Either way, international students make up a huge percentage of the student population, as evidenced by your documentation. And in fact, it's too funny to me that you specify undergrad - keeps you from mentioning that there were 533 Chinese grad students, nearly 5x more than the the country with the 2nd most grad students, India.
I don’t know why specifying undergraduate is “too funny to you”…I specified undergrad because TFA was about undergrads. At no point did TFA mention any graduate student body - but it took care to explicitly reference decisions and feedback from multiple specific undergraduate bodies:
- (Undergraduate) Honor Committee [0]
- Senior Survey
- Undergraduate Student Government
- Dean of Undergraduate Students
- Faculty-Student Committee on Discipline [1]
> In The Daily Princetonian’s 2025 Senior Survey of over 500 seniors, 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. Only 0.4 percent of seniors responded saying that they had reported a peer for an Honor Code violation.
An Undergraduate Student Government survey of students cited in the proposal reportedly found that “a majority would favor proctoring or are indifferent to any change,” though a “sizeable minority opposes it on the grounds that students should behave honorably, and that faculty and students should trust each other given the 1893 Honor Code compact.”
The proposal states that Gordin met with and received endorsements on the policy from “current and former student chairs of the Honor Committee; colleagues from the Office of the Dean of Undergraduate Students and the McGraw Center for Teaching and Learning; the Faculty-Student Committee on Discipline; and the Academics Chair of the Undergraduate Student Government.”
“Undergraduates and faculty are realistic in understanding that having an instructor supervising examinations will not eradicate cheating,” the proposal notes. “However, they believe that there will be a significant deterrent effect, and that having an additional witness in the room will reduce pressure on students to notice and report concerns while they are themselves completing exams.”
0: https://honor.princeton.edu/front : Note that the “Honor Committee” is an undergraduate body, there is no graduate Honor Committee at Princeton.
1: https://odus.princeton.edu/student-support-and-community-sta... “ composed of faculty members, undergraduate students, and administrators, adjudicates all potential violations of academic integrity regulations by undergraduate students” (has nothing at all to do with graduate students)
And brother, I don't give a shit what Princeton students have to say about the invigilation situation. That's an inmates running the asylum kind of thing. It's obvious that such a system is unworkable in the modern world when Ivy League schools in particular (and most schools in the top 50 globally) export many of the students they educate. A university education these days is, for most students, a means to an end, which is employment. And employers care about grades, meaning there is an unrelenting and rational incentive to cheat.
The world where only wealthy gentlemen go to university and are highly incentivised to learn instead of cheat no longer exists.
1) In a root level response to The Fucking Article, which is about changes that only apply to the undergrad proctoring system, you argued: “(Self-proctored exams) may have worked back in the 1800s … but these days when half the student body is Chinese expats who need the degree to get high paying jobs back in Shanghai…why wouldn’t they cheat?”
2) I pointed out the fallacy of your argument, in that the Chinese proportion of the affected population from The Fucking Article is not, in fact, half (it is 1%).
3) Then you argued that the Chinese proportion of the graduate students is significant.
4) I pointed out that the graduate students have nothing to do with The Fucking Article.
5) Now you are doubling down on the graduate students, who are not affected by the changes we’re talking about today.
I don't know what you’re talking about, but it sure as shit isn't The Fucking Article. Read The Fucking Article.
Most universities, certainly in the top 50 globally, export a significant share of their student population because a significant share of their student population consists of international students. Those students return home once they obtain their degrees. Princeton’s overall share of international students is around 25%.
2nd, a huge proportion of students in general at universities, including Ivy League unis, are not from wealthy families. This can be contrasted to the the 19th century demographic, which basically consisted of only individuals from wealthy families.
Today, most students are there to get a degree from a prestigious institution so they can get a good job with upward mobility potential. Again, contrast with the 19th century, for which this policy was designed.
Having done an LLB at a top 40 law school globally, I can tell you that the pressure on international students is immense due to visa implications, parental pressures, and poor options compared to native students if they fail. International students cheat, as do native students, and it is rational from a purely economic standpoint for them to do so. In my experience, international students are more likely to cheat than natives, but once cheating is occurring it is rational for all students to cheat due to the resultant grade inflation.
My argument is mostly that because of how demographics at university have changed over the past 150 years, a university education is a means to an end, and it's really just getting a piece of paper (ideally from a prestigious institution) for most students. International students in particular drive the cheating and make it highly rational for all students to cheat, but even if universities did not enroll overseas students, cheating would still be pervasive simply because the demographics and purposes of university have changed since 1850. I hope you can understand the argument.