My twin brother and I are both very competitive applicants, and it would be nice if we could go to the same university. I heard that when having a twin applying to the same university, the university either accepts or rejects both of them in order to increase their yield rate. The idea is that schools think that twins want to go to the same school, so just accepting one would lead to them declining. Is this true, even at prestigious universities (T20)? Also, we aren’t going into the same fields and have many different ECs, if that matters.
There are many universities we are both planning to apply to, so would mentioning that I have a twin applying to the same school somewhere in the supplementals or elsewhere be worth it? Furthermore, would both of us applying ED to the same school improve our chances too, since ED wouldn’t have the same effect on the school’s yield rate (we were both thinking about applying ED to Brown)?
If you apply ED and one gets in and one doesn’t - then what ?
Brown, btw, little to no ED lift. Their own words.
Ensure you both like the same schools and make sure you understand your budget.
We don’t know your profile or desires. I wouldn’t force in a twin into your app. To me, saying we want to go together could hurt (don’t want to accept just one so accept none) but I’m sure tons of schools out there would love to have both of you.
From Brown on ED
Please do not assume that your admission chances are improved by applying under the Early Decision plan. The Board of Admission makes the same decisions under Early Decision that it would under the Regular Decision plan.
There is no need to mention it, at least if you use the Common App, because there is a question re whether you have siblings applying to the school too.
I’m not sure how rarity or otherwise is relevant. If a college ends up admitting all four quads, then they are clearly considering the siblings together, not separately. The only logical takeaway is that some colleges may consider sibling relationships, and others may not (for example if yield is not an issue for them). There wouldn’t be a question on the application if no college was interested in considering it.
I have twins and know dozens of other twin families. More end up at the same college than could be attributed to chance. How much of that is due to the college’s admissions policies vs the potential similarity in ability and/or desire to stay together is impossible to estimate.
The quads were on the morning news shows when they all got admitted into Yale. It was something the university could get into the news due to the rarity. Twins getting admitted to the same school is going to get on Good Morning America.
I’ve heard anecdotally a similar story about twins. That colleges like to either accept both or deny. This can be helpful if one of the twins has much better stats than the other.
I don’t think the reason is based on yield, however. I think it might be due to the perception of treating applicants equally. Many private/boarding schools do this at the middle/high school level. But this is largely for parent transport/logistical reasons.