Can Love be Visualized?

Perhaps not without daydreaming about your crush, but your survey responses can! Join us on this journey to learn about some of the preferences and habits we've discovered from several years of survey responses!

See this year's statistics or travel back in time to explore statistics from past years!

About Participants of PM23

In 2023, we received 3,911 valid responses, an 8.3% increase from last year! Thank you all for filling out the survey and helping spread love at Cornell🫶! Here is a look at the results of the survey.


Same as last year, CS majors seemed to really need our help; 566 of them opted in for PM23. The second place went to Biological Science with 258 participants.


This year, sophomores made up the highest proportion of the PM23 participants. And the number of freshman students filling out the survey increased by 40% from last year.

In total, we had 3,687 undergrad participants, which was 1/4 of the Cornell undergrad student population.

PM23 Participants by Year


To ensure you and your matches were not too different in the daily schedule, we surveyed when you would most likely fall asleep and wake up.

Dyson students go to bed the latest among all colleges: 63% of them fall asleep at or after 1 AM, while for the population, it is 51%. Grad students wake up the earliest: 65% wake up at or before 8 AM, while for the population, it is 48%.

❗Try hovering over the curve or clicking it to see the data❗

Cornellians' Sleep Schedule

You might also be curious about how long Cornellians typically sleep. Our data shows that an average Cornell student sleeps 8 hours and is not sleep-deprived, fortunately. However, if you still feel like you are not getting enough sleep, choose your major wisely:

Popular Majors' Average Sleep Duration (in Hours)


Though PM does not use height for matching, height is one of the first qualities people evaluate when looking for a significant other, for better or worse. The median height is 65 inches for female participants and 70 inches for male participants, the same as last year.

Cornellians' Height by Gender

*Participants who gave their gender as non-binary individual or other are excluded due to small sample size.


About Dating and More

Facts

  • Don't sweat if you have never been in a relationship before. 33.6% of participants said they had never been in a relationship. Last year, it was 30%.
  • PM allowed you to indicate people you did not want to be matched with, called "forbidden" — 22.8% of the participants listed at least one forbidden in their response.
  • PM also allowed you to indicate your crush(es), increasing the chance of matching you with your crush(es) — 26.3% of the participants listed at least one crush in their response. Hope we helped a bit :)
  • The median duration of their longest relationship for female participants was three months, while for male participants, it was five months.
  • The median number of people the participants had dated in the last five years was 1.
  • "Funny" and "caring" were the top adjectives used by people to describe themselves. Last year, it was "funny" and "smart."
  • Only a few people said they preferred to be paired with someone who was less extroverted than themselves.

Participants were asked to describe themselves by three adjectives in the survey, which would later be displayed to their matches. Female and male participants chose quite different words. As shown below, the top adjectives used by female participants were "funny," "caring," and "kind." For male participants, they were "funny," "smart," and "thoughtful." Huh, how did gender stereotypes shape your self-presentation to your matches?

Top Adjectives Used by Female Participants to Describe Themselves

Top Adjectives Used by Male Participants to Describe Themselves


In the survey, each participant indicated an age range they would like their matches to be in. Play around with the graph below. Hover over the small rectangles to see what they mean (if you are on mobile devices, click them). Then, switch the chart by clicking the button right below and observe the differences. Do you notice male participants prefer younger matches overall than female participants?

Female Participants' Age Preferences for their Matches

*Participants who gave their gender as non-binary individual or other are excluded due to small sample size.


We asked participants to give the number of people they had dated in the last five years. It is interesting to observe how female and male participants gave different numbers.

Number of People one had Dated, by Gender

*Participants who gave their gender as non-binary individual or other are excluded due to small sample size.


We also asked participants to give the length of their longest relationship. The results indicate that grads, hotelies, and ILRers tend to be in longer relationships.

Median Duration of Longest Relationship (in Months), by College


This year, we added some fun Cornell-related questions to the survey. Are these results in your expectations? Are you the same or different from the majority?

1. Choose the best alternative. Your match is a 10, but they ____.

2. In the next year, I want to complete this task from the 161 Things Every Cornellian Should Do.

3. What's the least traumatizing Cornell faction your prospective match could belong to?

4. Worst Thing Your Match Could Wear on a Date.


37.9% of participants thought differences in political views were a deal breaker. Here is how people rated their political tendencies on a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 being the farthest left and 10 being the most right. The graph looks very similar to last year's.

Political Tendency


Here are more facts you must know before dating a Cornellian!

What type of relationship are you looking for with you match?

Would you like to be paired with someone who has mostly similar or different interests to you?

Where would you go on a first date?

What quality do you value the most?


Thanks for taking Perfect Match this year and don't be afraid to shoot your shot!

FAQ's about User Privacy

Are my survey responses visible to others?

Absolutely not! All user data collected from our surveys is anonymized, and then privately stored. Only your name and provided contact information is shared, and that is only with your matches.

Can I be identified from these statistics?

Preserving the privacy of our participants is our utmost concern and is rooted behind every decision made in crafting these visualizations. We have taken several measures to remove any identifiable characteristics from the data we have collected, and the resulting datasets are randomly shuffled.

How are these visualizations generated?

These visualizations were generated using the ApexCharts JavaScript library.

Is my data sold to third-party advertisers?

Absolutely not! All of your data is stored privately and will not be viewed by any third party.

What happens to my data?

Your data is safe with us! We will never share your data with a third party advertisers, and we will only interact with your information as needed to resolve user issues. We may collect anonymous statistics to improve our algorithm, but your identity will always be separated from such reports.

Anonymized statistics are published each year on our website and provided to media and student groups for publications. In the past, these are included Cornell Daily Sun, Big Red Heads, Cornell Chronicle, etc.

For media requests, please reach out at perfectmatch@cornell.edu.

Who can I contact if I have a privacy concern?

We greatly encourage you to reach out to us with any questions or concerns that you may have regarding data privacy. In fact, feedback from the Cornell community already has and will continue to be used in to improve our algorithm and measures to protect privacy. We can be reached at perfectmatch@cornell.edu.