CollegeHumor.com Names University Student as Runner-Up for Most Average Student Contest
Jessica Lowe, freshman psychology and English major, was selected as one of four runner-ups in the CollegeHumor.com Average Student Scholarship Contest. Unfortunately, Lowe discovered that she was a little above average to receive such an “average” award, thus she did not receive the $5,000 in winnings.
CollegeHumor.com is a comedy website that is based in New York City which features videos, pictures, photographs, and links to comical information. The site uploads material daily and is created by its in-house writing and production team. The company also accepts submissions from users.
Last month, CollegeHumor.com announced a contest to help out the average college student who tends to fall somewhere in the middle academically. Such students aren’t typically rewarded or even recognized for their work, and the company wanted to change that.
Streeter Seidell, editor-in-chief of CollegeHumor.com, has been working with the website for approximately eight years now. “I was thinking about how I never won anything ever. I never received any awards, I never won any scholarships, and I thought it was pretty unfair,” Seidell said.
Seidell was inspired to find the most average student and award them for their “averageness.” “Kids that are at the very top and kids that are at the very bottom receive a lot of financial help, and then there are kids like me, the normal kid that falls in the middle and receives nothing.”
CollegeHumor.com received about 2,000 applications, one of these being Lowe. She had signed up to receive notifications regarding scholarship newsletters where she discovered the contest. “I scream average. I am average height. I am average looking. I am an average student. Everything about me is average,” Lowe said.
Lowe applied for this scholarship approximately a month ago, and as any average college student, she submitted her application three minutes before the deadline.
“Our staff read every single application,” answered Seidell. “A lot were easy to disregard. They were either too accomplished or they showed an extreme lack of effort in everything.” Seidell and staff finally narrowed it down to 50 serious contenders, and at a further look they were able to find the most average of all.
“In high school, I was marked absent in my French class almost every single day because my teacher never seemed to recall me being there, despite me attending every class. I was even left out of my yearbook sophomore year. This scholarship seemed to fit me perfectly,” Lowe said.
Stephen Lang, freshman social work major and close friend of Lowe’s, said, “Jess is far from average, so there is no surprise that she did not win. She is a smart and funny girl, and once you get to know her she will instantly become one of your favorite people. She is different from everyone else in the aspect that she truly cares about the people closest to her, with everything she has.”
In comparison to the winners of the contest, David Cole of Ball State University and Jordan Bass of the University of Central Florida, Lowe was just an above-average student.
CollegeHumor.com would like to create an ongoing scholarship fund to reward random students on an almost monthly basis. “The responses were so overwhelming, and we never had a contest that had this much press coverage. It was extremely encouraging,” said Seidell. “Maybe we will not necessarily award the most average student again, but maybe we will try to find the student with the worst car, or something fun and interesting like that.”
Lowe has applied to approximately 100 scholarships so far this year. In the future she plans on applying to all of the scholarships she sees fit that CollegeHumor.com has to offer. “The final result may be just a tad average. If so, I apologize but then again, my apology is pretty average too.”
PHOTO COURTESY of Brianna McCabe
