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Penn can now claim a reality TV star as one of its own.

Class of 2001 Wharton alumna Jennifer Abrams appeared as one of the 19 female contestants on the reality television series Average Joe: Adam Returns.

The NBC series featured contestants competing for the heart of Adam Mesh, a finalist from the original Average Joe, which aired in the fall of 2003.

While Abrams claims that she had never considered being on a reality television show, she was compelled to apply for the series by romantic interest for Mesh.

"He's a guy I would totally want to date," Abrams says.

After unsuccessfully trying to be set up with Mesh through her friends who went to Mesh's alma mater, the University of Michigan, she decided to apply for the show.

"I thought, 'I am not going to go on some reality TV show,'" Abrams says. "It is the last thing I would want to do. But if I didn't, I knew I would always wonder."

Thinking that she and Mesh "would have this great romance," Abrams took a leave of absence from work in the pharmaceutical software industry to film the show in Palm Springs, Calif.

On the show, Mesh met the mostly twenty-something contestants during a series of group dates, some of which led to one-on-one dates. On each episode, Mesh eliminated several contestants.

Abrams was eliminated on the third episode of the show, but she claims she was not too upset because she "didn't get to know Adam that well."

"I was sad to leave the other girls and the fun of Palm Springs and this great vacation," Abrams says.

Abrams' sorority sister and College senior Vivian Rotter watched the third episode with Abrams and other cast members in a New York City bar. The Alpha Chi Omega sister described the experience as "kind of surreal."

While Rotter believes that Abrams' "personality could have come out more" had she gotten more camera time from private dates, she recognized Abrams' "sarcastic and witty remarks."

"I had a great time," Abrams says. "It was so much fun. I made some really good friends, which I wasn't expecting to happen."

Fellow Wharton alumnus Scott Emrich, who lived next to Abrams on Walnut Street in 1999, was surprised Abrams "took the effort to e-mail or whatever to be on the show."

However, Emrich says he expected Abrams to be chosen by Mesh because he thinks she is "kind of a flirt" and "has a lot of personality."

Nursing senior Jennifer Heck watched the series but did not remember Abrams because she was not "one of the annoying" contestants.

Heck was surprised to hear that Abrams was a Penn alumna, as she "tends to think of people on reality shows as people of less education and less of a professional life."

Now back in New York City, Abrams says she spends time with many of the other contestants, sometimes going out to dinner and bowling. During the nights in the city, she says she is sometimes recognized "just enough that it is fun and not too much that [she is] annoyed."

At Penn, Abrams was a Management 100 teaching assistant and during her senior year was the Alpha Chi Omega pledge master.

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