Nearly half of new Harvard students admit to cheating

Nearly half of new students starting at Harvard this year have admitted to cheating in their studies before starting at university.

A tenth of the incoming class have cheated on an exam, while 42 per cent admit to doing homework dishonestly, according to the results of a survey by the university’s own newspaper The Harvard Crimson.

Athletic students were most likely to cheat, with 20 per cent confessing to chicanery in tests, compared to nine per cent of those who do not play a varsity sport. Men are twice as likely to have cheated.

These results follow the largest cheating scandal at Harvard in recent memory, in which over 120 students were investigated for swapping answers on an exam in 2012. Since that controversy, Harvard has maintained a strict anti-cheating policy, insisting that ‘all work submitted for credit is expected to be the student’s own work’.

- independent.co.uk