LAST WEEK’S RESULTS:

Title: “College Search”
Prompt: This week’s contest answer, which is nine letters long, is an American university often mentioned in crossword clues..
Answer: IOWA STATE, found by 574 solvers, of which 552 were solo solves

Four long theme entries plus a pair across the middle last week:

17-A: [Everything bagel stuff] = SESAME SEEDS

11-D: [Like Mimi Tran and Scotty Nguyen, by birth] = VIETNAMESE. Poker players, if you didn’t happen to know.

62-A: [Utterly botched] = MADE A MESS OF

30-D: [Bar parts] = EXAM ESSAYS

40-A: [Whiskey since 1780] = JAMESON

24-D: [Like some relationships] = SAME-SEX

What’s the common link? They all contain the letters/city AMES, which, as you probably know, is often clued in crosswords with reference to contest answer IOWA STATE university, which is located there.

Mikey G says:

That’s the Ames of the game!

TMart exults:

I am especially happy to get this one!

We see what you did there…

DrTom asks:

Was that coincidence or did you almost have AMES IOWA with 23D and 27A?

Coincidence! Just a few letters off…

MajordomoTom asks:

was about to guess Ohio State, then I saw the “Ames” in the grid.

Come on, you know that’s called “The Ohio State University”!

Janis Ferry says:

My parents met there!

dandre has a local connection as well:

I grew up in Ames as my parents were professors at ISU

Dawg8866 says:

Had a good laugh as I was solving this while watching the Iowa v Iowa St football game, in Ames Iowa

And finally, jowens shares a fun fact:

The motto of the high school in this city is “Ames Hi Aims High”

Too good not to use! Ready for Week 3/5?

THIS WEEK’S INSTRUCTIONS:

This week’s contest answer is a word you might say upon solving the meta.

Solve well, and be not led astray by words intended to deceive.