Juniors help students get 'Heart 2 Heart'

For $2, students can fill out a questionnaire and find out about their perfect matches. On one side of Locust Walk are the condomgrams and roses tables. On the other, the table for the Junior Class Board's University-wide compatibility service, "Heart 2 Heart." "And we're selling much faster [than the condoms or roses]," said Junior Class President Sarah Gleit. Welcome to the Penn social scene, widely seen as leaving much to be desired. Hoping to spice things up a bit for Valentine's Day, the "Heart 2 Heart" service collects student's answers on the 30-question compatibility surveys being handed out on Locust Walk all this week. The class board members then enter the answers into a special computer program and e-mails each entrant a list of their 10 most compatible and 10 least compatible people on campus some time Saturday morning. And as an added bonus, a few lucky lonely hearts will receive free dinners for two from Mad 4 Mex, La Terrasse and the White Dog Cafe. "Either we've created a new stalker culture at Penn, or we're its modern day-matchmakers," said Gleit, a College junior. But with questions like "What's your attitude towards sex?" this isn't your grandmother's matchmaking. The $2 it costs to participate in the survey goes straight to the Children's Seashore House, a pediatric hospital next to the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvanian that cares for and rehabilitates chronically ill or disabled children. But in a miracle of modern mathematics, children in the House will actually receive $4 per entrant. College junior Robin Grossman, who conceived and organized the "Heart 2 Heart" service, arranged through a University friend to have the San Francisco-based Pottruck Family Foundation match all money received up to $1,000. "The kind of creativity and compassion Robin has shown is exactly what our foundation hopes to encourage," said Emily Scott, a co-director of the Foundation. Indeed, creativity, or at least creative humor, seems to be the theme of the week. According to Gleit, one student only reluctantly admitted to heterosexuality when checking his survey at the Locust Walk table. "If I put down 'bi' it really increases my options," she recalled him saying. Another tried to submit his name without actually completing a survey in the hope of ending up on all the female compatibility lists. But the answers aren't always so inventiveE-- Grossman said almost every single Penn male has marked himself down as a "stallion" in the "which animal do you do associate most with" question. It may be time for Penn women to break out their harnesses. "We want every one to be going out [on a date] Saturday," Grossman said. It was with this hope of achieving true compatibility that she designed the questions. Forget Freud -- the Junior Class Board members know a relationship when they see one. "With the help of a psych major, we put in a lot of personality and behavior questions. This way we can really match students well," Grossman added. But not everyone was so optimistic about the surveys. "I don't think you're going to go and find the love of your life," Wharton freshman Alex Hurst said after completing a survey. "Maybe not, but hey, its worth a shot," College sophomore Maris Kreizman countered.