But for all the hormonal late teens who can’t decide whether they’d prefer a rural or urban environment or how much they should weigh the reputation of the economics department of one school versus the engineering department of another, dating app Clover might have some information that’ll make your choice a bit more, shall we say, straightforward. It’s college, baby.
Thanks to Clover’s new U.S. college dating trends study, we can now reveal that app users at James Madison University are most likely to choose “hookups” as their intention — so if you’re looking for some no-strings-attached fun, you may want to head over to this fine Virginia institution. Also in the top five for hookup friendly campuses are the University at Buffalo, University of Kansas, University of Oregon, and the University of Maryland.
On the other side of the coin, if part of your mission at college is to find your future spouse, then you may want to check out the schools whose Clover users said they wanted to find love via the dating site (oxymoronic, or no?). Western Kentucky University ranked highest in Clover’s findings for this metric, followed by Florida State University, Columbia University, Central Michigan University, and Bowling Green State University. Interestingly enough, two of the top 10 schools for attracting students who are looking for love are in the illustrious Ivy League — in addition to Columbia, students at Harvard take dating pretty seriously (in addition to their studies).
If you’re interested in learning more about what types of personalities are represented in your dating pool, have no fear — Clover’s got you covered there as well. Based on users’ answers to Clover’s “20 Questions,” a set of inquiries “designed to help [them] present people with more compatible matches and help users quickly get to know each other,” the app has determined which schools are home to the kinkiest, and in contrast the most reserved, collegiate guys and gals. The top five in the “Most Kinky” category are the University of Georgia, Iowa State University, Texas State University, Penn State University, and Northwestern University. Just missing the top five is Cornell University, because what else is there to do in Ithaca?
The most reserved students, on the other hand, can be found at the University of Mississippi, Northern Kentucky University, the University of Minnesota, Fordham University, and Wesleyan University.
Now that you have “personality” traits to go off of, Clover has also provided data on schools with the most liked and most disliked students. Based on the total number of thumbs up or downs users receive, Clover has decided that the most amiable students can be found at Arizona State University. Of course, considering the Tempe-based institution is also one of the 10 largest schools in the nation, it’s not all that surprising that students are getting a lot of “likes” on the app.
The University of Central Florida, the University of South Florida, New York University, and Ohio State University (the fifth largest school in the U.S. in terms of student population) also have students who receive a significant number of “likes” on Clover.
On the other hand, users tend to dislike other users from Virginia Tech, the University of Florida, Kent State University, Indiana University, and the University of Michigan. Or perhaps they’re just more discerning when it comes to picking potential mates.
In any case, while you may not agree with their insistence that “whether it’s casual dating or finding love, Clover is for everyone,” it certainly seems that the rise of online dating and digitized relationships has afforded us some interesting data. So head on out into the big world, freshmen of America. And may you find what you’re seeking both within and outside of your textbooks.
