AI Was Supposed to Stop Cheating. Instead, 58,000 Students Must Retake Their Exams.

The National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) will re-administer its entrance exam to approximately 58,000 students after an expert commission found that scores were inflated under a new remote proctoring system, with top scores (100 or above) rising from 3.5% in previous years to 16.3% this year. The university's rector apologized to students who had not cheated, as they must now retake the exam in person.

UNAM runs the largest university in Mexico. Every year, hundreds of thousands of students take an entrance exam that determines whether they get in. This year, for the first time, the whole thing went remote. They deployed a lockdown browser, AI webcam monitoring, and one human supervisor per 150 applicants. The kind of setup that sounds serious on paper. Then the scores came in. Students hitting 100 or above jumped from 3.5 percent in previous years to 16.3 percent this year. At the very top end, scores of 110 or higher went from 0.9 percent to 5.5 percent. Not a small shift. Not noise. A roughly fivefold increase in top scores, in one year, under one new format. An expert commission investigated. Their conclusion: administer the entire exam again, in person, to around 58,000 people. The rector apologized to students who hadn't cheated. They now have to prepare for and sit another exam anyway.