Four seniors have just launched a new dating app for Senior Week—the days leading up to Commencement—to help students' last-ditch efforts to meet a love interest before leaving Bowdoin.
In the final days before graduation, Bowdoin seniors seeking one last chance with that cutie in their Wednesday seminar or the guy checking out library books have traditionally (well, at least as far back as 2009 or so) participated in a student-run game called Senior Seven.
The voluntary program allows amorous seniors to anonymously tag up to seven crushees. If two people match, they get notified via an email.
For years, the program was handled by seniors using an online Google document or something similar. Some students harbored suspicions that the lists of names were not entirely private. To address that concern, and to make the process more convenient, four students this year created a phone app that uses encryption technology to help ensure anonymity.
Ripley Mayfield ’19, Benny Painter ’19, Meghan Parsons ’19, and Connor Belfield ’19 made the app, called Loop, their main project in an art class they enrolled in this spring: Site-Specifics: Production of Socially Engaged Media, taught by Erin Johnson, a visiting assistant professor of art and digital and computational studies.
Parsons said Johnson approved the project since they would be engaging with their peers in a creative way.
They launched Loop on Sunday, six days before Commencement. By Thursday, 286 seniors had registered accounts—and forty-five matches had been made. "We hope to see even more!" Mayfield said.
Megan Retana ’19 had, by Wednesday, two matches. "I'm excited!" she said, although she admitted her expectations for finding longlasting love weren't super high. "They're with people I've admired from afar and wanted to get to know."
(While a lot of the buzz around Senior Seven is due to its lighthearted approach to dating, there is at least one anecdote —which we haven't verified—of two recent Senior Seven matches who are now married.)
This past semester, Mayfield and Belfield handled the programming of Loop, while Painter and Parsons focused on the app design and marketing. Parsons said they intentionally kept the interface simple. "We don’t want people hanging out on the app, so there’s nothing to do," she said. "Unless you put your email in and then stare at the screen."
The four app developers believe their new product could be scalable to other college campuses. And they say it fosters healthier connections.
"Unlike other dating apps that are designed for strangers to connect based on a small amount of information [like Tinder and Bumble], Loop leverages preexisting relationships," the students write in their formal project description.
And this dating model, they say, encourages more respectful and considerate behavior than other dating apps since users list people they already know or with whom they share a mutual acquaintance. So while you may get fewer matches than with other dating apps, "they'll hopefully be more meaningful and fulfilling," Painter said.
Another plus of Loop, the developers point out, is that it doesn't require any more information than a name and email, such as gender or dating preferences, which might make the app more enticing for some.
This assurance of privacy convinced Retana to participate, she said, adding that it's been a nice part of Senior Week.
"It's the talk of the town," she said. "It has opened people up to reaching out to people. The fear of rejection has gone down since it’s the last week of school."
Other projects in the visual arts class Site-Specifics: Production of Socially Engaged Media:
Does It Make Cents: A three-part podcast investigating life after graduation, by Sterling Dixon ’19 and Caroline Godfrey ’19
Source: A sculpture by Caroline Godfrey ’19 on the importance of Earth's hydrosphere and how humans have altered it, encompassing a small ecosystem of plants and plaster ruins being polluted by different sources of water
Bloom: A series of drawing exploring a possible solution to the algal bloom problem in the US, by Kodie Garza ’21
Anti-Social Dinner Club: A club formed by Hadley McCollester ’20 for introverts to have dinner in the busy, social Bowdoin dining halls
A (re)Reading of Art History: Jesus and then everyone vomits and screams: A document of junior Enrique Mendía's weekly workshops at a high school classroom, in which students engaged with 100 images of the College Board's 250 required works for the AP art history exam
Controlled Conditions: A sculptural structure and video installation by Devon Garcia ’21 exploring the history and future of the fishing industry, weaving together different methods of fishing, from line to hook to net, all suspended from a model of an aquaculture tank
