Cal Poly senior takes Jeopardy! stage

BY REBECCA CARAWAY

Audrey Sarin grew up yelling at the TV in her grandparents’ living room in Washington state as they watched Jeopardy!. They would huddle around the TV, answering the questions along with the contestants. It wasn’t long until her grandparents encouraged her to apply for the show.

In December 2018, when Sarin was a senior in high school, she taped her first episode for Jeopardy! as a contestant in the teen tournament which took place throughout the show’s 35th season. Four years later, now as a marine science senior at Cal Poly, she was invited back in January for the high school reunion tournament.

“It really was like a high school reunion for me, getting to see my friends who I hadn’t seen in four years,” Sarin said. “It was truly special.”

While Sarin didn’t win the tournament, she gained friendships with fellow contestants from all around the country. Many of the fellow teen contestants from Sarin’s first season have been in a “massive” group chat since they first competed, staying in contact and keeping each other company during their formative college years.

When Sarin found out she was being invited back, the group chat exploded. When Sarin first saw the email from producers, she thought it was a scam until she realized that everyone else in her group chat got the same email.

“We thought, ‘This is legit, we might actually get to come back and see each other,’” Sarin said.

A big difference from the teen tournament and the high school reunion tournament was that everyone in the tournament got to watch each other compete live from another room. Contestants like Claire Sattler watched Sarin compete from the Wheel of Fortune stage.

Sattler was the final winner of the teen tournament four years ago