Erin Milligan, a UD freshman from Bear, Del., will compete in the Jeopardy College Championship on Monday, Nov. 13, and the stakes are high. When the contest is over, one student will win a $50,000 cash prize, a new Volvo S60, a specially designed trophy and $25,000 in scholarships for his or her school–not to mention the chance to appear on national TV and get his or her picture taken with host Alex Trebek.

The tournament begins Nov. 8, with the finals Nov. 20-21, and the UD freshman is one of the few chosen to participate.

Some 3,000 students from 10 U.S. cities sought to compete on the quiz show. Only 15 were selected.

Milligan was 9 years old when she started watching Jeopardy and told her mother she'd be a contestant someday.

Almost immediately, she began sending postcards to the show, hoping to be selected, but nothing happened.

Then, when she was a senior at Padua Academy and about to become a biology major at UD, she began applying online for the Jeopardy College Championship.

"Every day, from April to June, I'd register," she said.

"They called me in the middle of June to tell me I'd been chosen for tryouts in Philadelphia."

When she got to Philadelphia, Milligan and the people in her group were given a written test.

"Of the 60 people in my group, 14 passed the test and then did a mock show," she said. "I sat there and tried to smile and be happy. After the mock show, we were told that in August, 15 people would be sent packages with a telephone number to call to accept, instructions on travel, expenses, accommodations and details on when and where the show would be taped," she said. "I never thought I'd be picked, so I just went ahead with getting ready for school. Then, one day in August, this package arrived. I opened it and started screaming. I didn't even have time to cram for the show. I had just gotten to college and had to fly to Seattle where the show was taped," Milligan said.

The two-week-long tournament was taped in two days in September in the University of Washington's Meany Hall. The other students were from Harvard, Vanderbilt, George Washington, Rice, Loyola/Chicago and Baylor universities; Dartmouth, Ursinus and Luther colleges; and the universities of Washington, Illinois at Urbana Champaign, Texas at Austin and Wisconsin at Madison.

"I expected it to be very competitive, but everyone was very friendly and supportive," Milligan said.

The 15 students were given L.L. Bean/Gore-Tex^® jackets with a Jeopardy patch, and several promotional spots were taped, with the students standing in front of the prize Volvo in their Jeopardy jackets.

Milligan said there were rehearsals but only to get the students used to being on the set and using the buzzer.

"If you weren't playing, you were down in the 'green room' waiting. You couldn't see or hear anything on the set," she said.

The taping was intense from 10 a.m. to 9 p.m., and "the only time we stopped was when Alex messed up a question."

Milligan was in one of the last groups to compete.

"All of the questions you knew were in other games," she added. "I'm more science and math oriented, and we got a lot of geography and other things."

She said she had some trouble with the timing for hitting the buzzer. If it's hit too quickly, the contestant is locked out of the round.

Milligan said she was impressed by how smart the other contestants were. "The person from Harvard knew all of the two-letter words in Scrabble in alphabetical order." She says she has a new-found respect for the people who are contestants on Jeopardy.

"It was surreal. If you told me I'd ever be on College Jeopardy, I'd say it's never going to happen. I suppose it will sink in when I see myself on national TV."

To be a contestant on Jeopardy, Milligan said she had to agree that she wouldn't reveal the results of the tournament. To find out if she's is driving a new Volvo S60, tune in starting Nov. 8.

–Barbara Garrison