand 4mo ago
Does this actually matter in a culture that doesn't reward or value individual honor in any way?
throwaway2037 4mo ago
> Swiss metro I guess you mean they don't have fare gates? I quickly Googled about it and found this article: https://lenews.ch/2025/03/21/the-rapid-rise-of-fare-dodging-in-switzerland/ https://lenews.ch/2025/03/21/the-rapid-rise-of-fare-dodging-... To quote: "In 2024, more than 1 million cases of fare evasion were recorded in Switzerland, reported RTS. The number has more than doubled since 2019." High trust, eh? Here is a better explanation: Someone smart did the math and discovered that for many Swiss mass transit systems (there are many), they could get better overall revenue by (1) removing the expense of buying and maintaining fare gates, and (2) adding fare dodging penalties and enforcement staff. FYI: Berlin is similar.
- bcye 4mo ago
  This is the standard across Europe outside of a few metropoles (really is there anywhere else in Europe outside Paris & London that does this?)
- etherealG 4mo ago
  And a meta-point on top of the objectively better revenue argument swinging back to the other point about honor: if some or even most of the people involved in the honor system believe it works for the purpose of maintaining honor between each other, then it will encourage honorable behavior, even when there's significant dishonorable behavior. The fact that most people don't know that the honor system is about money not honor is part of what makes the money part of the honor system work.

lll-o-lll 4mo ago

Right, but there’s really only two directions you can go. 1. Install a culture of honour/virtue/accountability. Rely on duty and moral justice to keep the majority in-line. 2. An arms race to prevent ever more sophisticated methods of cheating, and the reduction in human dignity this implies. (E.g. the proctor must follow you into the toilet). We all want the systems to be fair and just; but we also all want to be treated with dignity. No easy answers.

ddp26 4mo ago

Stanford has this policy too. Students get livid when proctoring is proposed, even though cheating is rampant (afaict)

gowld 4mo ago
https://news.stanford.edu/stories/2026/04/faculty-senate-proctoring-open-access-policy https://news.stanford.edu/stories/2026/04/faculty-senate-pro... April 23rd, 2026 The Faculty Senate voted to allow proctoring of in-person exams following a pilot overseen by the Academic Integrity Working Group. The Faculty Senate unanimously voted to permit proctoring of in-person assessments following a presentation from the Academic Integrity Working Group (AIWG) on Thursday. Formed in 2024 after updates to the Honor Code and Fundamental Standard, the AIWG was charged with studying the scope of academic dishonesty at Stanford and overseeing a multi-year proctoring pilot study, which launched the same year. Historically, proctoring was not permitted at Stanford; students were expected to report peers for academic misconduct. “What we’re finding is that a lot of the expectations we might be putting on our students is creating an unsustainable moral burden on them,” in which students must choose to cheat to keep up or report their peers, said Jennifer Schwartz Poehlmann, AIWG co-chair and senior lecturer in chemistry. During the pilot, instructors reported that it helped them better assess students’ learning goals, clarified academic integrity standards, and reduced student frustration, said AIWG Student co-Chair Xavier Millan, ’26, an undergraduate in computer science. The proctoring policy was previously passed by the AIWG, the Board on Conduct Affairs, the Undergraduate Senate, and the Graduate Student Council. Poehlmann and Millan highlighted some of the student feedback that showed support for proctoring, including one who said proctoring feels like “more of a fair level playing field.”
19skitsch 4mo ago
yeah it is interesting. when I was at Stanford I was a TA and we just had to leave the room during exams after passing them out and come back at the end to collect the exams. just as I was graduating they started doing the pilot for proctoring exams and I remember students were really upset about it, though my fellow TAs were mostly in agreement that it was a good idea. side note is that it’s kind of funny because sometimes the seating would be auditorium style so you could easily see papers in front of you if you were higher up… probably difficult to avoid accidentally glancing at someone else’s paper while taking a break, lol.

teaearlgraycold 4mo ago

Some schools love to pride themselves on their students' integrity. They don't proctor because they think their students don't cheat and can be trusted. I don't know about Princeton but a college my family attended had stats showing no difference between test scores in proctored vs. unproctored exams. That was before LLMs would have made it so easy to cheat. Maybe that school has changed its policy as well.

asdff 4mo ago
As a former TA the cheaters were never acing the test. They were like a turd circling the drain desperate for anything to grab on to. Often they'd cheat off eachother, sitting next to eachother, turning in identically incorrect exams. That being said if they were smart enough to cheat off the smart kids instead, maybe they wouldn't be so dumb to cheat and get caught. Oftentimes they had their head fully turned staring at another students exam without even hiding it. Very blatant cheating a lot of cases.

expedition32 4mo ago

I would never NARC on someone shoplifting or dealing drugs but cheating on exams? Yeah no fuck you we're not India here. That's your future cardiologist.

s5300 4mo ago
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Schlagbohrer 4mo ago
Why did the other comment by s5300 get downvoted literally to death? Many people who have suffered first hand at the depravity of the american medical system are right to be furious about it. Is this forum full of cardiologists and medical staff?