You’ve probably seen the ads in your email, thrown under your dorm room door, or stamped on the walls of the bathroom stalls: Harvard wants to find you a match. Harvard matchmaking sites offer ways for you to connect with fellow students of similar academic interests, sense of humor, and experience on campus. It’s Harvard Tinder.
Created in 1994 by Harvard students, Datamatch stands out as one of the most popular matchmaking sites for Harvard students. They promise to help you find lifelong friends or potential romantic interests. Each year, Datamatch targets Harvard first-years with a survey for their class (this year, Meet26) and advertises their site as a way to help make lifelong friends as well as potential romantic pursuits. Datamatch also offers match-making events throughout the year that pair up students for roulettes or dances hosted by the organization.
Unlike other public dating sites, these college-specific sites match up students from the same university. While hoping to eliminate the fear or awkwardness associated with meeting a stranger, these sites make it harder to avoid someone after a bad first date. Whether in a spontaneous study group or inter-house event, run-ins may happen and be inevitably awkward.
Datamatch co-president Chelsea Guo ’24 has faith in the process and statistics to prove their success. “[For the past two years, ] 80% of the Harvard undergraduate population participated [in Datamatch]. Out of 40,000+ total users last year, we had nearly 60,000 total matches generated by our algorithm (romantic and platonic) where both users decided to click on ‘Match’ for each other,” Guo stated. “We’ve heard of several couples around Harvard and other campuses that started from Datamatch—we get emails and Instagram DMs from couples all the time that met because of us.”
One of these success stories comes from the class of 2025 where a couple met through Datamatch’s Valentine’s Day initiative during their first year. “I originally did the questionnaire as a fun joke, not thinking anything would come out of it, but my number one match ended up being my now girlfriend. If you go on a date with any of your matches in the algorithm, Datamatch helps pay,” he explained. “Originally, we thought it was weird, but in the end, we both agreed that the algorithm was a success.”
He did not know his girlfriend before Datamatch. “She was in my friend’s entryway, but I had never met or seen her before. We’ve now been together for seven months. I did it because it was a cool experience and a unique Harvard thing. It turned out that Datamatch was definitely a success story for me.”
All first-years who participated in Datamatch’s Meet26 were given a survey consisting of ten questions about classes, first impressions of campus, and how they spend their weekends. Specifically, some of these questions included, “Which Harvard pre-orientation program best describes your sex life?”, “Which historic part of Harvard campus do you resonate with the most?”, “You’ve had a few weeks to adjust to HUDS in Annenberg Hall, a symbol of Boston’s commitment to the Unionist cause… How’s the food?”, and “Someone got ahold of your browser history. What was your last entry?” Based on survey results, first-year participants were matched with ten fellow classmates.
Grace Bda ’26 used Datamatch to strengthen her friendships in her first year rather than find a romantic relationship. “I’ve never done something like this before, so it was a really cool and fun experience,” she said. “The whole process was super easy, and it was great to see my matches and attempt to build some connections from there.”
College-specific dating websites are designed to reduce the anxiety and awkwardness of a first date with a stranger. Still, some students were unable to face a stranger they met online. Ellie Schiff ’26 said, “I originally signed up for Datamatch because I wanted a way to branch out and meet new people I might have otherwise not have met… I ended up not actually swiping on any of them. The experience felt a little artificial; [my matches] were names on a screen instead of people in real life.”
Matchmaking sites at Harvard have had controversy over privacy concerns. Last year, two MIT students pranked Harvard by setting up Harvard Marriage Pact. It stood as an unoriginal website that mirrored the Stanford Marriage Pact. After collecting information from hundreds of Harvard students, the website went incognito and caused many Harvard students to regret their involvement with the non-credible website. Harvard Marriage Pact eventually released the matches after a few weeks’ delay period through a relaunch under the site name ExExEx. The 2021 experience with Harvard Marriage Pact calls for speculation on whether or not these sites are secure.
“It’s totally valid to have privacy concerns with matchmaking sites. At Datamatch, privacy is one of our top priorities, and we want to ensure that we maintain the trust we have with our users,” Guo explains. “Users trust us, and we’re always conscious of the information we collect and are as transparent as possible with our policies on our site…All our team leads and members understand that we’re working with sensitive data.”
The other Datamatch co-president, Alex Chung ’24, assures of their privacy protection policies. “We distribute data on a strict ‘need-to-know’ basis. All of the data that our members get is completely anonymized, and no data is shared with anyone who doesn’t need to know it. [We also] prevent potential security threats. Our technical teams make sure we develop our website to prevent potential attacks on Datamatch.”
While originally a Harvard only platform, Datamatch now is in over forty colleges with plans to expand to more campuses. Guo confirms they are collaborating with “campuses from all over the world and reaching tens of thousands of people.” To get involved in the initiative, Harvard students can join a variety of Datamatch’s teams, including Algo, Biz, Design, Stats, and Web. Datamatch employee Jacob Mandelbrot ’26 said, “I’m interested in the intersection of human emotions and artificial intelligence… Datamatch seemed like a funny and low-stress way to explore that.”
Datamatch is not just the only website advertised on campus that students can get involved or participate in. Unlike Datamatch’s approach of pairing students up based on a variety of interests and opinions, Love at First Laugh matches students based on similar types of humor, determined through ranking TikTok preferences. Another college-specific matchmaking site Flutter offers discounts for dates and rewards for completing tasks.
Matchmaking sites on Harvard’s campus such as Datamatch have proven to be successful for some and still uncomfortable for others. For first-years who missed Datamatch’s Meet26 round, keep your eyes peeled for filers or emails advertising events and initiatives offered throughout the year. Maybe you, too, could find yourself becoming a Datamatch success story. “It’s supposed to be a fun experience and not taken seriously,” said Thomas Harris ’25. “If it actually leads to something, that’s great! If not, at least you have a funny story to tell.”
Layla Chaaraoui ’26 (laylachaaraoui@college.harvard.edu) wonders if she will be invited to any weddings originating from Datamatch in the near future.