Listen Now: The Competition

American Innovations

Wondery

Steven Johnson, History, Kids & Family, Education For Kids, Science

4.6 • 4.1K Ratings

🗓️ 29 April 2024

⏱️ 7 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Every summer for the past seven decades, 50 high school seniors—one from every state—descend on Mobile, Alabama to take part in one of the country’s most lucrative scholarship competitions for teen girls.

The Competition takes you behind the scenes of the Distinguished Young Women (DYW) program, and follows seven girls as they experience the highs and lows of competing for two weeks, away from home and under the most high-stress circumstances. Some girls enter for the money, some for prestige. All of them are used to being the best and the brightest. But only one will walk away with the top prize.

Host Shima Oliaee (Dolly Parton’s America, Pink Card) was Nevada’s contestant in 2001. More than 20 years later, she returns to Alabama as a judge. What can two weeks with 50 of the country’s most ambitious teens tell us about girlhood in America?

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Transcript

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0:00.0	50 high school senior girls descend on Mobile, Alabama every summer to compete for a massive cash prize.
0:07.0	No, it's not like Survivor. It's one of America's most lucrative scholarship competitions for teen girls.
0:13.2	It's been around for about seven decades, and now
0:16.0	you'll hear what took place behind the scenes.
0:18.6	From Pineapple Street Studios and Wundery comes the competition.
0:22.5	Host Shema Oliari was Nevada's contestant 20 years ago.
0:26.3	Now she's returning as a judge to find out what two weeks with 50 of the country's most
0:31.0	ambitious teens can tell us about girlhood in America.
0:35.1	What happens when the competitors are thrown into the deep end with the best and the brightest,
0:40.0	and how does surviving the competition prepare them for everything that comes after?
0:44.7	You're about to hear a clip from The Competition.
0:47.3	Make sure to follow the competition on the Wundery app or wherever you get your podcast. Okay, I'm officially almost late to the airport.
1:01.0	It's an early summer morning in New York City and I'm cutting it
1:04.4	close for a flight. I'm still at home and we're packing up jewelry on top of
1:11.4	all this. I don't know man, this is a lot.
1:15.0	Hi, that was the 5 a.m. Bell.
1:18.2	When I finally make it to JFK, I pick the wrong line at check-in.
1:23.1	And by the time I make it to the front of the line?
1:26.1	Hi.
1:27.1	Hey, so I missed my flight.
1:29.2	Oh my God.
1:30.4	That's my mom.
	...

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