TAMS student wins big

Monica Thieu, an 18-year-old sophomore in the Texas Academy of Mathematics and Science at the University of North Texas, has won the Jeopardy! College Championship.

Thieu went into Tuesday’s competition, the second day of the two-day finals, in first place with $18,000. She answered the final question correctly, and her total was combined with Monday’s to make her the overall winner. She takes home the grand prize of $100,000 and a small trophy.

She is the youngest winner of the College Championship since the tournament debuted in 1989.

The idea that she might actually win the big prize never entered her mind, Thieu said Tuesday.

“Oh no. Not for a second,” she said. “I didn’t feel like I would do horribly, but I didn’t think I’d win it.”

It didn’t take long to decide what to do with all that money.

“College tuition. Definitely,” she said. “I might even go to my dream school — either Stanford or Southern California. I haven’t been accepted to either of them yet, but I’d love to go to either of them.”

She plans to major in neuropsychology and then enter medical school.

Thieu and her mother joined several dozen students at TAMS to watch Tuesday’s prerecorded broadcast, and the mood was electric, said Lindsey Smitherman, an administrative specialist at the school.

“Everyone was cheering and yelling,” Smitherman said. “It was very exciting.”

TAMS is a two-year residential program for high school students. The attention generated from the show and related media coverage is great for the school, said Kevin Roden, an administrator at TAMS who is also a Denton City Council member.

“It’s been fun to watch as the different contestants on the show realize she’s actually technically a high school student,” Roden said. “I think it’s another great example of the gem that TAMS is for UNT and for Denton in general.”

The Jeopardy! College Championship began airing Feb. 1 with 15 contestants, whittled down from more than 12,000 hopefuls from around the country. To compete, students have to be full-time undergraduate students with no previous bachelor’s degree.

Thieu had class before the show aired, and then she returned to more classes afterward.

In between, she had a television interview with more excitement, but she calmed down and returned to her studies.

“It’s good that I went back to class,” she said. “That’s what’s important right now.”

— Lowell Brown, Donna Fielder

and Rachel McReynolds

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