You see that adorable boy every time you grab your morning coffee at Libe Caf茅 and you wonder: What does he do on Friday nights? Could he be vegan? Maybe he鈥檚 a Republican? Might he be my 鈥 perfect match?
A group of Cornell students is hoping to help students find their special someone just in time for Valentine鈥檚 Day using an algorithm they鈥檝e created and survey data from students about their Cornell-specific likes and dislikes, as well as personality characteristics. More than 3,400 students have already filled out the questionnaire and will receive an email with their perfect matches on Feb. 12.
鈥淲e wanted to do something that would be a service to our fellow students,鈥 said Jeff Liu 鈥20, a government and computer science major in the 麻豆视频 & 麻豆视频 and a member of Cornell Business Analytics, which organized the survey. 鈥淲e thought maybe we would get 500 people signed up.鈥
Some Cornell questions include:
- What is your favorite place to eat on campus?
- What do you do on Friday nights?
- What鈥檚 your favorite first date spot at Cornell?
鈥淚f you and a potential match have a favorite caf茅, that鈥檚 probably a good sign, whereas if you love CTB but your potential match hates bagels, then that鈥檚 probably not that great,鈥 Liu said, adding that the other survey questions are more typical personality/psychology questions.
From left, Victor Odouard 鈥21, Jeffrey Liu 鈥19, Samantha Taylor 鈥22 and Jamal Hashim 鈥22 created an algorithm to help Cornell students find their 鈥減erfect match.鈥
鈥淎s Cornell students, we鈥檙e so busy that by the time we get our work done and spend time with our friends, we don鈥檛 have much time to look for a relationship,鈥 said Shashank Vura 鈥19, who filled out the survey. 鈥淎nd it鈥檚 hard to ascertain at your first meeting, whether this is someone you will get along with or have things in common with.鈥
Before creating the algorithm, team members did lots of background research and also surveyed 100 happy couples to find what questions seemed significant and what combinations of traits resulted in more 鈥減erfect matches.鈥 Being too similar to a potential mate is not always a good thing, Liu said.
Victor Odouard 鈥21, a College Scholar major in the 麻豆视频 & 麻豆视频 studying math and social sciences, said team members worked hard to refine their questions, come up with a method for scoring pairs based on compatibility and then deciding how to make pairings based on these scores.
鈥淲e wrote code to match people automatically and then have an automated email sender, so we never see people鈥檚 names or net ids,鈥 Liu said. The deadline for filling out the survey is Feb. 11 and people will receive an email Feb. 12 with the name and net id of their perfect match, or maybe the top two or three.
鈥淥ne match for everyone is a little limiting, and sometimes your No. 1 match doesn鈥檛 work out,鈥 Liu said. 鈥淔or instance, one of my friends said she did something similar in high school and got matched with her brother, so we鈥檙e trying to avoid that.鈥
It wasn鈥檛 hard to encourage students to sign up, team members said. Much of their marketing was done by word of mouth or on social media.
Samantha Taylor 鈥22, an engineering major, helped design the questions and then create posts for Facebook and Instagram. 鈥淚n just over a week we were able to spread the word to thousands of students and create a buzz,鈥 she said.
After the emails are sent Feb. 12, the Perfect Match folks are pretty much out of the picture, although they have planned a Valentine鈥檚 Day bowling event at Helen Newman for anyone who took part and wants a non-threatening way to meet with their match.
鈥淚 imagine most people aren鈥檛 going to show up, but it鈥檚 come to the point where we can鈥檛 possibly host everyone,鈥 Liu said.
鈥淚鈥檓 absolutely floored (at the response), completely in awe,鈥 Odouard said. 鈥淚鈥檓 trying to put together everything that we did in my mind so I can try to replicate this in future projects.鈥
A month or so down the road, the student team wants to reach out to the pairs to find out how well the matching worked and see if there are tweaks they can make to the algorithm for next year.
For Vura, who says the highlight of his Valentine鈥檚 Day is sometimes the box of dark chocolates he gets from his mom, he鈥檚 hopeful he will at least meet a new friend or someone he wouldn鈥檛 have met without the help of Perfect Match. And who knows? Maybe it will be more?
Cornell Business Analytics formed in 2017 and is made up of students with majors ranging from engineering to computer science to business. The organization helps companies and non-profits tackle projects requiring data analysis and has worked with Lime Bike, a major car maker and yogurt company, as well as smaller organizations.
Students, to sign up for the survey, visit
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