Jamie Ding ’13 Can’t Stop Winning ‘Jeopardy!’

Last week, a clue on Jeopardy! read: “In 1783 the Continental Congress met in this University’s Nassau Hall, which briefly served as the national capital.”

A hesitant contestant guessed “UPenn,” but then 23-day champion Jamie Ding ’13 quickly delivered the correct response: Princeton. Tigers tuning in everywhere cheered.

Ding remains undefeated as of this story’s publication and ranks among the top five all-time consecutive winners on the show. He’s a resident of Lawrenceville, a town that abuts Princeton’s southern border, and he works at the New Jersey Housing and Mortgage Finance Agency while attending law school at Seton Hall. On the show he’s been combining the two into a self-styled description of “bureaucrat and law student.” For fun he maintains an Instagram account with his sister, reviewing orders of General Tso’s chicken as a barometer of whether each Chinese restaurant has good food overall, he said on the show.

On each episode he’s worn a shirt that’s at least partly orange — his favorite color. “It has long been a dream of mine to wear orange (and black) on national television,” he told Princeton University in a social media post. “In that regard, among others, the Jeopardy! experience was phenomenal.”

He isn’t the first Princeton alum to make a splash on the long-running trivia show. In 2014, Terry O’Shea ’16 won the Jeopardy! College Championship, becoming the first Ivy League student to win the tournament. Numerous other Tigers have competed, including David Madden ’03, who won 19 consecutive games in 2005.

To get on the show, Ding first took the Anytime Test, a qualifying assessment for prospective contestants. He then completed a second test on Zoom before participating in a Zoom audition, similar to a mock gameplay session, designed to assess how contestants would perform on television.

“I’ve been accumulating knowledge for a very long time,” Ding told PAW, “and I’m good at retaining it.”

He said he’s participated in trivia and academic competitions since elementary school, including the National Geographic Bee in middle school and Quiz Bowl teams throughout high school and college, eventually serving as president of Princeton’s team. His sister has also helped him brush up on his pop culture knowledge. He added that he did not make any flashcards before appearing on the show.

Strategy has also played a role. Ding said he did very little preparation for Daily Double wagering but did work through equations for Final Jeopardy wagering while flying to California to tape the show.

Viewers may have noticed how he bounces around the board — “like a knight in chess,” he said — when picking questions, instead of clearing out one category at a time. It’s just for fun.

Ding noted that contestants can read questions on the screen as host Ken Jenning reads them aloud, an advantage for him as a fast reader. “I’ve been buzzing in with a with a fairly high degree of confidence,” he said. “I think when I buzz in, I know what I’m going to say.”

He praised the show’s production, noting that taping pauses during commercial breaks, when contestants receive water, encouragement, and time to reset, and Jennings often rerecords questions.

Ding said his molecular biology major at Princeton has been useful, noting that hard science categories may be harder for some contestants. He credited Princeton’s liberal arts focus for his success and the experience of pulling all-nighters and even standing for long stretches during the P-rade with building his physical stamina.

The Princeton references have continued throughout his run. In a recent episode, Ding revealed that there’s a cocktail named after him at the Quadrangle Club, where he was a member. Made of blue curaçao, peach schnapps, and lemonade, it’s attuned to the palette of someone in their early 20s, Ding said. The drink received its namesake after he told a friend to swap out the initial orange juice for lemonade. “I don’t even drink it,” he said. “Even I can tell that’s a terrible idea for a drink.”

Ding encouraged everyone to take the Anytime Test and see what happens. Of his own run, he said: “It’s been just the most pleasant surprise ever.”