During a practical exam, you see a classmate cheating. What do you do?

Professional integrity when it costs you socially. Every dental school has an honor code and this scenario is the live test of it.

Written by Victoria Young, DDS · NYU College of Dentistry '24 · Penn Dental Medicine

The trap

Stopping at 'I'd talk to them first' and never getting to reporting. Talking to them is a fine first step; if that's your whole answer, you've signaled you'd protect a peer over a future patient.

How to structure your answer

Confirm what you saw → weigh the obligation → act, usually by speaking to the person and then reporting → acknowledge the difficulty honestly.

Don't assume — say what you actually observed versus what you inferred
Name why it matters: this person will treat patients
Describe your action concretely, including reporting
Acknowledge it's hard and you'd do it anyway

A weak answer

What most people say

I'd talk to him privately after the exam. I wouldn't want to blow up someone's whole career over one bad decision without hearing him out first, because maybe he panicked, maybe something is going on at home. I'd tell him exactly what I saw and that he needs to make it right himself, and I'd hope that would be the end of it.

Stops at the private conversation. A future patient never enters the answer.

A stronger answer

What lands

I'd want to be clear on what I actually saw, which was his phone in his lap twice during the practical, versus what I decided it meant. If I'm sure, I'd tell him I'm reporting it and give him the chance to go first. Then I'd report it either way. Not because of the honor code, but because the practical is the only check on whether he can do the procedure, and in three years somebody's mouth is the next test. I transferred in and I don't have social capital to spend. I'd still do it.

Separates observation from inference, reports anyway, and admits the social cost honestly.

Both answers talk to the classmate. Only one gets as far as the person he'll be treating in three years.

These are illustrations, not scripts. An answer you memorize sounds memorized — the point is the shape and the specificity, in your own words and about your own life.

Reading it isn't the same as saying it.

Most people can explain a good answer and still fall apart saying one out loud. Admitted asks you all 100 questions in a faculty voice, records you, and scores your pace and filler words.

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