For most students, November is the time for midterm exams, elections and trips home for Thanksgiving. But perhaps the thing that students have looked forward to most this month is Marriage Pact. The annual matchmaking survey, which couples up participants using a compatibility score, launched online for University students Monday morning. Marriage Pact gives students a chance to meet their future spouse during the glory days of college. Whether or not students strike gold with their match, the pact brings about plenty of fun — and a slew of awkward DMs.
Sophia Sterling-Angus and Liam McGregor, Class of 2019 and 2020 alumni of Stanford University, created Marriage Pact in 2017 as a final project for their economics course on market design. In the seven years since, Marriage Pact has garnered national attention with over 488,000 students participating across the country. This year, 88 colleges and universities across the United States are participating in the questionnaire.
During the 70-question survey, participants are asked to rank how strongly they agree or disagree with statements about their personality traits, beliefs and preferences in a relationship. The statements range from “I prefer politically incorrect humor” to “The phrase ‘I love you’ is a promise.” After an anticipation-filled week, Marriage Pact then sends an email to participants with their match’s name, school email and percent compatibility based on Marriage Pact’s elusive “algorithm.”
While all colleges that participate in Marriage Pact include a base set of questions in their surveys, each school’s Marriage Pact may include questions more specific to their student body. This year, four undergraduate students have taken it upon themselves to create a Marriage Pact survey unique to the University.
Kate Rothfuss, executive member of U.Va. Marriage Pact and third-year College student, said she and her fellow organizers aim to pique University students’ interest with unique survey questions.
“A lot of the more fun, explicit or kind of ‘out there’ questions are the ones that we put in,” Rothfuss said. “Those are the ones where [we asked], ‘What would U.Va. respond to? What would get a reaction?’”
This year, with the presidential election at the forefront of many students’ minds, Rothfuss said they included questions related to the current political environment. While the national Marriage Pact had already added statements such as “It’s unethical to be apolitical,” Rothfuss and the other organizers threw in new statements about whether students prefer to match the political leanings of their partners.
“A lot of political [statements] were already in there,” Rothfuss said. “But questions like ‘How important are your partner's political views?’ we put in there because that seemed something that could go a lot of ways in a relationship.”
Marriage Pact draws excitement leading up to the reveal of participants’ matches through a variety of tactics. The platform has historically revealed participants’ matches a week after the survey is released and, roughly 24 hours before the reveal, sends a teaser email to each participant with their match’s initials. Rothfuss recalled how last year’s teaser emails prompted a buzz in Clemons Library as students began speculating who their mystery matches could be.
“When the initials came out, you could hear a little whir of people start opening it and talking. They were looking on Instagram and trying to figure out who [their match] was. It gets people excited,” Rothfuss said.
In an effort to spark even more excitement, Marriage Pact added a new feature this year — a preview of the top ten matches and the worst match, which are listed on the Marriage Pact website with their initials and their compatibility score. As of Tuesday, the top ten matches showed a 100 percent compatibility and the lowest match only a 0.2 percent compatibility.
Peter Mildrew, executive member of U.Va. Marriage Pact and third-year Commerce student, said the U.Va. Marriage Pact executive team hopes to set a new record for student engagement this year. Last year, 43 percent of the undergraduate student body participated in Marriage Pact.
“This year, we're aiming for over 50 percent, which would be crazy if we could get it,” Mildrew said. “We're shooting for the stars, and hopefully we'll land somewhere up there.”
Additionally, Mildrew said the Marriage Pact team hopes to have a balanced pool of individuals so that every participant gets matched with someone of their desired gender. Often, more heterosexual women complete the survey than heterosexual men, leading the algorithm to give them less-than-perfect matches or platonic matches with other heterosexual women.
Mildrew said they hope to expand their pool to more heterosexual or bisexual men by reaching out to fraternity group chats and male floors of first-year dorms.
In the past three days, the team has used political references and self-deprecating humor on YikYak to encourage students to participate in this year’s Marriage Pact. Posts on Election Day included a reminder for students to fulfill their “civic duty” — namely, to vote and to fill out Marriage Pact.
While humorous in nature, Marriage Pact has actually helped some students find lasting love. Fourth-year Education student Erin Moulton found her match when she completed Marriage Pact during her second year. After a few awkward conversations with her match on social media, she began meeting him in person. She said Marriage Pact helped ease them into their relationship, as there was little pressure to get together in person.
“It worked out well,” Moulton said. “Instead of immediately jumping into it, [Marriage Pact] just gave me his name, and from there, we just started hanging out.”
Moulton and her boyfriend have been going strong for a year and four months now. She said the Marriage Pact survey captured topics that were helpful in getting to know her partner.
“I would say they're good questions for anyone looking for a partner because they ask about home life and also things like, ‘What do you see your lazy Saturday looking like?’” Moulton said. “It’s a good mix of questions.”
Moulton also noted that while she and her boyfriend were deemed compatible by the Marriage Pact algorithm, they were not necessarily alike. In fact, she said her boyfriend, assuming the algorithm would pair him with someone similar to him, answered the questionnaire without complete honesty in hopes of attracting someone with a different personality than him. The decision worked in his and Moulton’s favor.
“I think the goal for Marriage Pact, at the end of the day, is to have someone that you are compatible with. So if that's what you're looking for, it makes sense to answer truthfully,” Moulton said. “But I guess you can also answer untruthfully, and it might work out.”
Moulton and her boyfriend happily found love in their inbox. For most students, however, Marriage Pact simply yields new friendships — or someone to pass by awkwardly on the Corner after some friendly Instagram stalking. Regardless, Rothfuss said Marriage Pact remains an exciting, light-hearted activity for students. She said she joined the U.Va. Marriage Pact team in her second year for fun, and she ended up witnessing the pact turn into something more significant.
“The idea that it’s a cool, fun side quest initially drew me in,” Rothfuss said. “But then, after doing it for a bit, [you] see how impactful it can be.”
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