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Comment by winwang | Hacker News Reader

I agree, it sucks to be lumped in. What's your proposed solution?

For ACM and IEEE programming contests they used to be conducted "offline". Not sure how they're done these days, but participants would have a computer connected to a LAN and shared resources for themselves and their team (one or more computers depending on the particular format). Put students in a room with a disconnected computer and an IDE or a computer connected only to a LAN. Submissions can be handled either with a local contest server or sneaker net to the one networked computer managed by the proctor.

It's also possible to severely lock down the network connectivity of the computers so they cannot access the internet at large but only the contest servers during the competition if there is an online submission required.

That's why I said it's not like I don't get it.

There's no solution at this point for this year.

Hand written coding. The wheel comes full circle.

Computers with no internet access and nothing but the compiler chain and text documentation installed. Coding like it's 1980s again!

Which is in any case a better test of the core of coding, which is about figuring out algorithms and data structures, not writing glue code to connect various APIs together.

This challenge, as described from some of the linked pages, is exactly a challenge on algorithms and data structures not on gluing APIs together. The problem with that is that it's exactly the kind of challenge that LLMs do well at because there's a glut of material to train on.

The challenge is figuring out how to provide a novice (high school students) with a skill appropriate challenge to assess them on that is also not trivially solved by the use of an LLM, and you likely can't. Or you go the IT route and restrict what's available on and from the computers (see my comment about how ACM and IEEE contests used to do things, they may still run that way but I'm uninvolved so don't know).

can I have a printed, spiral-bound manual instead? I really miss 80's documentation: quality, complete, and quirky-fun

That is a thing in the ACM-ICPC. Typically competitors would come in with printouts of times they've implemented a tricky algorithm like the Hungarian Algorithm or the Blossom Algorithm in the past, so that having it would help jog their memory and let them be constrained only by typing speed once they've figured out how to adapt it to their problem.

It was referred to as "book code."

> Computers with no internet access and nothing but the compiler chain and text documentation installed. Coding like it's 1980s again!

I love this comment because in 20 years coding with no AI will be "coding like it's 2020 again".

Just the participant, a tall deck of blank IBM punch cards, and a punch. None of that fancy punch card machinery either.

Return to tradition[1].

[1] https://www.ibm.com/history/punched-card

As a notorious bastard I used to run C# code tests by giving someone a flattened windows 7 with the .net SDK installed and nothing else. Also no network connection. How the potential engineer dealt with it was interesting.

We had a couple of people shrug it off and do it in notepad and csc quite happily. They were of course hired.

Allow the use of AIs.

Sue the university on the grounds that this was a reasonably foreseeable event with proven solutions, i.e. properly proctored, in-person testing. "We're too cheap to do it" isn't an excuse.

The competitions are very useful both in terms of providing students the ability to demonstrate ability that isn't visible within a school curriculum (these students are way more advanced) and motivating the students with something to work towards & train on.

I have done this competition (I think) and what your suggesting just is not reasonable. This is a distributed competition administered locally on a volunteer basis. This isn't some formalized test & trying to get Waterloo to pay for all the local proctors would result in this competition shutting down which would be net not good. I don't have insight into how the competition has changed in the 20 years since I took it so I don't know why they don't have local proctors or lost faith in them. Maybe COVID-era adaptations?

Honestly, I think the better solution is to adjust the difficulty to be AI-proof but it may be hard to do so at this level of academia.

If it can't work as is, and it can't work in a way that removes cheating (which the university feels invalidates the results for all participants) then it can't work. Getting a load of students to prepare and participate only to pull the rug out from under them isn't acceptable. That's a waste of their limited time and energy during a critical period of their lives.

What percentage of the $10 (CAD, tax free) entrance fee do you think the court should award in damages?

You're describing one small part of the family of damages (in the legal sense), and that isn't how common law works. To draw from the rich vocabulary of HN, think of the opportunity cost imposed by the time wasted on preparation and the test itself, that also has value beyond the entrance fee.

Putting that aside, you don't just sue for money, you can sue for different outcomes and injunctive relief. For example you could sue to have the results released as planned.

Under common law courts don't award speculative damages - i.e. opportunity cost. If you had concrete damages, like you bought a computer just to participate in this contest, you might theoretically have a claim for the cost of the computer... that's simply not realistically the case though.

Injunctive relief for not publishing known to be incorrect test rankings? Not likely.

A FOI request might get you access to the rankings if you really cared... I'm not quite sure what the contours of FIPPA (roughly equivalent to America's FOIA) is with regards to our universities but I believe it generally applies to them. At the same time it could easily fall within privacy limitations.

I belive you can FOI things me your AIF score.

It's a solved problem. Look at medical schools, we're not pumping out chatgpt doctors because we have actual in-person test proctoring that includes checking biometrics, taking photographs of the individual for posterity, oral examinations, etc.

Right now educational institutions are facing budget shortfalls and responding by expanding remote education opportunities while compromising the quality of education not just because of cheating but because often the content and social circumstances are inferior. We are making short term decisions as an easy-fix to budget issues that will have substantial long-term consequences.

The result is that the value of an American college degree is plummeting (ironically while costs still are increasing). This is part of the reason GenZ are starting to revolt against various institutions - they are the ones being screwed the most.

The right path forward is acknowledging this insanity in the budgeting process, employment process, and loan markets. We won't do that though because it means admitting how much has been fucked up - institutions will double down and triple down in the face of DOGE threats.

> Look at medical schools

Medical schools don’t take in 18 year olds in North America. They can have more in depth entrance exams since the people come in are more mature.

> This is the reason GenZ

Or perhaps it may be the misinformation and rhetoric being used to inflame tried and true anti-intellectual sentiments.

> Medical schools don’t take in 18 year olds in North America. They can have more in depth entrance exams since the people come in are more mature.

Why do you need to be more mature to take an exam? We're not talking about toddlers - many (most?) of them are legal adults.

Legally yes, but if you’d had to interact with large numbers of those entering university for the first time you’d know they very much are not mentally adults yet.

All of which is beside the point since this conversation is focusing on the most prestigious universities around. Most universities and colleges in North America don’t need such exams since they already accept basically anyone who applies.

I still don't understand why taking an in-person exam is considered some difficult ordeal that we cannot expect younger people to endure. I have no idea what culture you come from that this is even a talking point, let alone a debate. It has never occurred to me ever in any context that having an exam being proctored means I need to be mature? I took many hours-long proctored exams long before I was 18. What does being mature have to do with having a literal adult in the room? If anything it requires less maturity because you're requiring oversight.

I truly do not understand your point at all.

I’m not arguing against proctored exams I’m arguing against:

> proctoring that includes checking biometrics, taking photographs of the individual for posterity, oral examinations, etc.

While I personally do actually believe test like that would be better than the kinds of exams being taken by students while at university I don’t see it as a realistic option for entrance exams. That sort of thing is simply not part of North American educational culture to a large degree. And for medical schools people practice and study and drill for months in order to prepare themselves for it.

Also, for most colleges and universities it simply makes no sense to introduce such an exam (or any at all) since they accept everyone who applies; they need to in order to remain financially viable.

Ah, now I see your point. I suspect the culture will change with the times assuming people want to give any credibility to universities moving forward. I remember how rampant cheating was where I went (decades ago) that I already put very little weight into degrees.

I hope so. Though the economic realities often take precedence. The university of Waterloo is one of their most prestigious universities, so they might be able to create more rigorous entry requirements (though that does bring up the question of “are you really teaching students to be competent or simply pre-filtering for only competent students”). But they can only do this if it doesn’t impact their ability to stay solvent.

> I don’t see it as a realistic option for entrance exams.

This isn't even an entrance exam. It's an extracurricular event for high school students that people primarily write for fun...

> since they accept everyone who applies;

This on the other hand doesn't describe Waterloo CS at all.

> extracurricular

A) I know this. B) If it gives you a significant benefit to admissions, it will quickly become a metric to be gamed.

> doesn’t describe Waterloo CS

Sure and I’ve said as much in another comment, but the person I replied to was making a broad comment about higher education in general.

I actually don't believe that CCC gives you significant benefit to admission in the faculty of math compared to other factors like ECs and actual Average.

> chatgpt doctors because we have actual in-person test proctoring that includes checking biometrics, taking photographs of the individual for posterity, oral examinations, etc

Yep. Related, but the software engineering industry did actually have (for a brief time) a PE Exam but it was sadly discontinued.

https://ncees.org/ncees-discontinuing-pe-software-engineerin...

There's still a PE Electrical and Computer: Computer Engineering one but its definitely more focused on hardware.

https://ncees.org/exams/pe-exam/electrical-and-computer

Software Engineering in Ontario, Canada, where the University of Waterloo is, still does PE exams and has PE designations for software engineers...

Though most software developers actually go through CS not Software Engineering and that doesn't get you the PE designation.

https://www.peo.on.ca/apply/become-professional-engineer/tec...

> The result is that the value of an American college degree is plummeting

This Canadian university run high school coding contest isn't part of an American college degree. In fact it has no relation to any of that description. It isn't American. It isn't relating to a college at all by the Canadian understanding of that word (we distinguish between college and university, and Waterloo is the latter). It isn't for university (or college) students or related to a university (or college) degree.

> Look at medical schools, we're not pumping out chatgpt doctors because we have actual in-person test proctoring that includes checking biometrics, taking photographs of the individual for posterity, oral examinations, etc.

Extracurricular contests for high school students do not have the same funding or standards as medical exams to become a doctor for obvious reasons (in Canada, where I participated in these, but presumably anywhere).

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