Weinberg sophomore Katie Singh has been chosen to compete in the annual “Jeopardy!” College Championship tournament, according to a news release from the show.
Singh, of Austin, Texas, will compete against 14 other full-time undergraduate college students for a grand prize of $100,000. The second-place finisher will receive at least $50,000 and all players in the tournament will get at least $5,000. The two-week tournament will be broadcast Nov. 8-19.
The 15 players will be divided into groups of three and play in five quarterfinal games. The five winners and the four highest-scoring non-winners will advance to three semifinal games. The three semifinal winners will play a two-day final round, with their scores on each day being combined to determine the winner.
Singh won the spot after an online test and an in-person interview. A political science major hoping to attend medical school, she joins a sizable list of Northwestern students who have competed in the tournament. The most recent, then-Weinberg junior Dean Malec, reached the semifinals in 2007 before bowing out. The most successful finish for a Wildcat was in 1991, when Tim Lakin got $7,500 for finishing third.
Since the tournament began in 1989, students from more than 150 universities have won nearly $3 million in cash prizes. The most successful school has been Stanford University – representatives from that college won in 2001 and 2006, and another placed second in 2007.
The Ivy League, despite its elite academic reputation, has never produced a “Jeopardy!” College Championship tournament winner. However, students from Harvard University have placed second three times – in 1993, 1996 and 2000.
Jeopardy, the popular TV show that debuted in 1984, has won 28 Emmy Awards.
