Thursday, November 21, 2002

2 Students Arrested for Alleged High-Tech Cheating on GRE By DAN CARNEVALE Two Columbia University undergraduate students were arrested Monday for allegedly using high-tech transmitters and walkie-talkies to cheat on the Graduate Record Examination. Bryan Laulicht and Sasha Bakhru, both seniors, were arrested after an administrator at a Sylvan Learning Center in Garden City, N.Y., found one of the students acting suspiciously in a room where the test was offered. That Sylvan administrator then called the police. According to police officials in Nassau County, N.Y., one student was taking the test and used a device to transmit questions to the other student. That student was looking up answers while sitting in a van parked nearby and then relaying the information to the student inside. The Associated Press reported that Mr. Laulicht had taken the GRE on November 11 and had transmitted images of the questions to Mr. Bakhru, who was sitting in the van with a laptop computer. The two switched roles on Monday, but they began having trouble with their transmitting devices and aroused the suspicion of the Sylvan employee. The two students were arraigned Tuesday and charged with third-degree burglary and unlawful duplication of computer material, according to the Associated Press. They were released without bail, and are scheduled to appear in court today. Officials at the Sylvan Learning Center declined to comment, and the students could not be reached. The police provided a one-page news release but would not confirm further details. Thomas Ewing, a spokesman for the Educational Testing Service, which develops and administers the GRE, said it appeared that the two students did not share the information from the tests with anyone else. If they had, the testing service would have had to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to readminister tests. "They were obviously trying to subvert the testing process and get an edge on the test," Mr. Ewing said. "It's a serious thing that they did." Mr. Ewing said he did not know of any other instance in which students had used high-tech gadgets to cheat on a test. He said it was no surprise that the two students were caught, given the amount of equipment they allegedly had with them. "That's why people noticed that they were doing everything except taking the test," he said. Easy-to-print version E-mail this article

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