<p>Anyone watch this tonight?</p>
<p>One of the unnamed college ad reps is from Columbia (can you say google?); can't remember where the other is from.</p>
<p>Did anyone else think the final round questions were very easy?</p>
<p>I watched it with 2 college students who kust laughed at the final questions. (We were also trying to make candy which added to the hilarity.)
Plus they had done the cow and light puzzles in their gifted classes in elementary school.
I think both of the "ivy league" people are from Columbia.</p>
<p>The back story: Former admissions officers at Columbia and Pepperdine Universities created the show. They recruited contestants at college fairs, asking them to complete a financial-aid form and an application that was a cross between the one used by Columbia and one for MTV's reality show The Real World. From thousands of applicants, 10 were chosen to live together for two weeks at the University of Southern California.</p>
<p>The buzz: The University of California at Berkeley allowed ABC to identify Marquesa Lawrence, one of the show's judges, as an admissions officer at the university. But as of press time, Columbia would not allow the show to say that the other two judges, Shawn L. Abbott and Peter V. Johnson, worked in admissions at that institution. Instead they remained admissions officers "at an Ivy League university."</p>
<p>The bottom line: After full days on the set, one of the judges, Mr. Johnson, went back to reading applications to Columbia. Would he want to follow that university's applicants around with a clipboard as they performed brain teasers? "I only wish we had the time," he says.</p>
<p>Notes by X:
1. Peter V. Johnson is a Senior Associate Director of Admission at the Columbia Undergraduate Admission Office</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Shawn L. Abbott is Senior Associate Director of Admissions
Columbia University In The City Of New York
Office of Undergraduate Admissions
212 Hamilton Hall, MC 2807
1130 Amsterdam Avenue
New York, New York 10027</p></li>
<li><p>For the UC-Hollywood officer, follow this link:
<a href="http://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2005/05/23_scholar.shtml%5B/url%5D">http://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2005/05/23_scholar.shtml</a></p></li>
</ol>
<p>:)</p>
<p>I couldn't find the original thread, but this one will do. Seems someone has been reading CC. </p>
<p>fireflyscout, we chuckled through the whole thing! The part we watched anyway as D was packing for Girl's State. Who talked others into whitewashing the fence? Bill Clinton. Who wrote Gone With The Wind? was it John Mitchell? What Hemingway book had Santiago and a fish? I'll say "Guess Who's Gonna Be Dinner?"</p>
<p>Anybody else follow the CC advertising link in the yellow box on this forum (<a href="http://www.tnt800score.com/)%5B/url%5D">http://www.tnt800score.com/)</a>. It's a epidemic of senior scholarship shows....</p>
<p>
[quote=from the link,profile of Stephen Chao-executive producer]
After graduating from Harvard University in 1977 with a degree in classics,
Chao became a reporter for the National Enquirer. .......launching America's Most Wanted, Cops, and Studs.
[/quote]
Man, I couldn't begin to make up anything this funny.</p>
<p>
Lol, yes that's so true--even my 7th grade sister answered all of them correctly.</p>
<p>Hey, we know the family of one of the kids on the show. We'll have to ask them the real story once its all over.</p>
<p>seemed a bit TOO easy. Maybe that was just to get them comfortable and shake them down next week.</p>
<p>I thought the questions were too easy--particularly the Paul Revere question. You could have guessed just from the rhyme scheme. They gave too much detail away as well. 50,000 bucks riding on Margaret Mitchell! Like a moth to the flame, I will probably tune in.</p>
<p>Since my daughter didn't watch it, I asked her the final round questions. She got them all right! (She also had a few comments about how anyone could not know the author of "Gone with the Wind") Phooey, why couldn't she have been on the show - the $50,000 sure would help.</p>
<p>Fireflyscout - Of course your daughter couldn't be on the show. She's too smart. I didn't watch, nor do I plan to. However, all these TV shows have to have questions easy enough for the average audience member to answer. They sprinkle in a few tougher questions so the audience feels challenged. After all, the audience is their true target, not the contestants. If the show had the top ten students in the nation and asked questions which would challenge those students, few people would watch.</p>
<p>I remember when they did have an academic high school bowl shown locally. I think it was discontinued about 7 or 8 years ago. Too bad, I did enjoy watching it. Are there any of these types of shows still airing in other parts of the country?</p>
<p>Yes, they still exist in parts of the country. In fact, two metropolitan areas near me have quiz shows. One is challenging, straight forward, and very well done. The long-time host oozes intelligence. It's better than Jeopardy, I think. The other is TV gimmicky with poorly-worded, rather simple questions. That TV station tried several hosts, including its anchors, who demonstrated their ignorance by continually mispronouncing names and places currently in the news. So the quality of the shows varies. (It could have something to do with the fact that the well-done show is on public TV, while the other is on commercial.)</p>
<p>I doubt either of my kids would have a clue who wrote Gone with the Wind. Hey, I enjoyed reading it when I was 12, but it's not something you're going to run into in a lit class any time soon. you would think that "scholars" would be asked about something more, uh, scholarly. :)</p>
<p>(full disclosure, didn't see the show.)</p>
<p>Re: "Gone With the Wind" - I was astonished when the twins who babysat my son reported that this was the main book for their college literature class! They attended a second-tier LAC.</p>
<p>garland, D would have missed it,too.</p>
<p>The questions were absurdly easy and certainly not calculated to challenge the intellect of the students. More Trivial Pursuit than anything. Contrasted to the last local Challenge Bowl , high school quiz show I watched The Scholar was silly. Of course, on the local show the students were being ask to "identify the seven defining charectoristics of Mycenaean pottery". Lot's of dead air followed by shots of the "judges" chuckling.</p>
<p>I liked the show a lot. Watching kids use their brains on a reality show was refreshing. (though I do watch and like shows like Real World). Getting the space program and dates right, well it was during my era and I was off a year or two. My high achieving son did a little better. But the Gone with the wind question just shows that no matter how "smart" you are, you don't know it all. My 2 boys did not get that answer. My older son who quickly got all the other answers, also hesitated between White Fang vs. Call of Wild though he did choose Call of the Wild.<br>
In my opinion, the best part of the show were the admissions interviews. The kid who hesitated, the girl who admitted to having a temper, did not fare well. I was happy to have my sons watch this part. It shows that no matter what your SAT, GPA scores are, if you do not interview well, you will not make a good impression. This is an overlooked skill.
I liked Melissa and I am glad she won the 50,000 in the first round. I will certainly keep watching this show and hopefully my kids will stay interested.</p>