UNAM orders new admissions test after cheating fears spread

UNAM ordered all students who passed its first-ever online admissions exam to take a new test after experts found signs that as many as half of applicants may have cheated, including with A.I. The move struck at Mexico’s largest public university, where admissions into a limited number of places are among the most competitive in the country.

The university had already suspended undergraduate enrollment while it investigated suspected A.I.-assisted cheating in the online exam. Suspicion intensified after unusually strong scores and statistical anomalies emerged in the results, and one analysis suggested nearly half of test-takers may have cheated. Other accounts placed the scale of the problem at as many as 75,000 applicants, a figure that underscores how broadly a flaw in the system could ripple through Mexico’s public higher-education pipeline.

The controversy centered on UNAM’s first online admissions test, a format that was supposed to widen access but instead exposed the limits of digital monitoring. Researchers said they had identified anomalies in the score distribution and pointed to possible weaknesses in the A.I.-powered surveillance system meant to deter misconduct. The university was also weighing whether to validate the results of the online tests before the retest order hardened the stakes for students who had already cleared the entrance hurdle.

Outside the Rectorate Tower in Mexico City on July 28, rejected applicants protested and demanded transparency, a review of the online assessments and respect for the results. Mothers of university aspirants also held protest posters there. Applicants delivered a petition asking UNAM to repeat the admission examination, and one protester said, “They are taking away my right to study.”

For students who earned strong scores legitimately, the retest turned a single admissions opportunity into a second proof of merit. For UNAM, it became a test of institutional credibility: whether one of the country’s most important public-selection systems could separate genuine performance from inflated results and restore confidence in an exam process now shadowed by cheating fears.