The Scholar: Contestant Breakdown

In my preview article for The Scholar, I briefly mentioned some details concerning a couple of the contestants. But that’s hardly enough to familiarize you with them. So here’s an overview of each contestant and my thoughts concerning their possible motivations and their chances to win the full scholarship.

For those wondering what the show is about, check out the preview article. As for the rest of you (or those returning from having just read the other article...howdy again folks), here are the contestants:

Max is from Oakland, CA. He has a 4.0 GPA and took courses at a local community college in addition to his high school work. He has already gained early admission into Columbia University and hopes to use his higher education to give back to his community. Max eerily reminds me of my cousin. Maybe it’s the long hair and micro-moustache. At any rate, I think Max will stick around for a few episodes, but I don’t expect him to win. His intentions seem noble, but he’s also a self-admitted ladies’ man. And in an academic contest, the ladies might be a distraction he can’t afford.

Gerald comes to us from Commerce, TX. His 3.914 GPA is actually among the lowest of the contestants (that’s right, lowest). However, some of those were AP courses, so it’s nothing to sneeze at.

Gerald can also play four different instruments (saxophone, piano, drums, and guitar - he's a one man band!) and performed as his high school mascot. Color me biased, but I love mascots! Anybody who has the guts to dress like a giant cartoon animal and go nuts at a ball game has earned my admiration. Gerald's dream is to make it on Broadway. I’m pegging Gerald for a top three finish. (Top two if that mascot was a squirrel).

Scot, from New Freedom, PA, is the enigma of the contest. He has a 4.0 GPA, but he’s home-schooled (Not to insinuate that home-schooling is a bad thing, but as a former high school English teacher, I’ve dealt with both kinds of formerly home-schooled students. Some come into the classroom with a brilliant understanding of the subject being taught. Others stumble in with an elementary education. Parents of both, however, claim that their kids were 4.0 students at home).

He has near perfect SAT scores, but some students test well and are horrible at studying (I speak from personal experience here). He’s a hard worker, who’s worked 80 hours a week to support his family and save for college, but he lacks career focus (doesn’t know whether to become a lawyer or a beatnik poet). From the sheer volume of things he’s accomplished, it would appear that Scot is the favorite to win. I think he’ll do well, but I’m not sold on him yet.

Milana is a student from the Bronx High School of Science in New York. The ABC website lists her GPA as an astonishing 98.31! Gosh, I bet the other competitors are just ashamed now with their lousy 4.0 GPAs. Obviously, that should have read 98.31 Grade Average, not Grade Point Average, but one wonders why the ABC website wouldn’t have made all the scores comparable.

At any rate, Milana impresses us by being able to speak three languages (Spanish, Russian, and English) and by doing stem cell research. However, her goal statement to “find a cure to cancer” seems a little too cliche, kind of like Miss America telling the judge that she wants “world peace.” I get the feeling she’ll be eliminated early.

Melissa hails from Tarzana, CA. And let me say right away, that I love the name of her town! Tarzana! At any rate, beyond her town, however, Melissa doesn’t really impress me that much. Sure she has a 4.2 GPA (but really, in comparison to everyone else in the competition, minor variances in GPA are just that). And sure she had surgery to fix her scoliosis which helped her focus on school, but once again, all the contestants are focused on school. So I don’t see where she has an advantage.

Her bio says that she wants to pursue a career in ethnic studies and return to her community to give something back. This seems noble enough, but I’m somewhat unsure how a career in ethnic studies could help her give back to her community in the same way that a career in medicine or education could. I feel that she doesn’t have any clear plans, and that could hurt her. After all, Anakin said that he’d go back to Tatooine to free the slaves, but he didn’t have a clear plan either. And we all know how that turned out.

Jeremy from Westminster, CA is my favorite to win the competition. First of all, as Dat Phan from Last Comic Standing proved, you can never underestimate the abilities of the Vietnamese. Jeremy’s parents moved from Vietnam to America to provide a better life for him, and based on his academic accomplishments alone, it seems that he doesn’t want to let them down.

Secondly, he has a ridiculously high GPA of 4.6! 4.6! Forget about what I just said in Melissa’s preview. That’s just insane! Third, he’s a six-time medallist in Academic Decathlon and an orator (read debater). Remember Andy from Apprentice 2? Remember how poised he was under pressure? That’s the kind of poise developed in debate and academic contests. Finally, there’s just something about this guy that screams success to me. So here he is, my pick to win it all!