Whether you’ve seen the cheezy Instagram story puns or received text messages from friends urging you to take the questionnaire, somehow the Vanderbilt Marriage Pact has taken campus by storm.  Almost half of the student body has already taken the survey since the account’s first Instagram post Feb. 16, proving there’s still hope for love at Vandy.

An algorithm created by Stanford students in 2017, the Marriage Pact has made its Vanderbilt debut this year in the wake of the Valentine’s blues. The premise of the Marriage Pact is simple: find the Vanderbilt student with whom you are most compatible. 

To join the pact, you fill out a 50-question survey. Prompts range from “it’s okay that my partner does harder drugs” to “gender roles exist for a reason,” and participants are able to rate how strongly they agree from a scale of one to seven. At the end of the survey, participants can choose which questions represent non-negotiables, the issues that are most important to them.  

Everyone can empathize with a first date that ended in “what was I thinking?” Brad may have looked perfect in his Hinge profile, but as soon he started talking about trickle-down economics, you knew it was a no-go. Cue the algorithm! While it doesn’t promise love at first sight, it does guarantee that you will have common ground with your match. The questions are chosen in an attempt to ease first date awkwardness as well as guarantee genuine connection. 

Other questions ask about everything from your political affiliation to how long you want to wait after meeting up to hit the bedroom, and these are critical to ensure you and your match are on the same page from day one. Prompts like “how many kids do you want?” and “where do you want to settle down?” account for factors you may not be thinking about now, but are important to know for the future. 

If you want to keep swiping on Tinder or passing notes to your crush in Bio, you do you, but your mathematically perfect match could only be an eight minute survey away. A new friendly face is particularly motivating during what has been an isolating school year from the start. 

“I’ve felt sort of lonely throughout the pandemic, being separated from friends and other people in my class that moved off campus,” sophomore Tre Brown said. “Hopefully I’ll match with someone who I’m compatible with and who’s willing to hang out, even as friends, until I propose.”

While backup plans and algorithms may not sound super romantic or sexy, the concept is pretty genius. College is one of the best chances you will ever have to meet *the one,* but you probably won’t find them with your nose buried in your textbook or in a fraternity basement. So whether you fall into “too busy studying” or “not quite ready to settle down” category, do yourself a favor and take the test. Your future self might just thank you. 

“I took the marriage pact because all my friends are,” junior Bettina Hervey said. “I figured why not. Sounds like fun.”

As of Feb. 21, the last 675 heterosexual females to have taken the marriage pact are facing waitlisting, as not enough heterosexual or bisexual males have participated to satisfy the 1:1 matching requirement of the algorithm. For that reason, the Instagram account has been actively encouraging these men to sign up.

The Marriage Pact will be open until Monday, Feb. 22 at 4:20 p.m., and matches will be released the day after. The more people who take the survey, the increased odds of you meeting your perfect, linear algebra-based match. Swoon! Happy matching.