This article did some decent research about what cheating is happening, though it doesn't really get into why. It certainly is getting rampant. I suspect (this

This article did some decent research about what cheating is happening, though it doesn't really get into why. It certainly is getting rampant. I suspect (this is a hunch) that cheating really takes off in professions where schools or early career hiring managers have more talent than they can bring on board. Med schools, for example, would fall under this category. This often surprises engineers, but elite medical schools in the US often have admissions rates below 4% and attrition rates well below 1% (something that a is essentially unheard of in graduate STEM programs, which even at the elite level have attrition rates of 25%-50% depending on MS vs PhD and program/field). In other words, for med school, getting in is the hardest part. They work the students hard, but pretty much everyone graduates, and job prospects are very, very good for almost all graduates (again, this is at the elite level). Because they are so selective, having an MCAT at the 99%ile rather than the 97.5%ile does make a difference. Having a GPA of 3.9 instead of 3.65 does make a difference. My guess is that you could replace the entire class 10 times over without a dramatic drop in quality of graduates or physicians. It is, in this sense, excessively selective (I've heard it described, interestingly, as ironically selective). Now, add in the fact that some students are cheating - not to pass, and not to deny themselves an education (they are hardworking and absolutely do learn the material), but to bump their numbers up juuuust enough get get an edge. This isn't to justify it. I still consider it scummy. But to some extent, this is the byproduct of cartel building in medicine (and other fields) that artificially restrict the supply of physicians or other types of workers, creating a situation where "too many" very talented people are competing for "too few" spots (to everyone's detriment other than the members of the cartel). But the image of the cheater as a slacker who doesn't care about learning and cheats to get a bit of parchment, denying themselves the education they went to college to receive? Eh. I'm sure that happens, but a lot of cheaters are actually very high talent, extremely driven and motivated people who are cheating to get an edge, kind of like the difference between an elite cyclist who trains intensely and an elite cyclist who trains intensely and takes PEDs.