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My parents met because my dad’s little sister was best friends with my mom. My future aunt knew they had a lot in common and decided they should try going on a date. The 21st-century equivalent has arrived — in the form of an app.

While Gen Z becomes increasingly frustrated with the political climate, stigma around religion, and the dating app transactional culture, a new trend is trickling into different college campuses: a matchmaking app designed to bring compatible singles together. Although some Hillsdale students don’t seem to have a hard time finding love before graduation, hence the “ring by spring” cliche, matchmaking at Hillsdale would allow more students to meet people outside their social circles and take the pressure off going on dates. 

A Hillsdale matchmaking app could ask similar questions to the admissions roommate pairing questionnaire — the admission counselors seem to have a good idea of what types of people work well together. 

A recent Wall Street Journal article highlighted the recent success of “Date Drop,” an app created by Stanford University graduate student Henry Weng. This app is currently active on 12 campuses across the nation, and has a long waitlist of other universities. Hillsdale is not currently active or on the waitlist. Students who want to receive a match take a 66-question survey on the app about their values, political views, and future wishes. Then the algorithm pairs compatible students, and matches are released on Tuesday nights. Date Drop has tapped into a market of students looking for dating experience with little time or opportunity to find someone with similar values.

Although most of the schools with an active Date Drop boast student populations anywhere from 6,000 at Princeton University to 33,000 at University of California Los Angeles, introducing a similar experience at Hillsdale would make it easier to meet potential soulmates. The schools currently using Date Drop are academically rigorous schools, similar to Hillsdale, where many students find it difficult to meet people outside of their immediate circle once they have gotten into their typical routine. Luckily, a campus like Hillsdale attracts students with generally similar outlooks on life, so a program like Date Drop could lean into different aspects of the user’s personality. 

My current roommate and I were randomly paired together freshman year, and we will be roommates again next year to complete all of college together. The answers to simple questions about music taste, favorite home-cooked meals, and the ideal way to spend a weekend teach a lot about a person’s values and quirks. 

Date Drop also includes a feature that lets people recommend couples to be paired together. On a small campus like Hillsdale, this would be a great way for students to help their friends go out with someone they might like. A pairing on the app would be an easy conversation starter and help interested couples see if they really are compatible. 

Some people might see this as an insincere way of starting a relationship or liken it to dating apps, on which someone hides behind a screen instead of really putting themselves out there.

But a blind date or a random recommendation based on compatibility of question responses is a fun way of learning how to date and discovering what one is looking for in a relationship. It would lessen the pressure of Hillsdale’s dating culture and create a fun way for people to get to know new people more casually. 

Go on a date, get to know someone you have a few things in common with, and see where it leads. 

Elaine Kutas is a junior studying English.