Would-be contestants mailed postcards with their names and addresses to "Jeopardy!". 1,200 teens were selected at random from the postcard entries and were invited to come (at their own expense) to one of four regional test centers ("e.g." Houston, Minneapolis, Philadelphia, and Los Angeles) to take a timed written qualifying examination with the 50 clues read by Alex Trebek on a video monitor at the front of an exam room. Passing scorers were invited back for an interview and mock game using an electronic buzzer system. Their photographs are taken for their files, and they are asked to fill out a short information sheet with interesting facts about themselves that may be later used by Alex Trebek during the interview portion of the show. Selected contestants and alternates were notified that they had been chosen to appear on the show one to two months later. They are then flown to Los Angeles to tape the show. Taping occurs over a period of two days, with the five quarterfinals played on the first day and the three semifinals and two final games played on the second day. Accommodations were provided for the contestants at the Beverly Hilton in Beverly Hills, with taping taking place at the Sony Pictures Studios in Culver City, California.
Contestants registered on the "Jeopardy!" web site rather than submitting postcards. As before, a select number of registrants were invited to audition and take a written test at a regional audition. Accommodations for contestants are provided at the Hilton in Universal City, California.
All web site registrants take a 50-question timed online test at one set test time, usually late February. The test is given using Adobe Flash and takers are given 15 seconds per clue to type in their answers. A random selection of those who pass the test are invited to attend regional auditions in November at 4 locations around the United States at which another 50-question written test is given, followed by interviews and mock games. The number of students selected for the regional auditions is usually around 300, from which 15 are selected for the show.
The following is a list of contestants and where they placed in the tournament. Winners and runners-up who earned more than the minimum guarantees are as indicated in parentheses.
A console game based upon the Teen Tournament was released in the mid 1990s for the Nintendo Game Boy.
The "Jeopardy!" Teen Reunion Tournament was a special one-week tournament held in November 1998 at the Boch Center in Boston, Massachusetts that invited back 12 former Teen Tournament contestants from the first three tournaments on "Jeopardy!"
Twelve former Teen Tournament contestants competed three at a time in four qualifying round matches. Winning contestants who were among the top three scorers would play in the final match for $50,000. Losing qualifiers took home $5,000, while the non-playing finalist took home $7,500. The third-place finisher took home a minimum guarantee of $10,000, while the second-place finisher was entitled to a minimum guarantee of $15,000. The highest scoring player in the finals took home $50,000.
The two nonwinning finalists also received the board game "Game of the Year" by University Games as well as a Tigris Pyramid and Movana.
Capozzola, Javerbaum, and Newhouse advanced to the finals.
Jeopardy! College Championship
The Jeopardy! College Championship is a yearly tournament on the American television game show "Jeopardy!" It features full-time undergraduate college students who have not yet gotten a degree.
The Jeopardy! College Championship is one of the traditional tournaments held each season on the TV quiz show Jeopardy! Contestants in this tournament are full-time undergraduate college students with no prior degrees and traditionally wear a sweater bearing the name of their college or university during their appearances. The existence of this tournament does not disqualify college students from auditioning for the regular shows, but tournament participants cannot later compete in regular play. The tournament began during the 1988-89 season (Season 5) and has been played every season (except for seasons 31 and 35), always during any one of the three traditional sweeps ratings periods (November, February, or May) with the exception of being held in April 2018 due to Alex Trebek's brain surgery and April 2020 due to The Greatest of All Time Tournament. Some contestants for the inaugural tournament were selected through contestant searches held in Daytona Beach, Florida, and Palm Springs, California, during the Spring break season in 1989.
The College Championship uses a ten-game format similar to that used for the Tournament of Champions and the Teen Tournament: 15 players, in groups of three, play in five quarterfinal games; the winners of those five games and the four highest-scoring nonwinners as wild cards become the nine semifinalists who compete in three games, with no two players rematching each other in the semifinal round. The three semifinal winners advance to the two-day final round, in which contestants play two separate matches, with the contestants' combined scores for both matches determining the champion (contestants start with $0 each day).
All College Championship contestants receive cash prizes, based on their progress through the tournament. Contestants eliminated prior to the finals receive fixed payouts, while contestants in the finals receive guaranteed minimums, but can earn more. Over time, the prizes have increased in value, as shown below:
Winners also receive a small replica trophy of the larger College Championship trophy, which is retained by "Jeopardy!" in Southern California. On the larger trophy are engraved the names of every year's winner.
From 1993–2004, the winner also won a new car (Dodge from 1993–1994, Volvo from 1995–2003, and Volkswagen in 2004), and the company who manufactured the car matched each finalists' totals and set up scholarships in those amounts earned for the finalists' schools.
In addition to the above-mentioned winnings, the winner earns an automatic position in the next Tournament of Champions, though two winners (Vinita Kailasanath in 2001 and Joey Beachum in 2008) deferred their berths in their intended tournament until the following installments due to scheduling conflicts. Three College Champions have made the Tournament of Champions finals (Tom Cubbage in 1989, Jeff Stewart in 1994, and Cliff Galiher in 2007), but only Cubbage won the event.
Many college champions have been invited to later Jeopardy! "all-time best" tournaments as well, with varying degrees of success:
The following is a list of contestants and where they placed in the tournament. Finalists who earned more than the minimum guarantee are as indicated.
Stanford University is the only college to have two winners.
The only College Champions from Ivy League schools are Terry O'Shea of Princeton University in 2014 and Dhruv Gaur of Brown University in 2018.
Julius and Ethel Rosenberg
Ethel Greenglass Rosenberg (September 25, 1915June 19, 1953) and Julius Rosenberg (May 12, 1918June 19, 1953) were Americans accused of being spies for the Soviet Union. They were convicted of conspiracy to commit espionage during a time of war. They were both executed. Their crime was related to giving information about the atomic bomb to the Soviet Union. At that time and even later, many people in many countries thought they were innocent and had tried to convince the U.S. authorities not to kill them. After the fall of the Soviet Union, evidence came out that showed that Julius Rosenberg had been a spy but that his wife had not.
Both Julius and Ethel were of Jewish descent.
Bernard Sahlins