T.V. ‘Scholar’ Sets Sight on Harvard

At first, it’s uncertain what would make Jeremy N.K. Tran ’09 stand out.

He has his share of common prefrosh anxieties: he isn’t sure what he will study or which clubs he’ll join. He feels an obligation to his parents to do well in college. A native of Westminster, Calif., he has only been to the East Coast a few times and can’t predict how he’ll react to moving 3,000 miles from home to attend Harvard.

But though he is, like the rest of his classmates, uncommonly bright, few can boast the TV-star status he has earned this summer as one of 10 contestants on ABC’s summer reality show “The Scholar.”

Tran didn’t win the competition, which pitted select high-schoolers against a rigorous regime of quizzes, challenges, interviews, and evaluations by a three-member “Scholarship Committee” in a quest for a full-ride college scholarship. He did, however, come away with a $20,000 scholarship and a fame that will likely follow him into the Yard this fall.

After taking his last AP exam, but long before taking his Harvard placement tests in math and writing, Tran was poked, prodded, and scrutinized before being pulled under the bright lights of prime time television.

To apply to the show, he says he filled out a 20-page application and submitted a 10-minute video of himself. He and a few hundred others were called back for interviews, which he and a few dozen others survived. After taking intelligence, personality, and film tests, the contestants recorded confessional videos.

“They asked us to talk about the tests if we wanted to. Most of us who made the show talked about the other kids,” Tran says.

“Max thought Alyssa was cute,” he says of two of the other contestants. Alyssa is the only other Scholar who will attend Harvard next year, while Max will matriculate to Columbia.

According to ABC publicist Amber K. Gereghty, Alyssa is in Europe and could not be reached for comment. The contestants were only identified on the show by their first name.

Once on the show, students lived together in a house, forming a mix that MTV’s The Real World has demonstrated can be combustible. Despite the potential for conflict and competition among top students competing for big bucks, Tran said the Scholars quickly formed friendships and treated the competition professionally.

“We became friends, which made it very difficult [to compete]. I’ve never been an extremely competitive person,” Tran says. “I think what we told ourselves is once we stepped outside the house we could have our game faces on.”

Tension built as the contestants reached a first moment of truth—five of the students were to be cut from the competition.

“It came down to the wire. It started being really stressful for everyone,” Tran says. “We all wanted to make it to the finals so badly. I think everyone was pretty stressed besides those who had already made the finals.”

Compounding the uncertainty of the competition was the nebulous nature of the scholarship committee’s standards, which Tran said some deciphered better than others.

“They didn’t tell us exactly what they were looking for,” Tran said. “They kept telling Alyssa to be less aggressive and for me to be more aggressive. It was difficult for us to guess what they were looking for.”

Neither Tran nor Alyssa made it to the “final showdown” of five students.

Tran doesn’t come across as pushy or attention-seeking. In retrospect, Tran thinks what distinguished the contestants who moved farther was a little extra spark that they put on when the time was ripe.

“I think a lot of people just acted differently when the scholarship committee was there,” he conceded. “It is a game. They did play the game well. They just made themselves stand out more among the students.”

With the competition over, Tran is taking the time to wind down and soak up as much of home as possible.

“I’m just spending time with family and friends,” Tran said. “I lived in Westminster, this little city in Orange County, my entire life. It’s going to be harder to leave.”

Tran, who has an older sister already in college, said that his departure will mean the onset of empty nest syndrome for a close family.

“The house is going to be pretty quiet,” Tran said. “That’s why my mom’s going to be sad.”

Tran seems a little uneasy and maybe a little wistful, but he’s also more than a little excited about coming to Harvard.

“I think I’m most excited about the environment. I’ve only been to the East Coast once, and I really liked it,” Tran said. “I also feel that Harvard will provide a very intellectual and stimulating environment where I can feed off other people’s intellectualism.”

“Even being on the Scholar and living in the house, it was so much fun to talk to people who were passionate about life and living and had something to say,” he said.

Once in Harvard’s classrooms, Tran may pursue a concentration in History of Science, an ideal choice, he says, because it doesn’t require him to choose between science and the humanities.

A swimmer, water polo player, and academic decathlon competitor in high school, Tran also spent much of his time volunteering, and he wishes to focus on community service while in college, while also engaging with the Vietnamese roots from which he is so little removed.

Tran’s biography on the show’s web site speaks to the burden he feels to succeed in life and validate his immigrant parents’ sacrifices.

“I’m actually really scared. I don’t know how difficult it’ll be,” Tran said of Harvard. “As long as I’m determined and if I work hard, I’ll be fine.”

The other potential obstacle of next year—the possibility that people will continue, as they have done, to recognize him from television—doesn’t concern him.

“I don’t think I’ll enjoy any celebrity status. Some people might recognize me, but overall I don’t think it’s going to be too intense or anything I can’t handle,” Tran said. “I’m not expecting it, but if it happens, I’ll be ready for it.”

—Staff writer Samuel C. Scott can be reached at sscott@fas.harvard.edu.