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Do you really think nobody was cheating at Pomona & Harvey Mudd? Perhaps those schools follow educational philosophies that deemphasize relative performance lik

• Pinckney 14y ago
  I graduated from HMC last year. >Do you really think nobody was cheating at Pomona & Harvey Mudd? Perhaps those schools follow educational philosophies that deemphasize relative performance like Brown's gradeless system or emphasizing "cooperation" over individual ability. If your performance did not matter then perhaps there would be no incentive to cheat (or study). However these students are still humans and humans are lazy, greedy and proud - thus prone to cheating. I can't speak for Pomona, but many HMC classes have timed, closed book take home exams. It would be trivially easy to cheat on these. On homework, collaboration was usually encouraged, with the caveat that problems sets should ultimately be written up individually -- what policy to take was the choice of the professor. We certainly had grades. >Maybe because they are small and there is no incentive to publicize episodes of cheating and damage their brand no stories have come out yet. Still a quick search finds several articles indicating concerns at these schools. And sister school Claremont McKenna has had several major scandals in recent years. I'm appending data collected in a survey last year. The data was shared with students, but not AFAIK published outside. My personal perception is that cheating is uncommon, and I did not know of anybody I knew doing so. I believe very few people I knew would be open to cheating if approached by a friend. I agree that the administration has no incentive to publicize issues, but I do honestly believe that the issues were few. With all due respect to Claremont McKenna, their culture is very different. I would not extrapolate from them. ... There was a survey of student and faculty perceptions of cheating on campus. Unfortunately I don't have details of how this was conducted. Presumably it was anonymous. In response to : "I believe nearly all HMC Students respect the Honor Code" Students: Agree: 84% Neutral: 8% Disagree: 8% Faculty: Agree: 88% Neutral: 5% Disagree: 7% "Most HMC Students adhere to the Honor Code in their academic work.": Students: Agree: 92% Neutral: 4% Disagree: 4% Faculty: Agree: 90% Neutral: 10% Disagree: 0% "Most HMC Students adhere to the Honor Code in matters unrelated to their academic work.": Students: Agree: 66% Neutral: 22% Disagree: 12% Faculty: Agree: 53% Neutral: 33% Disagree: 14% (For this question, I do not know the number of respondents): Faculty: In the past 3 years, have any of the following Honor Code violations occurred in the classes you teach: Plagiarism: 18 Cheating: 10 Collaboration: 10 Other: 3 Faculty: On average, how frequently have Honor Code violations come to your attention?": 1/yr: 77% 2-3/yr: 23% Faculty: Do you currently give take home exams in any of your Core classes"? [Core classes are required for all students]. Yes: 32% No: 42% N/A: 26% Faculty: Do you currently give take home exams in any of your non-Core classes"? Yes: 86% No: 14% Students: "Have you ever violated the honor code?" No: 80% 1x: 15% 2x: 1% >2x: 4% Students: "Did you self report? Yes: 17% No: 83%