A Stanford Experiment to Pair Singles Has Taken Over Campus --- Matchmaking tool is the talk of the school, giving dating-challenged students new hope

 

“When Ben Rosenfeld started working as a residential assistant at a Stanford University dorm, he encountered 77 freshmen possessed by an "all-consuming" force.

 

His new gig coincided with the release of Date Drop, a matchmaking platform that launched in September and immediately took over conversation in the dorm.

 

"They're always talking about who they want to be matched with, who they're matched with, who their friends are matched with," said Rosenfeld, a Stanford senior majoring in data science.

 

Created by graduate student Henry Weng, Date Drop has students answer 66 questions about their values, lifestyles and political views. These responses are fed into an algorithm to pair compatible students. Matches "drop" every Tuesday night at 9 p.m.

 

Students huddle in dorm rooms and libraries to find out who the algorithm chose for them. Some take to Fizz, a discussion forum, to complain. "My date drop was chopped," one student wrote, using a slang term for unattractiveness. Those who like what they see often wind up at On Call Cafe, a popular date spot that offers students a free beverage if they show up with their first match of the quarter.

 

More than 5,000 Stanford students have used Date Drop at a school with about 7,500 undergraduates. It has spread to 10 other colleges including Columbia, Princeton and MIT, and Date Drop just raised $2.1 million in venture-capital funding.

 

The growth, fans say, reflects a reality about many college kids: They're intimidated by real-life courtship and overwhelmed by the endless scroll of dating apps. Entrepreneurial students have found huge demand for alternate matchmaking tools.

 

"It helps people take a chance on connection," said Weng, a computer-science student who coded Date Drop in about three weeks. "You get a reason to meet up with a specific person, take some of that pressure off."

 

Some say Date Drop is a very Stanford solution to a very Stanford problem.

 

"A lot of people at Stanford place so much emphasis on success in other areas aside from social interaction, so it just naturally falls to the wayside," said sophomore Alena Zhang. "People just struggle with striking conversations in general -- let alone romantic interactions."

 

Freshman Wilson Adkins began chatting with a girl from his dorm just as Date Drop was getting buzz. His friends took notice.

 

A feature allows users to "couple" two people to boost their odds of matching. Students get an email alert if their friends propose a match for them. Adkins got three at once. "I knew they were conspiring," he said.

 

Sure enough, Adkins and his classmate were paired with a 99.7% compatibility score. "So now it looks like I had been kind of scheming and forcing this to happen," Adkins said.

 

He avoided her for weeks. They've since studied together a few times.

 

Stanford is also the birthplace of The Marriage Pact, a matchmaking project created in 2017 and adopted at more than 100 universities. Creator Liam McGregor said it's produced over 350,000 matches and dozens of marriages.

 

The questionnaire written by a team of relationship scientists invites students to rate a series of statements from "strongly disagree" to "strongly agree." Among them: "I would rather fail than cheat in an exam" and "I believe I can truly change the world."

 

The Marriage Pact team apparently found Date Drop's questions and marketing a little too familiar. It sent a cease-and-desist letter in November. Weng said his team stands by their product and will continue operations.

 

Students say they could use the help.

 

Princeton freshman Pierre Du Plessis said Date Drop has been useful on a campus where asking someone out is unusual. "If it goes wrong, everyone will know," he said. "You don't want to be the guy that's known for embarrassing himself."

 

While Date Drop has helped, it won't necessarily solve the complex problem that is dating at a place like Stanford.

 

Sophomore Gabriel Berger went out with his first match over matcha lattes in Palo Alto. "We had a great time. We talked for a couple of hours," he said. "And then our schedules were just completely conflicting."

 

His date was juggling dance practice with a full class schedule, while Berger was conducting research, taking four challenging courses and serving as vice president of his fraternity. He said the date ended with a shared realization: "We're not interfacing well."

 

Madhav Abraham-Prakash, a junior who oversees social life for Stanford's student union and helped bring Date Drop to campus, views the platform as a tool to maximize the "best dating pool that I will ever be a part of."

 

Although Date Drop hasn't resulted in a romantic connection for Abraham-Prakash, it's helped him make a few LinkedIn connections.

 

"I would be sad if my soulmate was here and I didn't find them," he said. "Or if my cofounder was here and I didn't find them, or if my business partner was here or the chairman of my board was here, and I didn't find them."” [1]

 

1. A Stanford Experiment to Pair Singles Has Taken Over Campus --- Matchmaking tool is the talk of the school, giving dating-challenged students new hope. Li, Jasmine.  Wall Street Journal, Eastern edition; New York, N.Y.. 11 Feb 2026: A1.