kate middleton

Prince William and Kate Middleton first met in a dorm hallway at the University of St. Andrews on a late September day in 2001. It wasn’t a very long interaction. “I went bright red when I met you and sort of scuttled off, feeling very shy about meeting you,” Kate Middleton confessed to William during an interview nine years later. But it was a memorable one, within weeks, Prince William was inviting his dorm mate to join him and his friends for breakfast at the dining hall. According to Vanity Fair, the two gravitated to the same meal: muesli and fruit.

Her major was art history, and his was geography. He played water polo, she modeled in the student fashion show. By the fall 2002, they’d moved into a shared house with friends off campus. Their rooms were just a floor apart. Sometimes, in an attempt to impress his housemate, Prince William would attempt to cook for Kate. “I would have to wander in and save something that was going,” she said.

It was at that house in St. Andrews where the two became a couple. “It just sort of blossomed from there, really. We just saw more of each other and, you know, hung out a bit more,” William said.

On his 21st birthday in June 2003, Prince William opened up about his love life. “If I fancy a girl and I really like her and she fancies me back, which is rare, I ask her out,” he told reporters. “But at the same time, I don’t want to put them in an awkward situation because a lot of people don’t quite understand what comes with knowing me.”

Kate Middleton, however, increasingly proved that she did know. In March 2004, the two were captured skiing together in Switzerland – and their relationship was blown up by the British tabloids. By the time of their graduation in 2005, both William and Kate were the subjects of photographers’ lenses.

Below, throwback photos from their university days – from William’s studious portraits to Kate in her ceremonious graduation robe.