Sixty percent: It's a statistic that causes Bowdoin students to glance around anxiously at their peers, wondering if their spouse is sitting at the next desk, lunch table, or library carrel, and pondering the popular rumor?Do 60 percent of Bowdoin students really wind up marrying a classmate?
Official records reveal that this popular myth is far from true.
According to data compiled by the Bowdoin Alumni Relations Office, the percentage of Bowdoin students that marry each other sits around 11.5 percent. This number is probably lower than the actual number of students that get married to each other because the "classes of '02-'06 bring the total down a bit because those alumni haven't reached, or are just reaching, typical marrying age," said Associate Editor of the Bowdoin Magazine Matthew O'Donnell.
The percentage of alumni marriages was slightly higher in the 1990s. Out of 4,149 Bowdoin alumni, 616, or just under 15 percent, married other Bowdoin alumni.
1991 saw the highest percentage of Bowdoin alumni who married one another, at 18.6 percent.
According to O'Donnell, these numbers are not unusual for a college of Bowdoin's size.
"Interestingly, there's been a thread on the College Alumni Magazine Editors list-serve recently about just this topic. The lowest, for schools of Bowdoin's size, is around eight percent, the highest is in the mid-20s," he said.
"We can only go back to '75, obviously, for our data?when the College went co-ed," added O'Donnell.
While it is false that the majority of Bowdoin students marry other Bowdoin students, some certainly do. Many current students either know, or know of, Bowdoin students who have gotten married.
"Both my roommates' parents went to Bowdoin and ended up getting married," said Erin McAuliffe '11. "It's crazy!"
Others had similar stories.
"When I interviewed at Bowdoin, my interviewer had been dating his wife, another Bowdoin alum, since sophomore year," said Loretta Park '11.
Jill Campbell '11 also knows of Bowdoin alumni who have gotten married.
"My hockey coach attended Bowdoin, as did her husband," she said.
Both Park and Campbell said they were familiar with the myth and agree that in light of their stories, it is not difficult to believe that a sizable portion of Bowdoin alumni have ended up getting married.
Although is not difficult to trace the misconception, students can rest assured that their soul mate is not necessarily lurking somewhere on campus. Trends from the past 31 years show that the percentage of Bowdoin graduates getting married remains relatively constant, and that percentage is a far cry from 60.