Princeton mandates proctoring for in-person exams, upending 133 year precedent • Hacker News Board

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

#41

Post by matthewdgreen » Wed, May 13, 2026, 8:47 PM UTC

john_strinlai wrote: post #12

lokar wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> If you want them to be trustworthy, you trust them. sure, but it seems exceptionally silly to continue to blindly trust them when a sizeable portion of them admit to not being trustworthy

Most of us have done something stupid once in our lives. That does not mean we do stupid things all the time, nor does it mean that we didn't learn from the experience. The goal of school is to help immature young adults grow into mature ones.

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

#42

Post by stephenhuey » Wed, May 13, 2026, 8:47 PM UTC

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…

When I was at Rice a quarter century ago, I can honestly say everyone I knew took the honor system seriously.

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

#43

Post by ruler88 » Wed, May 13, 2026, 8:47 PM UTC

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...

This doesn't seem particularly related?

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

#44

Post by twoWhlsGud » Wed, May 13, 2026, 8:48 PM UTC

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…

As someone who went there (albeit many decades ago) I can tell you FWIW when I was there folks took it seriously. I literally knew of no one who ever cheated on an exam. And I'm pretty sure that anyone I knew who observed cheating would have taken it seriously enough to bring it to the process. It was pretty much a fixture of how students thought about things. So it worked (near as I could tell) back then.

But institutions take awhile to adjust to new realities, and it while looks like Princeton may have been a bit behind the curve on this one, I can understand why they were reluctant to abandon this practice. Living in an honest community cuts a lot of extra effort out - crap that you don't even have to think about. Princeton will be a less productive place to learn going forward.

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

#45

Post by 9x39 » Wed, May 13, 2026, 8:48 PM UTC

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #19

analogpixel wrote: post #6

> If a suspected Honor Code violation occurs, proctors will document their observations and submit a report to the student-run Honor Committee, where they may later testify under the same standards used for other witnesses. is this so the rich kids that have parents who pay for parts of the school can still get a pass?

> so the rich kids that have parents who pay for parts of the school can still get a pass? It's Princeton. They're given due process, not administrative fiat. Also, on what planet does having "parents who pay for parts of the school" swing a student (versus administrator) run process?

Seems unlikely the student-run honor committee decision would be immune to being 'reviewed' or 'considered' by faculty. Why would they cede that power?

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

#46

Post by defen » Wed, May 13, 2026, 8:48 PM UTC

analogpixel wrote: post #6

> If a suspected Honor Code violation occurs, proctors will document their observations and submit a report to the student-run Honor Committee, where they may later testify under the same standards used for other witnesses. is this so the rich kids that have parents who pay for parts of the school can still get a pass?

Princeton has so much money that they could make it free for all undergrads and literally never run out of money.

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

#47

Post by applfanboysbgon » Wed, May 13, 2026, 8:49 PM UTC

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...

> in some left-wing corners of the commentariat, is out; flagrant disregard of the social contract is in.

Interesting that this is posed as the American left disregarding the social contract. I think you could make a pretty good case that the American right disregarded the social contract first in electing an extremely destructive pedophile who starts wars for reasons that can't even be articulated, pardons war criminals, engages in blatant nepotism enriching his family to the tune of billions at taxpayer's expense, large-scale fraud including being convicted of felony, adjudicated rapist, and a list of social contract violations going on for about 300 more pages that I'd be here all day typing out. And once the social contract is gone, it would be pretty weird to expect the other side to continue abiding by the terms. I don't personally make a habit of binding myself to one-sided contracts that impose no obligations on the other party.

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

#48

Post by traderj0e » Wed, May 13, 2026, 8:49 PM UTC

echelon wrote: post #33

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...

> Combined with the increasing acceptance of shoplifting It's the K-shaped economy. Those not participating in the upsides are electing to either not participate in the system at all or to destroy it. Most people think Luigi Mangione is a hero. We had a good post-WWII run. We had factories, then globalization. Massive growth for all economic backgrounds for several generations. But the world caught up. Now the averag…

??? This entire thread is unrelated. Princeton realized AI makes cheating too easy, that's it. Not every topic needs to be about Donald Trump.

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

#49

Post by WillPostForFood » Wed, May 13, 2026, 8:49 PM UTC

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.

Or it is a dilution of the culture through mass media, social media, and immigration from countries with different values.

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

#50

Post by matthewdgreen » Wed, May 13, 2026, 8:51 PM UTC

i_am_proteus wrote: post #30

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 t…

Yes, this is really depressing. I don't want to have to ban devices from exams, but it is something I might have to think about.