To Fall in Love (with a Harvard Student), Do This

UPDATED: February 4, 2015, at 7:17 p.m.

A couple of weeks ago, the New York Times released a Modern Love essay describing a study where, after a series of 36 questions, psychologist Arthur Aron succeeded in making two strangers fall in love. The test is designed to create closeness through probing questions, before the strangers finish the activity by staring into each other’s eyes for four uninterupted minutes. When the author, Mandy Len Catron, tried it with one of her friends from college, she too fell in love. But Harvard students are special, and they merit a unique set of questions that ask not about our greatest fears or most important moments, but rather seek the answers we really need when thinking about future prospects in love:

SET I

1. Given the choice of any professor at Harvard, who would you dine with and why?

2. How many national awards did you receive in high school?

3. Did YOU do Model UN TOO?!

4. How many times have you honestly considered watching the venerated television series Ivy?

5. What is your email signature and what do you think it says about you?

6. What would constitute a “perfect” set of extracurriculars for you?

7. When did you last actually go to the gym?

8. If you had to choose a dining hall that wasn’t your own, which would you choose and why?

9. Do you have a secret hunch about what you’d actually want to be doing if you weren’t interviewing for consulting?

10. What’s your GPA?

11. If you don’t live there, how many times have you been on the Quad shuttle sober?

12. What was the last humblebrag you shared?

SET II

13. Name three things you and your partner appear to have in common (besides your school and your pre-med track).

14. If you could wake up tomorrow having gained any one addition to your resume, what would it be?

15. How many sporting events have you actually attended at this school?

16. How fast can you list the organizations that you are a part of?

18. Pinkberry or Berryline?

19. What is your most treasured memory of Ec10a?

20. How late have you stayed up to finish a CS50 pset?

21. What has been your most quintessential “Harvard” moment here?

22. Take four minutes to describe your freshman blocking story in as much detail as possible.

23. How do you describe the Harvard social scene to friends at large state schools in warm places?

24. What is your opinion about the loss of viewing “best friends” capabilities on Snapchat?

25. How many times have you visited your friends at MIT?

SET III

26. Make three true “we” statements. For example, “we both do not have plans on Valentine’s Day.”

27. What did you enter this school saying you were going to do? What are you studying now?

28. Have you actually ever had sex in the stacks?

29. How many shows have you started watching because everybody else was watching (House of Cards, Game of Thrones, etc)?

30. When did you last cry in front of another person? Was it something to do with accomplishments?

31. What do you think Harvard should spend its $30 billion endowment on?

32. Why did you commit here? Ever regret not going to Stanford?

33. So how do you spell Pfoho?

34. Do you agree with Fox New’s postulation that we are a threat to the gene pool?

35. ARE WE IN LOVE YET?

36. Are you happy at Harvard?

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

CORRECTION: Febrauary 4, 2015

An earlier version of this article misspelled Mandy Len Catron's name.