The appeal of the game show is easy to see: The ability to make big bucks with relatively little work, the prospect of seeing one's own face on television, and the potential bragging rights of becoming a winner all make becoming a contestant widely attractive. And it's certainly not unusual to hear avid viewers make grand statements about how well they would perform on the show while watching any trivia-related program.
But rarely does this aspiration actually become a reality; most viewers are content to sit back and talk about "what-ifs." For senior Andrew Ceppos, however, there was no reason not to give it a try.
Last September, Ceppos decided to take an online test to apply to be on the college edition of Jeopardy! after a friend sent him a link to the Web site encouraging him to try out. He took the test on Oct. 1 and was delighted when he received a call to undergo further interviews for the show.
"I passed [the initial test], which earned me the right to go to [another] interview -- like a mock game -- and another test," Ceppos said. "Based on that ... They called me back."
The college championship edition of the popular game show Jeopardy! has been an ongoing tradition on the program since 1989. Participants from colleges across the United States compete to win cash prizes and the title of college Jeopardy! champion.
Ceppos, a longtime trivia fan, was eager to try his luck and seize the opportunity.
"I would always watch the show. I used to do academic bowl in high school. I'm on Tufts quiz bowl -- I just kind of like trivia ... and it just seemed like something that would be really cool to do," he said.
The 15 participants selected for the show participate in a five-game quarterfinal round. The winners of those games, as well as the four highest-scoring nonwinners, move on as semifinalists. The semifinalists then compete in a three-game round, the three winners of which continue on to the two-game final. All of the participants earn cash prizes, and the winner is guaranteed to win at least $100,000. Though Ceppos cannot reveal the outcome of his trivia challenge because the show has not yet aired, he said that they experience was certainly a memorable one and that he was happy with his performance.
"I was really excited, too, that I could represent Tufts," he said. "That kind of felt good. It was just really exciting and all of the other contestants were really cool."
Ceppos noted that a few of the behind-the-scenes aspects of the experience were surprising and that some of the questions host Alex Trebek asked him were not the types of queries he was expecting.
"It was kind of surreal for a little bit; it started out and we were doing promos for the show and they were making us say all of these ... things, and that's when it kind of hit that we were on TV," Ceppos said.
And some parts of being a game show contestant weren't as glamorous as he would have anticipated.
"Mine was the last episode to air, so I had to sit in the green room for seven and a half hours." Ceppos said. "I had a streak of watching 'Mean Girls' [2004], 'Seabiscuit' [2003] and 'Bend It Like Beckham' [2002], and that just kind of got to me after a while."
"They filmed 10 games in two days," he added, "so it was a lot."
But the perks outweighed the tedium of the less-exciting moments. In addition to the gratification of being on the show, Ceppos got to take a free trip to Los Angeles, and his family was flown out as well to cheer him on. "We got four days in a hotel, and my family came out ... so it was kind of like a whole vacation," he said. "It was a great week."
While Ceppos' invitation to participate may seem like a one-in-a-million shot, he is not the first Tufts student to go on the show. Last spring, Katie Winter (LA '08) was also a contestant on college Jeopardy!
Pleased with his experience, Ceppos encourages other students to try their luck. "Why not try it?" he said. "All it took was like 20 minutes of my time to do the online test."
