Campus Crush, a dating app, launched on Sept. 5 to an exclusive user base of Boston University students. Rami, the app’s creator and a sophomore in the College of Arts and Sciences, wanted to create a localized platform, providing an alternative to international apps like Hinge and Tinder.
Rami, who chose not to disclose his full name for religious reasons, implemented a feature requiring users to verify their identity through their BU email. This feature also aims to prevent fake profiles and bots from flooding the program.
Rami started working on the app in July, drawing influence from mainstream dating apps. He included a feature inspired by Tinder, where users can swipe right to like, and added other features from Hinge such as writing prompts, statements and questions.
“I feel like students would appreciate a dating app that is a hyper-centralized group of people,” Rami said. “No matter how much you localize your filters, [on other apps, it’s] still kind of annoying,”
After email verification, the app asks for students’ name, birth date, gender identity, sexual orientation, school year, major, height, dating intentions and interests across 10 steps.
“It’s a safe environment for everybody,” Rami said. “There’s no bots. There’s no harassment going on.”
Some students, however, said they have mixed feelings toward a BU-exclusive app, some noting failed experiences with fellow students make campus interactions awkward.
Senior Aiden Hahn uses Hinge and Tinder but intentionally connects with people off campus.
“I’m the most scared to swipe on someone if they go to my school, because if things go wrong, I don’t want to see them around,” Hahn said.
She recalled an instance where a BU student ghosted her on Hinge, and she saw him around the College of Communication afterwards.
Junior Dhir Patel, a former Hinge user, said he would consider using Campus Crush, especially while it is a free platform.
College students can struggle financially at times and paying for dating app subscriptions falls outside that budget, Patel said.
Patel said he hopes Campus Crush will improve upon features from Hinge, like written prompts, leading to more positive experiences.
“It’d be like one-word answers,” Patel said, referring to previous Hinge conversations. “I feel like the conversations could be a little dry because there’s nothing really to click off from like one word on the prompt.”
Patel spoke positively of the localized focus of Campus Crush and floated the idea of including other Boston-based schools.
Campus Crush remains in the early stages, and Rami is working toward developing an on-campus userbase. He plans on hosting promotional events and recruiting student ambassadors to paid roles to help run the app’s marketing, hoping students participate in not only the use of the app but its improvement.
