Tons of People Cheating on Exams which hampers my grade To give you some context we recently had our final exams and I barely managed to cross the threshold to get a 10 GPA in the course. I later found out tons of people had cheated on that course and cruised through it. These groups of people formed towards the end of the semester but now I'm worried they'll do this again from the beginning of the next semester which will make it even more harder for people who don't. Even our teacher acknowledged that cheating has happened but can't take any actions due to 2 reasons majorly, numerical based questions have more or less the same way to solve and identical calculations and proofs are bound to be similar in a class of 600-700 students.
To sort of counter this for some reason the professors decided to make the paper more difficult and more lengthy by adding more parts to each questions compared to previous years but this only made it more difficult for people who're attempting it honestly as when 5 people group together even if each person handles 1-2 questions they can easily finish them off.
Now I know the standard BS that focus on learning and I do but grades do matter, they matter everywhere and they matter in the long run as well and I'm genuinely worried that over time this will hamper by grades over time. Proctored exams also don't really make a difference as they can't really look at what a person is doing with like his other devices and there are tons of excuses people have. I even know a guy who tried solving a question got some wrong values then copied the second part correctly from some other person. He got through by making up some excuse with the TA.
How can I approach the professors or the administration or even try to suggest ways to make the process more fair, I don't want to snitch on others specifically and neither do I know everyone who cheats, I only know some people who would mention this at times and even invited me
If you can get perfect marks (10), then the cheaters don't really hamper your grade. They don't, in the short term, inconvenience you at all. You are doing the work to learn and your marks show that. All is well. Long term, you might be competing in some marketplace with unethical people, of course.
I suggest two options. Direct and indirect.
The direct action is to find a few people in the same situation and make a joint appeal to administration. They are likely aware of it, of course. But you can point out &quot;how&quot; people are cheating without getting in to the &quot;who&quot;. Ask for steps to be taken. No guarantee of success. But this is something for group, not individual action.
The indirect action is to spend some effort becoming known to faculty for your hard work and skills so that they are assured that you are there to learn, not cheat. If you are successful at this, then you will have access to good support in those marketplaces, including, especially good letters of recommendation.
I highly recommend the second (indirect) action. I only point out the first.