At 9 p.m. on Tuesdays, dorms buzz: "Who am I dating?" The man who turned Stanford upside down

Dating app "Date Drop" launched last fall
Two-thirds of undergraduates have signed up
Matches users with partners through algorithmic compatibility

A student matching service developed by a current Stanford University student has taken the campus by storm and is drawing attention as a potential "second Facebook."

Wong Henry, a Stanford graduate student in computer science who developed the student matching platform 'Date Drop'. LinkedIn

Date Drop craze at Stanford... Matches users based on values, lifestyle, and political orientation

On February 10 (local time), the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported that "Date Drop, a student matching platform that started at Stanford University, is spreading rapidly across campus."

According to the report, Ben Rosenfeld, a Stanford senior who previously worked as a resident assistant in a Stanford dormitory, said that Date Drop, which was launched last fall, has become a hot topic among first-year dorm residents. "Students are always talking about who they hope to be matched with, who they actually got matched with, and who their friends got connected with," Rosenfeld said.

Date Drop was developed by Henry Wong, a graduate student in computer science. He said he completed the initial code for Date Drop in about three weeks.

Students answer 66 questions about their values, lifestyle, and political orientation, and the algorithm connects them with compatible partners based on the results. The matching results are released every Tuesday at 9 p.m.

Stanford University, U.S. Pixabay.

Students gather in dorm rooms or libraries to check the results. Some vent their frustration on the student community message board Fizz, saying, "My Date Drop was a disaster." By contrast, students satisfied with their results spend time at an on-campus cafe that offers free drinks to pairs on their first match.

Two-thirds of undergraduates use it... Less pressure around dating, less fatigue

So far, more than 5,000 Stanford students have used Date Drop. This means that about two-thirds of the roughly 7,500 undergraduates have tried the service. It has spread to 10 U.S. universities, including Columbia University, Princeton University, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and recently secured 2.1 million dollars (about 3 billion won) in venture funding.

Date Drop is being compared to the early days of Facebook, which Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg developed while he was a student at Harvard University. Both were created by students at elite universities, started within a limited college community based on school email authentication, and spread rapidly across campus through word of mouth.

However, while Facebook required users to actively send friend requests to form relationships, Date Drop is structured so that users choose partners based on algorithm-generated matches. The way relationships are formed and the degree of user involvement differ between the two platforms.

The popularity of Date Drop is attributed in part to how it reduces the pressure of in-person dating for college students and eases the fatigue they feel from existing dating applications (apps). Wong explained, "It gives you a reason to meet a particular person and relieves some of the pressure that comes with that," adding that it is "a service that helps people take at least one shot at making a connection."

Some observers say Date Drop fits well with the characteristics of academically focused Stanford students. Alena Zhang, a sophomore, said, "At Stanford, people often put more energy into achievement than into social relationships," adding, "Many students struggle to start conversations in general, and especially to start conversations about dating."

Madhav Abraham-Prakash, a junior who oversees social activities in the student government and helped introduce Date Drop, described the platform as "a tool to make the most of the best dating pool you'll ever have in your life." He said that although none of his matches have led to a romantic relationship yet, he has made several LinkedIn connections through Date Drop. "If your soulmate, co-founder, or business partner is here and you never meet them, that would be a real shame," he said.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.