Online Dating for Smarties

Summer Heights High taught us that students from private school are more likely to go to college and make lots of money, while nearly all wife beaters and rapists are public school educated.



So what do you do if you’re one of the lucky few to graduate from a fancy university with $150,000 in debt? You can’t date just anyone—especially someone who went to a state school.

Luckily, you have options. Why scrounge around on Match.com when anyone with an e-mail address can message you?

Instead, try intelligentpeople.com. It’s, “an online dating and networking community exclusively for intelligent people.” And no posers allowed—you have to pass an IQ test to join.

Here’s the first question on the IQ test:

Find the image missing in the frame

No, this isn’t a trick question. So, on second thought, this might not be a horrible idea, as we’re not sure we’d want to date anyone who couldn’t answer this question correctly.

Full disclosure: we flukned this mofo. Twice. It gets harder, we swear.

But if you’re looking for the full package (i.e., high IQ and an Ivy League education), two dating sites screen users by alma mater.

Goodgenes.com advertises itself as an “exclusive online introduction and dating service… to help Ivy Leaguers and similarly well-educated graduates and faculty find others with matching credentials.”

Acceptable institutions include, Harvard, Princeton, “Medical Schools,” “Law Schools,” and “Schools of Osteopathic Medicine.”

If all of this sounds too good to be true, wait till you see the sample profiles. One reads, “Hello, I am a 24 year old Italian male. I stand 5'9" tall and weigh 166 lbs. I work out 4 days a week and enjoy outdoor avtivities [sic]. I attend the Universtity [sic] of Medicine and Dentistry. Currently, I am a junior in the Dental program. I plan on graduating in May of 2001 where I plan on becoming an associate in an established practice.”

Joining is easy: simple fill out a paper application and mail (yes, mail) it in along with your check (this company doesn’t seem to have caught on to the whole electronic payment thing yet) and hard copy photos, which they scan in and add to your profile. Want to change your profile? It’s as easy as mailing in your revisions along with a check for $5.00. Because updating a profile requires a lot of manpower, it’s $5.00 each time you update your profile. Want to see another member’s profile? Mail in a check for $5.00. While match.com might not make you pay to look at profiles, goodgenes.com removes 99 percent of the population from your dating pool, so it’s definitely worth it.

The Right Stuff (rightstuffdating.com) has pretty much the same setup. You have to mail in a paper application, and you have to mail in $5.00 every time you want to make changes to your profile or look at another member’s page. But they have 4,900 members nationwide—which is almost the size of one graduating class at an elite universitiy! And while there may not be any members in your city, it sure beats trying to pick up jailbait at Georgetown house parties, right?

You might be wondering why these dating sites targeted at the nation’s elite look like they were designed by 5-year-olds and seem to have the technological capabilities of a Web site built in 1991. To that, we say: if you even have to ask those questions, you’re probably not smart enough to join.