<p>Take home exams are one of the many jokes of the honor system. The entire system is fatally flawed but the administration has become ossified to the point where things will never change and ridiculously opts to take a foolish pride in it. The honor code is routinely bent by a sizable percentage of the populace to conform with personal morality. You sign a sheet of paper once and hear a lot of hoopla from the administration when you first arrive about how great the system is - beyond that the system is never reinforced - and it shows since the BOC is always swamped with cases (and to be completely frank the idea of trial by peers is fatuous).</p>
<p>People here are on average of no higher moral standing than students anywhere else, although the admin would like you to believe everyone here has the utmost integrity and deference for the system. It’s continually touted as one of the great things about Caltech when the reality of it is that it is the school’s most glaring and egregious blemish.</p>