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Princeton mandates proctoring for in-person exams, upending 133 year precedent

dailyprincetonian.com

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Re: Princeton mandates proctoring for in-person exams, upending 133 year precedent

#21

Post by JumpCrisscross »

kibwen wrote: post #20
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #10

Combined with the increasing acceptance of shoplifting [1] and unprecedented corruption and criminality among our national leaders, it's hard not to read this as a moral page turning on American culture. [1] https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/04/hasan-piker-jia-to...

The fish rots from the head. It's a sucker's game to aspire to selflessly serve the greater good when the most powerful people in the land are brazenly corrupt pedophiles. In other words: monkey see, monkey do.

> fish rots from the head

Does it? Did it? We elected the "brazenly corrupt pedophiles."

This question seems complex and important enough to not be resolved with a truism.

Re: Princeton mandates proctoring for in-person exams, upending 133 year precedent

#22

Post by nukedindia »

lokar wrote: post #8
john_strinlai wrote: post #5

huh, i had no idea princeton specifically disallowed proctors, and instead relied on an honor system. seems... like a poorly thought out system, especially given: " 29.9 percent of respondents reported that they had cheated on an assignment or exam during their time at Princeton. 44.6 percent of senior respondents reported knowledge of Honor Code violations that they chose not to report. " crazier is the people prote…

AIUI, these schools see their mission as training the next generation of leaders and elites. They aim for people with strong abilities, and moral character. And, the way you guide youth to act in a certain way is by treating them that way. If you want them to be trustworthy, you trust them. This is not a totally fringe idea.

[dead]

Re: Princeton mandates proctoring for in-person exams, upending 133 year precedent

#23

Post by mmooss »

Comments express surprise that this honor code has been in place. Many schools have similar honor codes.

Despite HN trendiness, SV and business world advocacy of 'animal instincts', and current cultural trends, humans are generally honest and honorable - obviously people in many places have thought that. It's good news, though many will resist it because, I think, it violates the anarcho-libertarian norms that are fundamental to these cultural trends (i.e., arguing that corruption is inevitable, human nature, etc.).

Re: Princeton mandates proctoring for in-person exams, upending 133 year precedent

#24

Post by AndrewKemendo »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #16
john_strinlai wrote: post #5

huh, i had no idea princeton specifically disallowed proctors, and instead relied on an honor system. seems... like a poorly thought out system, especially given: " 29.9 percent of respondents reported that they had cheated on an assignment or exam during their time at Princeton. 44.6 percent of senior respondents reported knowledge of Honor Code violations that they chose not to report. " crazier is the people prote…

> 29.9 percent of respondents reported that they had cheated on an assignment or exam during their time at Princeton. 44.6 percent of senior respondents reported knowledge of Honor Code violations that they chose not to report What is it at other universities? I went to a big public school, and remember cheating being halfway rampant. The penalty, moreover, was never expulsion.

Anyone caught cheating at my university, especially if they lied about it, was expelled more or less immediately.

Re: Princeton mandates proctoring for in-person exams, upending 133 year precedent

#25

Post by kibwen »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #21
kibwen wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fish rots from the head. It's a sucker's game to aspire to selflessly serve the greater good when the most powerful people in the land are brazenly corrupt pedophiles. In other words: monkey see, monkey do.

> fish rots from the head Does it? Did it? We elected the "brazenly corrupt pedophiles." This question seems complex and important enough to not be resolved with a truism.

Trump was not the beginning of the decline, only the terminal symptom.

Re: Princeton mandates proctoring for in-person exams, upending 133 year precedent

#26

Post by htx80nerd »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #21
kibwen wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fish rots from the head. It's a sucker's game to aspire to selflessly serve the greater good when the most powerful people in the land are brazenly corrupt pedophiles. In other words: monkey see, monkey do.

> fish rots from the head Does it? Did it? We elected the "brazenly corrupt pedophiles." This question seems complex and important enough to not be resolved with a truism.

[flagged]

Re: Princeton mandates proctoring for in-person exams, upending 133 year precedent

#27

Post by wps »

I've sat in classes where people at my table genuinely took pictures of the exam while the professor's back was turned (being kind to us and giving us useful information on the board) and uploaded the entire exam to the Gemini app.

Cheating is all around disheartening and is now incredibly easy with all the free multi-modal models around. Real active proctoring is needed and devices need to be confiscated during exams. This is common practice in many other countries.

Re: Princeton mandates proctoring for in-person exams, upending 133 year precedent

#28

Post by JumpCrisscross »

alephnerd wrote: post #17
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

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.

> 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.)

Re: Princeton mandates proctoring for in-person exams, upending 133 year precedent

#30

Post by i_am_proteus »

The technical ability for the student to cheat in the present day is unprecedented.

For exams in most subjects, the cellular phone is held in the lap. The student needs only briefly expose the exam page to the camera of the phone: immediate photograph of the page, ingestion of the page by an artificial intelligence, and then: the student flips the page to view the side exposed to the camera, and glances down to see the answer on the telephone.

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