UF students can swipe right exclusively with each other through the Tinder app.
Tinder’s newest feature, which launched Aug. 21, attempts to make matchmaking easier and safer for college students, Lauren Probyn, Tinder’s director of global marketing and events, wrote in an email. “Tinder U” lets students from four-year, accredited schools register with a valid .edu email address and matches them with students from their campus or other schools within a 100-mile radius, she said.
Probyn hopes that Tinder U’s verification process will provide an advantage over other online dating apps by helping students get to know one another beyond their everyday meetings and classes.
“Students will be able to see other students in their area first while they’re swiping, thus opening their social circle and becoming more ingrained in student life,” Probyn said.
Tinder’s popularity on campus didn’t shock 18-year-old UF nursing freshman Haley Jacobowitz. Now that she’s single, she said she would consider using the app.
“I would probably sign up in the future because I’d have a better idea of who the people were,” she said.
Tinder U’s email verification process makes Tinder U feel like a safer environment to connect with others, Jacobowitz said.
One of Tinder’s competitors is the dating app Bumble, but for 20-year-old UF biology junior Andromarc Permis, the competition isn’t even close.
“I feel like Tinder U could help with showing you who specifically is at your institution and is available as opposed to playing the guessing game,” Permis said.
