Got Twins? How to handle during Admissions/Decisions

My twins are S/D 2023, so starting to make their lists. They have vastly different academic interests but so far, have significant overlap in colleges to apply to. I am concerned about the competition (they don’t even go to the same high schools so we’ve avoided this so far) and also don’t want S to not try for a school just to avoid being outdone by extremely high-achieving sister. (He’s no slacker either.) They are definitely not looking to attend the same college but are not completely ruling it out either.

Do admissions offices take note of twin applicants in any way? I have heard things I don’t necessarily believe.

Any advice or twin stories to share much appreciated.

When I worked in admissions, I never would have judged twins any differently than I would have judged any other applicants.

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that’s what I would expect. I think some small religious schools might be an exception but that’s not what we’re looking at anyway.

I have two kids(not twins) who were in the same grade at school. One is a math/science kid and the other a history/English/arts kid. I always asked that they be assigned the best teacher for that child and not to worry about the sister. Most of the parents of twins and cousins in our grade (and we had a LOT of pairs/triples!) always asked they be separated. They were in the same class about half the time. Since they were both girls, they were always (my choice) on the same basketball, volleyball teams, same girl scout troop, same choir, etc. My kids went to different middle schools. By high school they sometimes had classes together but usually not (because of the different strengths).

They had NO interest in going to the same college and picked very different ones, one a small tech school for engineering, one a small-er flagship for theater…then art history…then history.