AUDITIONS HAVE taken place to select the members of this year’s team from the University of Edinburgh for University Challenge.

For all the many accolades Edinburgh University has garnered over the years, there is an obvious hole in the trophy cabinet. 

Sure - the institution regularly makes it into the top twenty universities in the world, and it’s got its fair share of illustrious alumni – but it’s never won University Challenge.

Last week in the George Square Lecture Theatre, this year’s hopefuls braved the sixty-question written selection test.

Given forty minutes, candidates for the team had to answer questions on subjects as diverse as literature, science, ancient history, and maths to have a chance of making it into the four-person team or be included in the reserve.

Teams of four compete in the competition, and usually take a reserve member in case one player has to drop out. 

 Although the team has not yet been picked, a shortlist of six students has been chosen from the test results, including students from the school of philosophy, psychology and language sciences; the school of physics and the school of chemistry, and the school of history, classics and archaeology. The highest scoring contestant notched up 32 points out of 60.

A playoff will be held on Wednesday to decide the final team. Nick Myatt, one of the six qualifiers, told The Student that “I am a big fan of the show, and so I am excited (and genuinely surprised) to have placed amongst the candidates. I look forward to meeting the others and finding out if I make the team on Wednesday.”

The president of Edinburgh University Students' Association, Matt McPherson, told The Student: "I’m delighted that so many tried out for University Challenge this year.  I had a look over the trial paper, and it didn’t take long for me to realise why I hadn’t entered.  

 "I have a tremendous amount of respect for all the students who gave it a go, and I’m confident that Edinburgh’s team will do the University and all of us at EUSA very proud.” 

 Filming for the forty-first series of the program, which has been hosted by Jeremy Paxman since 1994, is slated to begin in the spring of 2012. Shooting will take place at Granada Studios, Manchester.

Despite never having taken the competition, the University of Edinburgh hold the current record for the most qualifications into the competition. 

 The two universities that have emerged victorious on the program the most are Oxford, and then Cambridge.The Student tried its best to get in to the team, but only managed an embarrassing score of 11 out 60 – and our reporter’s dreams of meeting Paxman were dashed on the rocks of intellect.