The National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) was wrong. He took the online exam for admission to a bachelor's degree without being sure that there would be no room for cheating.
Three months after the contest, the national university assumes the errors: lack of planning, coordination, omissions and operational gaps that were reflected in the atypical scores of the applicants.
Yesterday, the Commission of Experts that reviewed the entire process, from the launch of the call to the publication of the results of the exam, reported that the heads of the areas responsible for this contest were based on "assumptions" to make the decision that led to a crisis within the institution, the dismissal of the general secretary, Patricia Dávila, and an unprecedented national scandal that harmed the students who resolved it without help.
Derived from the conclusion, the rector Leonardo Lomelí Vanegas reported that the following admission exams will once again be in person, but with computer equipment instead of printed formats.
"While all the necessary conditions are not in place to guarantee the application of the online exam, the entrance exams will be in person, with pre-loaded electronic devices as in the control exam, and will be carried out at various locations to facilitate the participation of students from all over the country and abroad," he said.
In front of directors of faculties, institutes and schools, as well as university officials, the president of this commission, Eduardo Bárzana García, delivered the report to rector Lomelí, in which they detail that "the crisis was multi-causal."
"The final results showed a lack of planning and coordination, omissions and operational gaps in validation that were reflected in the atypical results described in the first report of this commission. Critical elements," the report concluded.
After dividing into three working groups, and nine plenary meetings between July 27 and August 31, the members of the commission delivered the report in which they underline that there were deficiencies before the application, because since January 2026 the call was published, in which it was stipulated that for the first time it would be online, but the contract with the company Territorium Life was signed until March.
“This sequence indicates that the feasibility of the scheme was determined before formalizing the contract and, therefore, before having the technical annexes that specify the service and the commitments that the company would assume,” detailed Bárzana.
After listening to the experts' opinion and the proposals for the following admission processes, "the university and its rector accept the failures and errors that may have been made in the distance selection contest for the degree, circumstances that led to the implementation of the control exam that allowed for certainty in the admission process," said the rector Leonardo Lomelí.
The commission document also details that the design of the online exam “was ineffective for a remote evaluation divided into 24 shifts over three weekends,” because it did not consider the high risk it represented for the extraction and dissemination of the reagents between the application dates and shifts.
Although on the days of the application the UNAM assured that there was no threat of irregularities and that less than 1.5 percent of the applicants had engaged in anomalous behavior, the commission's conclusions show that there were more.
During the examination, Bárzana said, the Artificial Intelligence of the platform used as supervision was unable to detect improper behavior.
“The browser limits activities within the main computer, but does not control the physical environment, third-party assistance, consultation of materials, the use of other devices, the use of a virtualized local environment, undetectable audio support or prior coordination between users,” he stated.
However, he specified that “they cannot be directly attributed to people without sufficient forensic evidence and compliance with due process.”
Likewise, it clarified that this report does not replace the legal, contractual, administrative or disciplinary determinations that correspond to other instances.
He asked UNAM to be self-critical and conduct itself with transparency so that it emerges stronger from this crisis that it experienced in the last three months.
