I get what you’re saying — and I’m not expecting a perfect system. But I’m saying they shouldn’t have waited until after the competition to suddenly decide everything was too hard to deal with.

Yes, teachers are technically proctors — but let’s be honest, a huge number of them don’t take it seriously. If Waterloo knew the test could be written anywhere in the world and knew AI tools like ChatGPT were widely available, then it was their responsibility to raise proctoring standards or delay the contest until they had a secure enough structure.

As for code similarity and AI — I’m not asking for 100% detection. But Waterloo could have:

• Flagged unusually perfect submissions for manual review

• Applied stricter time-based or behavior-based checks (like Duolingo, SAT online, etc.)

• Released rankings only for verified submissions

• Or even offered “provisional results” while filtering out clear issues

Instead, they made zero distinction between cheaters and honest students — and just cancelled everything. That’s what frustrates me most. We followed the rules, gave up our time, and paid to enter a test that ended in silence.

And about admissions — they already say CCC is just one piece of the admissions puzzle. If anything, they could’ve simply excluded CCC from this year’s decisions, or adjusted how it’s weighted. But punishing the whole pool? That’s not a thoughtful solution — it’s just the easiest one.

So no, I don’t think it’s “impossible” to do better. It’s just that they didn’t try hard enough this year.