The 37% Rule for Optimal Stopping

Whether you’re looking for a job, an apartment, or a date, mathematicians have an answer for how many attempts it takes to find the best option: 37 percent.

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Personally, I think the real question is that you never know in advance how many options you’ll have. If you predefine your number of attempts, you may already miss the optimal choice—you can only hope the next one comes close to the best you’ve seen so far.

So the best strategy is to try a few times to figure out what you don’t want, then stop once you find someone reasonably suitable.