PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — University of Pennsylvania senior Mehek Boparai’s love for “Jeopardy!” is something she has shared with her parents all her life.
“When I went home for COVID during the pandemic in 2020, I ended up watching a lot of the show with them. We would watch, like, three episodes a day for months,” she recalled.
So for fun, she took the test to enter the college version of the game show — along with about 25,000 other hopefuls. After 50 quickfire questions, they entered another round, “like a mock game-style interview,” she said, “where they want to see if you’d be interesting on screen.”
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About nine months later, Boparai made the cut as one of 36 contestants this year.
“When I got the call, I kind of freaked out. I had a mini panic attack,” she said.
There will be 12 quarterfinal games, then the winners will face off in four semifinals, followed by those top three winners in the final round.
Villanova University student Mitch Macek couldn’t believe he made the cut either.
“I’m sitting there with the phone in my hands and of course the first thing I say is, ‘You have got to be kidding me, this has got to be a joke!’ ” he said. “I was in disbelief. I had no idea that this would happen. I was not actually expecting to get on the show in any kind of capacity.”
He was flown out to Los Angeles, where he met new host Mayim Bialik.
“Obviously there’s a lot of excitement being there and seeing the place you’ve seen on TV for 16, 17 years growing up,” he added.
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For Macek, it’s hard to pinpoint the origins of his vast knowledge.
“I like to say if I met you and I learned something from you, then you contributed in some way to me being on the show,” he explained.
Boparai is excited too, and it's one of the highlights of her college years.
“When I tell people about this, I’m like, think about this as something fun I did; don't think of this as the apex of my career,” she assured herself. “It takes a very specific brand of weirdness to go on ‘Jeopardy!’ ”
The championship kicks off Wednesday night.