Barlow Students Take 'The Challenge' on TV

“The Challenge” is back and celebrating its 15th anniversary of showcasing the best and brightest high school students from the tri-state area. The new season of MSG Varsity’s award winning quiz show features a first round match-up between and Warren Harding High School airing at a new time, 6:30 p.m., Tuesday, Jan. 24 on MSG Varsity, Cablevision’s iO TV, Channel 14.

“We’re proud to celebrate academics on MSG Varsity through ‘The Challenge’ and to provide these extremely bright students a platform to showcase their talents with their communities,” said Theresa Chillianis, MSG Varsity’s General Manager. “Good luck to all of this year’s teams.”

Back for his third season as host of “The Challenge” is Jared Cotter, host of “MSG Varsity’s Talent Show” and a popular semi-finalist from American Idol. Cotter will serve as moderator, testing competing teams on their knowledge of history, arts and literature, current events, math, and science in front of a live studio audience.

“Each season I am blown away by the students’ intelligence and their wide array of knowledge in so many diverse categories,” Cotter said. “I’m really excited to get the season started and to see which teams are going to bring it.”

The Joel Barlow team is represented by Stephen Tschudi, Ben Lewson, Amy Kaplan (Captain), David Kang and Lia Cirelli (Alternate). The academic advisor is Michael Ecsedy.

“The Challenge” includes 192 high schools from the entire tri-state area — Long Island (with Nassau and Suffolk as two distinct regions), the Bronx, Brooklyn, Westchester/Lower Hudson Valley, New Jersey and Connecticut.

Participating schools advance through a series of elimination rounds, with one school in each region being crowned regional champion and winning $2,500 for their school. The winning teams from each region go on to “The Challenge” Championship where they square off in a Tri-State Showdown. The school awarded the title of Tri-State Champion will receive $10,000 in prize money and each student participating in the final “Challenge” Championship game will receive $500.