I should have known this was next in the list of "reality" TV shows:
Tonight at 8, ABC will show the first of six installments of "The Scholar," in which 10 high school seniors pursue a scholarship worth as much as $240,000 by outsmarting, out-talking and out-preening one another before a panel of actual college admissions officers. That sum is intended to cover tuition, room and board at an Ivy League or comparable institution for four years, as well as incidentals like books and travel.There is plenty of tension - in tonight's episode one boy, on the brink of tears, says he cannot bear to inform his immigrant parents that he has just lost an early round of the competition. Still, nobody on "The Scholar" loses: at the least, each contestant will walk away with a $20,000 scholarship. (The grand prize is being supplied by an education foundation created by Eli Broad, a California billionaire; the rest of the money has been given by Wal-Mart.)
The standardized testing hurdle had to be passed first, but other factors came into play (probably selected to make for the most compelling television):
In a parallel to the actual college admissions process - the program was taped in January, before most knew where they had been accepted - each had to write an essay, supply grades and test scores and submit to extensive interviews. To assess how camera-ready they were, each was also required to provide a tape.The 10 finalists were selected from among about 5,000 applicants recruited through Web sites or their guidance counselors. That rate of acceptance - about 0.2 percent - is far lower than that of Harvard, which was 9 percent this year.
The competing students have diverse racial and ethnic backgrounds, as well as life experience. Most were able to demonstrate at least some financial need, and each was able to point to an obstacle that he or she had overcome, whether it was scoliolosis (Melissa, from Tarzana, Calif.), the dangerous streets of Oakland, Calif., (Max) or racism (Gerald, of Commerce, Tex.)
The most profound obstacle that I had to overcome as an early adult was...stage fright. Guess that wouldn't have made me a very good contestant for the show, eh?
Update:TVGasm's coverage is thoughtful:
Anyway, one of the warm and fuzzy elements of the show is that no one actually gets eliminated. Instead, the students are simply not chosen -- a gracious and appropriate route to take, I guess. Similarly, the occasionally soporific "scholarship committee" opts not to instigate conflict but instead provoke thoughtful responses...Posted by kswygert at June 7, 2005 01:04 PMMy only real problem with the show is that after taking all this time and care to create as nurturing an environment as possible for a reality competition, the most important challenges seem to come down to rote memorization routines. Having students match dates to historical events is an antiquated testing prototype to say the least. Answering quiz-show trivia about authors and their book titles is similarly undemonstrative of actual intellect. There doesn't seem to be an emphasis on abstract thinking (at least not yet), and in this way, The Scholar truly exposes its reality show foundation.