Ahead of Valentine’s Day, over 5,000 Cornellians eagerly registered for Perfect Match in hopes of finding love.
Every year, the matchmaking system uses a comprehensive algorithm developed by students. Participants complete a survey listing a variety of personal preferences and character traits to find their perfect match.
The program has been matching thousands of students since 2019, when it was developed by Jamal Hashim ’22 to lift spirits and reduce isolation on campus. However, last year, the team behind Perfect Match was met with threatening messages by students outraged by a six-hour delay in matches due to the high number of survey responses.
This year, the team took many steps to improve participants' experiences with the program, including altering their algorithm.
“The algorithm team is working very hard and refining the algorithm to produce a more efficient matching system,” said Kelly Hong ’27, Perfect Match’s business team lead, in an interview during the development process.
According to Hong, the team also took on a larger-scale rebranding, including major updates to their website and event agenda. These changes began last year, with the introduction of the new “crush” feature, which increased the likelihood of students being matched with crushes.
“You can nudge your crush through the perfect match website,” Hong explained. With this new feature, Perfect Match sends emails to students telling them they should fill out the form since they “have a secret admirer” when another user inputs their name or NetID.
If a crush also indicates you as their crush, you will automatically be on each others’ match list.
Another feature added this year is the “poke” feature. When you receive your matches, you will also receive a “match card” with information about your matches, such as their guilty pleasure or green flag. In order to unlock this information for a given match, participants must “poke” their match back — demonstrating interest. That match then gets an email informing them that they were “poked” and by whom.
“It’s another great way for people to get in touch with their matches and facilitate the process of reaching out,” Hong said.
Students have been enjoying this year’s new perks. Santiago Alonso ’27 called the poke feature “pretty cool,” describing how he thought it would encourage connection. “The thing we didn’t really want to do last year was actually reach out to people,” Alonso said.
The Perfect Match team also incorporated engaging promotion tactics, such as their PM x Level B nights, where students wear color-coded wristbands indicating their relationship status.
The team is also working to create a more inclusive platform, catering their matchmaking system to include LGBTQ+ students. They hosted an event at Lot 10 earlier this semester tailored to queer students.
“We hosted drag queen shows and had a really great turnout,” Hong said. “We really care about being invited to and expanding the platform among LGBTQ+ students.”
The team is excited to see what the future holds for Perfect Match. “With our completely new branding and expanded in-person events, our end goal is for the Perfect Match experience to be a really fun, unique college memory, long term and short term,” Hong said.
Lily Kangas '27 is a Sun contributor and can be reached at lak267@cornell.edu
