Stuart Sherman ’03 plans to finance law school at Boston University and buy a digital camera with the $125,000 he won last Wednesday and Thursday as a contestant on the ABC game show “Who Wants to be a Millionaire.”
The program selected Sherman as a contestant after he took a 30-question multiple-choice test with an 11-minute time limit and passed several rounds of interviews.
The $125,000 question Sherman answered correctly stated: “This beverage, made by a pharmacist of the name Caleb Bradham, was formerly called Brad’s Drink.” The answer was Pepsi.
“Who Wants to be a Millionaire” is a 30-minute program, featuring a single contestant who answers up to 15 multiple-choice questions. The dollar values and difficulty increase with each question, culminating in the 15th, million-dollar question.
If the contestant answers a question correctly, he progresses to the next question and the possibility of winning a larger amount. An incorrect answer leads to elimination and the loss of a portion of the winnings. The contestant also has the option with each question to forfeit and collect the money he has already earned.
Sherman stopped short of answering the $250,000 question: “The Bread and Roses Rebellion was lead by U.S. Mill workers in what city?” He said he had no regrets about forfeiting and taking the $125,000 he had already earned, as he would not have known the answer: Lawrence, Massachusetts.
Sherman used his “phone-a-friend lifeline” to call Amy Duschaneck ’03, while trying to answer the $16,000 question about the meaning of the name of “La Scala,” an Italian opera house.
“He called because we had a fast Internet connection and a plan,” said Duschaneck, who works at the Boston University Library. “Now he owes me free legal services for life.”
Before calling Duschaneck, who was with Andrew Cohen ’03, Ben Abrams ’03 in her Boston apartment, Sherman had already used his only “Fifty-Fifty lifeline” to narrow his choices from four to two: “staircase” and “voice.” Duschaneck gave him the correct answer, “staircase,” allowing him to progress to the next level.
Sherman said he doesn’t have plans to participate in any more game shows in the near future. His motivation for joining the show, he said, was strictly financial, not out of any particular obsession with the game show experience.
“It paid off, I got the money, and now I’m done,” Sherman said. “It was a get-rich-quick scheme, so it was surprising that it worked out.”
According to Duschaneck, a woman interviewing at the show discovered Sherman had been a member of the Psi U fraternity at Wesleyan and told him she had been a member of Theta at the University herself. Duschaneck said she suspects this helped Sherman to get onto the show.
“My guess would be she said something to the producers,” Duschaneck said. “He had an interview with B.U. [Boston University] radio, so I think he feels like he made it big time now. I’m hoping he’ll buy me an iPod.”
Sherman said family and friends have been supportive and congratulatory, and his life has returned to normal without significant disruption.
“It’s nice that it enabled me, but on a day-to-day basis it hasn’t really changed me,” Sherman said. “It means that in three years I’ll be able to get a job I want instead of paying off debt and being miserable.”
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