The Scholar - 6/6/05
 

Was I the only person who watched this?

It was kind of refreshing amongst all the trashy reality shows. It was nice to see a bunch of cool, smart kids competing for something that really matters to them--college tuition. Aside from the cocky asshat Davis, there didn't seem to be any trainwreck reality show contestant personilities on the show.

My only complaint was at how easy it was. That literature exam was a joke. I didn't study for it, I haven't been in school in 15 years, yet I knew all the answers off the top of my head. The space exploration one was a little tougher, simply because that involved knowing specific years which is harder to know off the top of your head (I knew the Challenger one and the first moon landing but the other ones were harder for me.)

I will keep watching. It was a nice non-exploitative reality show and Ifound myself really liking and rooting for some of the kids.

Non-exploitive = having kids complete on television to get an education.

Call this a threadcrap, bout out of all the bad reality shows on, this one really sounds really low.

D

This show will really teach the value of working hard for your money by answering questions from a wide pop cultural backdrop.

I was, like, "Margaret Mitchell, you dumbass!"

In the beginning as the students arrived and they showed their respective GPAs, I had to laugh that the home-schooled kid had a 4.0.

Really? Mommy gave him all As?

Wow. That was terrible, terrible, terrible.

It doesn't make any sense. If these people were true "scholars", they'd already have free rides to the college of their choice without too much difficulty, so if you're going to have a competition, it needs to be about more than just a few silly quiz bowl questions. It's not like this is the entertainment industry where it's insanely difficult to break in regardless of talent or some other uniquely limited scenario where you need a specific competition to break through. If they want to take some nice kids and give one of them a chance to go to college for free, the way they're going about it is incredibly silly.

I also have to agree about how insanely easy the questions were. This isn't something where age is a benefit -- it's a hinderance, since most of us haven't thought about that stuff in years -- and yet, I too knew every answer off the top of my head, and I don't know jack about literature. It was all crap I knew when I was 14 and is such common knowledge that I've somehow managed not to forget it over the years. I also got the feeling that they guessed on the light bulb puzzle, which defeats the purpose. Grading on accuracy is lame. Grading on problem solving skills would make more sense.

Smart people can get their own scholarships, and these kids weren't geniuses by any stretch of the imagination, so if you want to help them out, make it about individuality or unique skills or passion or community service or ability to change the world or some shit like that, not who knows what year the Challenger exploded and who can make common knowledge junior high school literature associations.

Terrible. Sorry, <b>Jadzia</b>. ;)

das

So I take it Season Pass set to save until I delete. ;)

I agree these kids could get a full ride to college regardless, but I think the whole idea is that this way they can go to Harvard or some other fancy private school of their dreams rather than State U. From what I understood, these kids all were accepted at these shools but couldnt afford to attend without help. I would imagine they are getting pressure from their parents to go somewhere cheaper.

But das, didn't you at least like the kids on the show? I thought they were such a refreshing change from the normal fame-whore reality show contestants. It was also nice to see intelligent kids on TV who were not geeks.

That's great, but the premise still defies logic to me. If they are contest-winner worthy "scholars", they should already have those scholarships. Aside from potential ethnic quota barriers, there's nothing preventing their scholastic abilities from being recognized, so if they haven't gotten those scholarships, then they're not the superstar "scholars" the show makes them out to be. If they want to find another way to help these kids pay for a school they can attend but can't get a scholarship to, that's great, but it shouldn't be based on silly quiz bowl stuff, because they're clearly not up to par on that information, or they'd already have the scholarships. See? :)

Sure, the kids seemed nice. I have no problem with them, and I wish them well. They all seem like above average students who try hard and want to have a good life. How can you be against that?

However, this is essentially a contest to subsidize an academic scholarship they couldn't earn on their own. That being the case, they should make the contest based on something other than common knowledge junior high quiz bowl questions that any fool could answer. I'm not opposed to helping these kids out in any way; it's the method that I find so silly.

das

I dunno, I enjoyed it.