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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

#181

Post by vector_spaces »

andyjohnson0 wrote: post #82
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...

> it's hard not to read this as a moral page turning on American culture. Are unsupervised examinations common in the US? Or is this, in fact, simply one institution coming in to line with common US national and international practice?

This is not common in an in-person setting -- nearly "unheard of" outside of elite schools or particular faculty at particular programs. So it is the latter

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

#182

Post by [deleted] »

kerkeslager wrote: post #155
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…

I think it really depends on how you view our high education system. As a middle-aged man returning to school to switch careers, my entire reason for going to school is to learn, and I'd never cheat because that would undermine my own goals. To me the purpose of school isn't the degree--I made an entire career already without one--it's to learn. Students are at school for a lot of poorly-thought-out reasons: inertia,…

[deleted]

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

#183

Post by pdonis »

kerkeslager wrote: post #155
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…

I think it really depends on how you view our high education system. As a middle-aged man returning to school to switch careers, my entire reason for going to school is to learn, and I'd never cheat because that would undermine my own goals. To me the purpose of school isn't the degree--I made an entire career already without one--it's to learn. Students are at school for a lot of poorly-thought-out reasons: inertia,…

> if you view higher education as gatekeeping for further life options

From the institution's perspective--or at least an "elite" institution like Princeton--that is what it is. When they confer a degree, they're conferring something valuable, even if its main value is as a status marker and ticket to future options. They can't afford to take the attitude of "let the cheaters cheat, they'll only hurt themselves", no matter how true it is, because it would destroy their brand.

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

#184

Post by breezybottom »

ccortes wrote: post #99
bix6 wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The stats beg to differ. ⅓ admitted to cheating. Cheating was rampant at my uni and we also had an “honor code”

Bad argument. All countries have laws yet criminality rates varies a lot from country to country. It’s all about the culture.

The accuracy of measuring criminality also varies, yet you seem to take it at face value that those stats are accurate.

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

#185

Post by redwall_hp »

AndrewKemendo wrote: post #24
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Pretty much my observation. Professors could give lenience and a warning by not reporting it, but if they reported it to Academic Affairs, the Provost would probably end up throwing them out.

One time, several people cheated on physics homework (apparently in a very obvious way), and the professor took fifteen minutes out of the next lecture to basically say "you know who you are, you got a zero, and if I see it again, I'm going straight to the Provost."

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

#186

Post by yongjik »

ccortes wrote: post #99
bix6 wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The stats beg to differ. ⅓ admitted to cheating. Cheating was rampant at my uni and we also had an “honor code”

Bad argument. All countries have laws yet criminality rates varies a lot from country to country. It’s all about the culture.

"Culture" works by having a system that collectively punishes cheaters, so that people learn from their own (or others') experiences and internalize that cheating is bad and won't pay off in the long term.

That's how you get a culture against cheating. You ensure that cheating doesn't pay, and eventually people learn that cheating doesn't pay. The enforcement is part of the culture.

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

#187

Post by godsinhisheaven »

pickleRick243 wrote: post #169
godsinhisheaven wrote: post #161

Maybe I haven't scrolled down far enough, but gut feeling is telling me that a lot of the rise in cheating is coming from international (read: chinese) students. Plenty of stories and personal experience of cheating rings. I tried to get into one just to see what was going on, but even though I looked the part I couldn't talk the talk.

The numbers don't play out because international chinese students only make up 5-7% (maybe less) of the undergraduate student body. Self-reported cheating frequencies are much higher.

Very fair.

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

#188

Post by joefourier »

palata wrote: post #58
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.

What is "Swiss metro"? Curious now.

It's incredibly common all over Europe, not just Switzerland. Not only the metros but the trams and even buses often rely on this system where there's no turnstile or barrier, you just walk in.

Not sure it's about being a high trust society or not, there's frequent inspections where they block the doors, and you get a hefty fine if you're caught without a valid ticket. I certainly wouldn't call Prague or Rome or Dublin high trust societies on par with a Swiss city.

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

#189

Post by pdonis »

throwup238 wrote: post #59
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.

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 th…

> every exam was take home

When I was at MIT, most exams were in-class, but open book, open notes, open whatever you wanted to bring with you. And of course that just meant the exams were much harder, because they could assume you had all the necessary reference materials at hand and didn't have to conjure things up from memory. "Cheating" was pointless, because everyone else in the room was struggling just as hard as you were.

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

#190

Post by john_strinlai »

mrtksn wrote: post #179
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…

It's nothing crazy about it. Why do you study? To learn. The exams are there to benchmark your progress. If you cheat, everything falls apart for you. It is possible that when the metric becomes the target(AKA Goodhart's law) cheating can be beneficial but this is failure of the institution because it means you are no longer there to learn.

>Why do you study? To learn.

mature students (25+, at my school) are indeed there to learn. the 18 year olds are mostly there because its what is expected of them, no more.

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