At Stanford, romance now arrives on a Tuesday night timer. The campus is flocking to Date Drop, a student-built matchmaking platform that promises algorithm-picked matches every Tuesday at 9pm, reports the Wall Street Journal. Created last fall by grad student Henry Weng, the site runs students through 66 questions on values, lifestyle, and politics, then matches them with other students based on compatibility scores. Students can also recommend couples, boosting their odds of matching. Dorms reportedly go quiet as students refresh, then turn to forums to discuss their matches, or alternatively, head out on a date. One campus cafe hands out free drinks to pairs on their first Date Drop meetup.
Date Drop has pulled in more than 5,000 Stanford users at a school with about 7,500 undergrads. The appeal, students say, is that it outsources the scary part of asking someone out in an environment obsessed with achievement and short on free time. As one junior put it to the Journal, "I would be sad if my soulmate was here and I didn't find them." The tool has already expanded to 10 other universities and raised $2.1 million, even as it faces a cease-and-desist from Stanford-born rival Marriage Pact over allegedly similar questions and branding. Weng—a computer-science student who created Date Drop after developing a senior-only campus dating game last year, per the Stanford Daily—stands by his product.
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