Becoming a Jeopardy! Contestant

February 3, 2016 1:58 PM

For most of my life, I've been obsessed with the game show Jeopardy! (So obsessed that, as you can see, I include the exclamation point in the title. Yes, I respond in the form of a question.)

I've taken the online contestant exam the past few years, and I think I've done pretty well. By my count, I missed four of the fifty questions this year. I didn't actually keep track of my answers in previous years, but 4-5 wrong answers per year seems to be pretty consistent. From what I've read, that seems pretty good. Wikipedia, for example, says that 35/50 is a passing score. My question is, what happens next? I know they randomly select passing scores to audition in person, but I'm interested in the probabilities. Ken Jennings said something to the effect of an applicant is eight times more likely to be admitted to Harvard than to appear on Jeopardy!, but that doesn't take into account the fact that a presumably significant amount of people taking the test are not qualified. Does anyone know how many people make it to the second round? And if you do make it to the second round, when do you find out? This is probably proprietary information that the producers don't want to be public, but there should be some anecdata out there, right?

posted by kevinbelt to Sports, Hobbies, & Recreation (12 answers total)

Best answer: All you can do is keep taking the test. The Boston Globe reported last year that "more than 70,000 people took the online test last year, but only about 3,000 were summoned to one of the regional auditions, and just 400 of them will be selected to be on the show..."
Even assuming some people take the test on a lark and do poorly, those aren't great odds.
posted by Wretch729 at 2:08 PM on February 3, 2016 [4 favorites]

Response by poster: That's exactly the information I'm looking for. You rule.
posted by kevinbelt at 2:10 PM on February 3, 2016

It's been a long time since anyone I know went through this process. However, it seems clear to me that they aren't just looking for smart people. You must be ok on tv. The second round of tests used to be a faux game with the buzzer. If you look like a freak on tv (not your fault!) or can't use the buzzer, they won't pick you.

Good luck on getting through! This is a great dream! Keep trying!
posted by Gor-ella at 2:12 PM on February 3, 2016

Best answer: I don't know any real insider dirt (although Wikipedia seems pretty well-informed on this topic), but I can give you some dates from my audition two years ago. According to my dusty gmail archives, I took the online test on January 9, was invited to audition on February 21, and the audition itself was on March 27. I didn't get on the show, but iirc they told us that they film in August/September and that we should expect to be called a few weeks ahead of time either that year or the following one.
posted by theodolite at 2:12 PM on February 3, 2016 [3 favorites]

My mom is going to be on Jeopardy this year. She flies out to LA this month to film. Both of us have been trying for YEARS to get on the show by taking the online tests.

Mom has been called into the audition phase twice. The first time was about three years ago--she broke a lot of unspoken rules like INTERRUPTING THE PERSON ASKING THE QUESTIONS TO ANSWER FIRST OH MY GOD MOM STOP and not preparing any amusing anecdotes beforehand. She got told she "might" get called sometime in the next 18 months.

This most recent time, this summer, went a lot better. She thoroughly prepped, she read all the blogs about other people's experiences, she went shopping and thoughtfully chose colors that would look good on TV, she asked everyone in the family to give her their 5 funniest stories about her so she could pick and choose from a nice list of what to provide to Alex&Co. This time when she left they said things like "I just love you" and "you're great on camera!" And lo and behold they called her onto the show.

The hardest part, by far and away, is making that jump from getting more than 35 questions right to making it through their random lottery draw. I'll note that BOTH years my mom got called into auditions I did better than her on the online test. I'M NOT BITTER. Ahem. You have to be good at answering questions and extremely lucky and charming in person to get on the show.
posted by phunniemee at 2:19 PM on February 3, 2016 [33 favorites]

To add another data point: I took the test in late January 2009, and on May 7th I got an audition invite for June 25th. (Sadly, I didn't go - I regret this - because I had to teach a class that day and didn't get it together to get someone to cover for me.)

From a quick search of my e-mails I see that I've taken the test four times since then and never got an invitation.

But as theodolite said above, this doesn't necessarily happen at any certain time during the year - I figure they're out there looking for contestants year-round.
posted by madcaptenor at 2:54 PM on February 3, 2016

"Keep trying" is basically the rule for getting on all the game shows, which is I suspect one of the reasons that contestants often end up having many of their anecdotes be about watching Jeopardy! with a great-grandparent or having their mom answer Jeopardy! questions in their sleep or having been playing the board game when they got their invitation call. Persistence and single-minded devotion are clearly being selected for as much as an ability to answer trivia questions and hit the buzzer rapidly.

Also, be certain you won't be disqualified - you can't be friends who works for a TV station that broadcasts the show, for example, which eliminates roughly half of the people I know who would be interested in appearing enough to take the test, including myself.
posted by SMPA at 3:10 PM on February 3, 2016 [1 favorite]

A friend that was just on late last year (2 day champion!) had been taking the tests regularly for at least 7 years before he finally made it. Here is his blog post about it.
posted by COD at 5:57 PM on February 3, 2016

The year I made it on (2013), they told us the odds were a bit slimmer than those Boston Globe numbers (100,000 took it, and 2,500 were invited to auditions). Nothing I've seen or heard says how well people do on average, though, so that could be 2,500 out of 5,000 or 50,000 passing tests. (For the record, I got the invite in April for a May audition after taking the test in January. I taped in August of 2013, but there are people from my audition day whose episodes aired as late as July 2015.)

Good luck! If you do make it through, feel free to Memail me for any helpful info I might have.
posted by pitrified at 8:05 PM on February 3, 2016

I made it on in 2010... I took the test twice (in '08 and '10, I think) and got called for the audition both times. The first time went ok but, obviously, I was not called to actually be on the show. The second audition went better - I knew what to expect, was peppier, knew what a "bad" auditioner looked like. If you make it to the audition, don't be shy, don't be creepy, never interrupt.

The only other advice I can give is to avoid being a white male lawyer age 40-60, but if that currently applies to you that may be more of a lifestyle change than you're willing to undertake.
posted by mskyle at 4:37 AM on February 4, 2016 [4 favorites]

I literally have no idea how the process works. I was on in 2011. When I took the online test I know I missed at least three questions and given the number of people taking the test I assumed I'd need to have a perfect score to make the auditions. At the auditions I did adequately but not outstandingly. (This was in DC and the number of people with awesome Foreign Service stories etc was overwhelming). I still got called. It's clearly not entirely a merit-driven process.
posted by Octaviuz at 7:07 AM on February 4, 2016

Response by poster: mskyle, I knew I dropped out of law school for a reason!
posted by kevinbelt at 7:12 AM on February 4, 2016 [2 favorites]