After going public a year ago with their investigation into Harvard’s largest cheating scandal in recent memory, administrators went to great lengths to promote a culture of academic integrity in the Harvard community. Twenty-six percent of recruited athletes said they had cheated on a paper or take-home assignment, compared to 16 percent of non-recruits. Across the board, the incoming freshman class reported higher rates of cheating than did Harvard’s Class of 2013 in a Crimson senior survey conducted last spring. According to an email survey of more than 1,300 incoming Harvard students, the Harvard Crimson reports, 10% of the campus' new freshman class have cheated on tests and 42% have cheated on homework. In the Crimson's findings on cheating, athletes were roughly twice as likely to cheat as non-athletes, with 26% of recruited athletes responding that they had cheated on a paper or take-home assignment before arriving at Harvard.
– To get into Harvard, you have to be the best and the brightest—or at least copy off the best and brightest's paper. In a Harvard Crimson survey, 10% of incoming freshmen said they'd cheated on a test, 17% admitted cheating on a paper or take-home project, and 42% admitted cheating on a homework assignment. All of those numbers went up among athletic recruits, and among men. The survey covered 1,300 students, or 80% of the incoming class. The numbers are not likely to help the university recoup its image in the wake of its cheating scandal, the LA Times points out. A Harvard spokesman responded to the report by pointing out that cheating was "a national problem," but said Harvard was taking action against cheating "through faculty and presentations to students."