Do Daters Really Care About Education Level?

When you’re dating it’s easy to make assumptions about what people are and aren’t looking for. You may think every woman likes having her door opened for her (they don’t), that talking about your kids is a bad thing (it isn’t), or that mentioning your divorce is a turn off (turns out people respond pretty well to it). When it comes to dating and relationships, there are a lot of things that seem like they’d be important, but really aren’t deal-breakers when two people are hitting it off.

With that in mind (and with back-to-school just around the corner) the online dating site and app Zoosk teamed up with AskMen to look into the education levels of online daters to see if they could find any trends about how education affects how people date.

After looking into the numbers, a few things stuck out…

Having a degree won’t help you get more attention or messages. 
While looking into the data, Zoosk found that people who had some college (so either an associate’s degree or a few classes under their belt) or a high school diploma, had more incoming messages than those with a bachelor’s or graduate degree. 

But it does help you get more replies to your messages.
When it comes to the number of replies you’re getting, having a college education does help. Those with a graduate degree get 17% more replies than those who have a high school degree, and those with a bachelor’s degree receive 10% more replies.

On average, those with a bachelor’s or advanced degree are seen as more attractive.
According to the data, those who have a bachelor’s or advanced degree are typically seen as more attractive while online dating. The site makes a rough calculation of how attractive someone is based on how popular or attractive the people who like and message that person are. And those who have a college education tend to be more popular among those who also have a higher level of popularity and attractiveness.

Mentioning your education in you profile can be a big help.
Talking about college or any kind of education in your dating profile helps you get more replies to your messages. Those who use the word college in their profile get up to 64% more replies compared to the average. Also, mentioning that you’ve graduated results in 46% more replies, bringing up school gets 55% more replies, and saying that you’re self-taught will also give you a small boost with 8% more replies.

If you’re a student, chatting about class can give you mixed results. 
Depending on what you’re talking about, asking someone about school or classes can either increase or decrease your chances of getting a reply. Talking about class, courses, the test you’re preparing for, or the paper you’re working on can increase your chances of getting a reply by up to 29%. But chatting about homework is a no no. Messages with the word homework, get 30% fewer replies. Another topic to stay away from? Studying. Messages with study get 21% fewer replies. And, while you’re at it, it might be good to steer clear of chatting about professors or grades too. Both get fewer responses.

Overall, having a college education can give you an advantage while online dating. However, it’s certainly not the most important thing when it comes to meeting someone online.