Harvard University. (SHUTTERSTOCK)

The school year is about to start at Harvard University, but maybe not for more than 100 students accused of plagiarism on a final exam earlier this year.

The school's Administrative Board announced Thursday it will conduct individual hearings with each student involved, said to be nearly half of the 250 enrolled in an unnamed undergrad course.

The prof teaching the course alerted the board after noticing similarities between a number of the year-end take-home exams.

It is thought the students either collaborated on the answers or copied them off each other in what would be a massive cheating scandal at one of the world's most respected schools.

"Academic dishonesty cannot and will not be tolerated at Harvard," Michael D. Smith, dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, said in the Harvard Gazette.

"These allegations, if proven, represent totally unacceptable behavior that betrays the trust upon which intellectual inquiry at Harvard depends," school president Drew Faust said.

The board's hearings are confidential, and privacy laws prohibit the school from naming the suspected students, according to the Gazette.

Anyone found to have cheated could be forced to sit out the school year.