Not in my experience. I don't think there are enough cheaters to shift the curve (the noise from year to year is much more significant), and despite what you'd expect, the people hired to do others' assessments aren't necessarily very good at it!

A top 10 MBA program my partner went through had several people cheating in the program. I'll give you some anecdotal notes. Some cheaters get discovered and "outed" (esp those the group didn't like) when they brag during parties, some never gave up enough evidence to make an accusation official, others would talk about hiring CPAs for accounting exams/projects. Many in the class were concerned on whether normal study groups counted as cheating, as defined by the honor code!

A sibling program at the university exposed a cheating ring of ~15-20 people, and I think many were surprised that the result was to simply zero their grades for that class instead of more severe action.

/e I mention incidents and sizes since these programs are not thousands of students but tens or hundreds.

What kind of an MBA program is it where students worry if normal study groups are ok?

It sounds like the definition of cheating was very broad there.

Depends on you, the professor, the college, and the rules as to how you might interpret "individual" homework assignments and study "groups", particularly if you're led to believe you'll get removed from the program for transgressing. This particular issue was fleshed out quickly (and sanely, imo) but it did contribute to why the group didn't like one particular individual. Not everyone in the program is there to network and build trust!

I switched to online exams this year, no zoom, no special software, no checks at all. Grades were as usual. A couple of students cheated and were detected, all the others were very honest to the point that I wouldn't be myself if I were in their place. It can work, but you need to expect people to look up things.

One of my colleagues had an online exam. The exam was uploaded to chegg within minutes, by multiple people. Unfortunately, the tests were personalized, so the people could be identified.

I think cheating is quite common in the undergrad years, but gets less later.

How did you get access to Chegg? I thought of buying a subscription to check for cheaters, but there were complaints on the net about Chegg charging credit cards on canceled accounts.

I didn't, my colleague did. Not sure how. He asked them to took down the tests, and they did. Withing a couple of days though. Answers to questions are up within minutes!

That's what I meant with "normalized grades": I wasn't familiar with the term "curved grades", but I covered that point with why I don't think that's a problem.