Reality TV Gets Smart

TV has a new reality show called The Scholar in which academically high-achieving students vie for a full-year four-year scholarship (ABC, Monday Nights, 8 PM). I think that it will be good for the college access movement, as long as viewers don't come away thinking that the best way to pay for college is going on reality TV. (Incidentally, I'd probably do better on The Amazing Race than on The Scholar.) Perhaps the show will do for college-going what CSI has done for the forensic science profession and what Grey's Anatomy--and ER before it--is doing for medical schools.