UNAM, one of Mexico's top universities, moved its entrance exam online for the first time ever this year -- and the share of top scores jumped so sharply that the university has now suspended undergraduate enrollment while it investigates whether students used AI to cheat.

158,000 applicants took UNAM's entrance exam online in 2026, after the test had previously always been held in person, in large auditoriums and stadiums. Once results came in, the numbers looked off. On the medicine degree exam, 29.3% of test-takers scored 100 or more correct answers out of 120, compared to just 9% in 2025. On the law exam, almost 19% scored 100+, up from 3.7% the year before. On the science exam, the share rose from 9.7% to 30.4%.

UNAM's exam software flagged cheating and roughly 2% of exams have already been nullified. The university has suspended undergraduate enrollment for the 2026-2027 cycle while it investigates further, and the uproar has reached the highest level of Mexican politics -- President Claudia Sheinbaum has suggested the university bring in the attorney general.

With the exam newly online and unsupervised, the widespread concern is that many applicants used AI assistants like ChatGPT, Gemini, or Claude while taking the test -- something that would have been far harder to do in a proctored, in-person exam hall.

This is a live, real-world case of what happens when a high-stakes exam moves online without the safeguards to match -- and a preview of the kind of scrutiny AI-era testing is going to face everywhere, not just in Mexico.

▶ Watch the 30-second video version: https://youtube.com/shorts/MMbwxLHAJis

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2026/08/02/americas/mexican-university-unam-ai-cheating-scandal-intl-latam

Want practical AI guidance for parents and educators every week?
Subscribe: https://www.aibyage.com/?modal=signup&utm_source=beehiiv&utm_medium=newsletter