Rice Marriage Pact returns for third year

By Viola Hsia     1/28/25 11:41pm

This year’s iteration of the Rice Marriage Pact opened Wednesday, Jan. 22 via email. Matches will be released later this week, according to Allison He, Marriage Pact coordinator. The questionnaire closed at 5 p.m. on Tuesday after a one-day extension due to a “lopsided” respondent pool that would leave 52 heterosexual men unmatched. According to He, 2217 students filled out the survey total.

He, a Hanszen College senior, said although the Marriage Pact coordinators were concerned the snow day and subsequent class cancellations would affect the number of participants, there were no issues with participation.

“I think if anything, people were participating in it, because it’s like, ‘What else are we gonna do?’” He said. “We’re always getting at least 50 percent of the student population, which is really good.”

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According to Katie Lee, a Marriage Pact launch product manager, the two previous years of Rice Marriage Pact have increased familiarity with the survey and thus also increased turnout. Lee’s role is to help introduce Marriage Pact to universities.

“This is just our third annual Marriage Pact so far,” Lee, McMurtry College senior, said. “We definitely have the advantage of people hearing about it from the previous two years that we’ve launched at Rice.”

Both He and Lee mentioned that this year was the first time the Marriage Pact did not launch simultaneously with Rice Program Council’s Crush Party — where students fill out a Google Form and are matched based on similarities in their answers – which typically happens around Valentine’s Day.

“Last year, we did it around the time of the RPC Crush Party, and [some] people were like, ‘Oh, is [the Marriage Pact] an extension?’” He said. “That’s why we pushed it earlier this year. We just wanted more people to have the opportunity to take it.”

Raven Shamoo, a Hanszen junior, said they appreciate the Marriage Pact giving them the ability to connect with others on campus.

“A lot of the reason I do the Marriage Pact is just to meet new people, just to meet someone you might not get a chance to otherwise, either because they’re in a different major or a different residential college,” Shamoo said. “You might not cross each other’s paths unless you have this compatible person generator that’s like, ‘Hey, you two might get along.’”

Taylor Rosen, Hanszen ’24, said she met her current boyfriend through the Marriage Pact in 2023. She advises students to be honest when filling out the survey.

“It’s really easy when you fill [the survey] out, to fill it out how you wish you saw yourself,” Rosen said. “You should fill it out as you really are. You’re going to have a better chance of meeting someone who’s similar to you if you’re just honest about what you view yourself as.”

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