Exclusive dating website goes live at BU

Creators of a new online dating site called DateMySchool.com aimed to design an exclusive online community where college students can feel comfortable finding dates.

On Saturday, the creators opened their site to undergraduates, graduate students and alumni of Boston University, Harvard University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology and other Boston-area schools.

“We build small, safe, trusted communities where everyone is authenticated through the school email address,” said Date My School co-founder and Columbia University business student Alexa Balazs in an email.

“We are completely anonymous, safe and inaccessible for people who are not students or alumni.”

Some students acknowledge that BU students could benefit from this dating service.

“I think there’s a lot of potential,” said College of Fine Arts sophomore Micaela Brody. “There’s a stigma around BU that there’s not enough straight, datable guys.”

BU’s student body, which is 60 percent female, could be countered by a school like MIT, which is nearly 60 percent male, some of the students acknowledged.

The website started in New York when Balazs and his friend Jean Meyer, also a Columbia business student, realized that a large degree of separation existed between different departments at Columbia, making it hard for students to find people to date, Balazs said. The degree of separation is even more significant between different schools.

“[W]e did our homework and found out that nobody has ever pulled off a successful college dating site despite dozens of trials. It’s not easy, but we seem to have found the secret sauce,” Balazs said, pointing at that 20 percent of Columbia students and 10 percent of NYU students have signed up for Date My School since it went live earlier this year.

Date My School has been expanded to students at Yale University, Princeton University, Stanford University and other schools around San Francisco, Balazs said.

Balazs said the embarrassment usually associated with using a dating website is eliminated by Date My School’s complete privacy. Users’ identities are not searchable online and cannot be seen by friends, family or others.

BU students will initially be restricted to students at other Boston schools, and users can select which students have access to their profiles.

Once registered, students can chat with other online users, post messages public to users in specified networks, send private messages and fill out matchmaking surveys.

“’Instantness’ is an important value proposition of the site that has two components: geographical proximity and trust in the other party,” Balazs said. “Since we authenticate every single user through their emails, trust is there.”

Despite these features, many students said they remain skeptical of the website.

“It’s still a dating website, which would push me away,” Brody said.

“I’d rather find a date in person than have a computer do it,” said Dan Reineberg, a Sargent College of Health and Rehabilitation Services freshman. “You can be attracted to someone online, but they can turn out to be a complete weirdo.”

While School of Management freshman Jackson Chabot said he expected the website to have some initial success, he said he thinks it will only catch on for a little bit.

“It’s probably going to be the next RateBU,” he said, referring to a website that initially stirred much controversy at BU but has since lost its popularity. “It will be an easy way to waste time for about 10 days.”

CFA sophomore Stephanie Salazar said that while she is open to making friends online, she still would not be comfortable going on a dating website.

“If I wanted to meet someone to date, then I would go to a club where people would have the same interests,” Salazar said.