“I did it secretly. I brought in an X-ray cannon and time dilator, which let me see the future, and through the answer keys,” an anonymous student comically confessed in response to a recent Tower poll on cheating. Another commented, “Y’all are snitches” 12 consecutive times. Some students, like these respondents, didn’t take the poll seriously.
Though some took the poll as a joke, the poll still offered a section for other students to voice their concerns anonymously. Some of these students expressed frustrations and concerns with the current cheating culture at Bishop’s.
“It is an epidemic,” commented one student. “Watching students in my grade cheat on every single possible assignment and exam and then get into a T20 [Top Twenty] school is very disheartening.”
At Bishop’s, some don’t view cheating as an issue, while others view it as a major concern.
Another student from the poll shared their experiences with cheating. “I would say around 75% of every class that I am in has students who cheat frequently,” the student said. Although this information is unverified, it highlights how commonplace the student feels cheating is.
Dean of Students Ms. Michelle Shea explained how she’s had to deal with around 15 instances of cheating in the first semester of this year. It is unclear at the time of this reporting how often cheating goes undetected by teachers. For example, students requesting answers from peers who have already taken a test is difficult to regulate and is perhaps more normalized, Ms. Shea noted.
The Tower sent out a poll to collect quantitative data from students, intending to accurately gauge the frequency of cheating occurring at Bishop’s. Unfortunately, the data was skewed by obvious resubmissions and potentially dishonest responses. Regardless, data gathered from national surveys on cheating in high school highlights the severity of the issue.
One such study by The Josephson Institute Center for Youth Ethics in 2010 found that out of 43,000 high school students, 59% admitted to cheating at least once in the span of one year.
Artificial Intelligence (AI) has thrown an additional layer of complexity into the cheating issue at Bishop’s. According to the Pew Research Center, close to 60% of high school students use AI to cheat at least somewhat frequently. 34% claim to use it extremely or very often. Ms. Shea said, “AI has just made [cheating] easier and muddied the waters … Students generally know where the line is, but it’s easy to stay in gray areas.”
A wide range of Bishop’s students were interviewed by The Tower to provide perspectives on this issue. Bishop’s students who have cheated in the past have been granted anonymity to ensure they could answer truthfully, without fear of facing repercussions. Students explicitly named in this article, on the other hand, were not interviewed for their background in cheating, but rather because they have had a track record of maintaining academic honesty.
Noah Smith (‘28) highlighted what he believed to be the root cause of cheating. “When students feel like they can’t succeed honestly, cheating starts to look like a survival strategy,” he said. “The culture here is very college-focused, and grades feel like they define you. Even though the school talks about wellness, sleep, and balance, the workload and expectations sometimes contradict that message.”
A sophomore who admitted to cheating last semester explained their logic, saying, “It’s very competitive, and I’m trying to do better than my peers every time.” A freshman who cheated last semester agreed, saying, “I feel the repercussions of cheating in school are less than the repercussions of failing. It’s a tradeoff.”
According to Ms. Shea, those exact viewpoints are the reason the Bishop’s cheating dilemma is so prevalent. Ms. Shea commented, “I think change has to come from the student level — students saying, ‘Hey, I already took the test, I’m not telling you.’ Teachers saying, ‘Don’t do that,’ isn’t going to change anything, because that message already exists.”
Zachary Haubenstock (‘28) added, “When teachers actively talk about cheating in class and put clear anti-cheating measures in place during tests, it may help. But students also need to take responsibility. Don’t talk about a test until everyone has taken it.”
Changing the student mindset around cheating is crucial to minimizing the issue, and that can begin with the teachers. Assistant Head of School for Curriculum and Academics Mr. Brian Ogden said, “As educators, I think it is our responsibility to help students understand the importance of their own integrity and the integrity of others, and to set up conditions that support good choices.”
With the circumstances around the cheating culture, the solution remains uncertain. With some students unwilling to take the issue seriously and the extreme pressure put on students, significant changes to the “epidemic,” as one student called it, may be difficult to achieve in the near future.
