Third win in a row for Indian Americans in the general knowledge contest featuring 36 of America’s sharpest undergrads
Jaskaran Singh, a 21-year- old Indian American student at the University of Texas at Austin has won the Jeopardy! National College Championship taking home the $250,000 grand prize.
“[It] feels pretty awesome,” said Jaskaran, a senior double-majoring in finance and economics at the McCombs Business School at UT as he buzzed his way to the national college title Tuesday night.
“It’ll definitely go a long way towards paying my tuition and a lot more,” said the Indian American student after besting 35 of America’s sharpest undergrads at the tournament hosted by Mayim Bialik.
Read: Indian American Avi Gupta wins top prize of $100,000 in 2019 ‘Jeopardy!’ Teen Tournament (July 1, 2019)
Singh won the two-game, hour-long primetime final on ABC with a cumulative score of $51,700, nearly $5,000 clear of Kennesaw State’s Raymond Goslow’s runner-up total of $46,999.
Singh took a big lead after the first game with $32,400 to Goslow’s $13,200. Goslow made up ground in the second game’s Final Jeopardy! round, coming up with the correct response and a big wager of $15,999, but Singh’s lead was enough to hang on.
“An 1873 book title gave us this phrase for the period in the late 1800s of growth & prosperity & also greed & corruption,” posed Bialik as the Final Jeopardy! question. He didn’t wager anything, but answered correctly : “What is the gilded age”?
Asked about his strategy going into the finals, Singh responded with a smile, “I buzz in fast and know things.”
This was the third win in a row for Indian Americans. Nibir Sharma from the University of Minnesota won the 2019 tournament and was a semi-finalist in the Jeopardy Tournament of Champions.
Read: Indian American Dhruv Gaur wins Jeopardy! College Championship (April 21, 2018)
Dhruv Gaur from Brown University bagged the championship in 2018 and there were no collegiate contests in the last two years because of the Covid-19 pandemic. Before them, Vinita Kailasanath had won the championship in 2001.
This time four of the students contesting against Singh were of Indian origin and one was of Sri Lankan heritage.
Avi Gupta won the last Jeopardy Teen Tournament with an $100,000 prize held in 2019 before the Covid pandemic suspended it. Four other teens of Indian origin had also won the championship in the 36 tournaments held so far.
“Shout-out to my mom,” said Jaskaran when asked in an interview published on the UT website in the run up to the Feb 18 quarterfinals what did it take to get to “Jeopardy!”.
“I watched “Jeopardy!” when I was a little kid, and my mom had me apply when I was 13, but I didn’t make it past the audition stage. She encouraged me to try again last year, saying, “What’s the worst that could happen?” So much of this stuff is up to chance, but obviously it worked out.”
Read: Indian American student wins a quarter-million-dollar prize in US college quiz contest (February 24, 2022)
Asked about life outside “Jeopardy!” Jaskaran said, “I did an internship with Boston Consulting Group in Dallas, and they’ve brought me back full time, so I’ll start with them after graduation.
“Now I’m taking just one computer science class to finish out my minor, Russian as an adjunct to my economics double major, and a bunch of history classes I’ve wanted to take.”
“I had 250 requests on LinkedIn last week, and I have to find time to go through those. I’d prefer to keep everything low key, but my parents are urging me to post and get people watching,” he said.