I have a question for parents of twins/multiples. Did your children apply to many of the same colleges? Did you get the feeling that their being a multiple helped, hindered, or had no impact?
My twin sons only had one school in common and they both got accepted at this school. Both my kids have similar stats, but many of their classmates with similar stats were rejected. Obviously, we will never know definitively if it was a factor, but I was just wondering what other parents of multiples were experiencing.
@dmvmomx2, we’ve also just gone through this with my twin DD’s who also had the same stats - very typical if they are identical. In our case, both were either accepted, waitlisted or denied together, with acceptances at every safety and match, and waitlists and denials at reaches.
Not certain that it was just a twin thing as one is also going to be a Varsity student athlete, but in the instance where they applied separately my non-athlete DD was waitlisted at a match school. Also, our DD’s were statistically at the top of their class so we can’t easily tell how things would have turned out otherwise, but they too are seeing tons of classmates being waitlisted and rejected - lots of confusion…
I have heard a couple mention to me that the twin thing helped us. I personally don’t think it’s true, but it makes some folks feel better to think so.
BTW, I have one twin Varsity student athlete and one not as well!
I do think it helped as their safety schools were top 20-25 LAC’s (3/3 acceptances), matches were top 7-20 LAC’s (4/5 acceptances - 1 waitlist when non-athlete only applied), reaches were 4 tippy top LAC’s and 1 Uni (0/5 acceptances so far but with 1 waitlist for both and 1 waitlist when non-athlete only applied).
We are happy with their results so far as they did the hard work and are being recognized for it.
My DD were accepted with nearly the same scholarships and grants at all of the schools that they both applied to. They were very academically similar, just one number different in class rank, with the one difference being standardized test scores. The acceptances were at both target and reach schools. They both chose the same school and once again are achieving similarly.
I have two kids the same age who aren’t twins but many think they are because they are in the same grad year and their names start with the same letter. I don’t remember any questions specifically asking if they were twins, just if there was a sibling in school and which year. Same info on all forms.
Anyway, they are so so different that they didn’t even apply to the same schools, and are very happy 2000 miles apart. Of course, they are now better friends than they were when they sleeping 20 feet apart and sharing a bathroom.
And one is an athlete and one isn’t. Several of the schools the athlete looked at asked the other if she was interested too during the tours. She was only interested if her sister wasn’t going there!
I’m not a parent of multiples & I have no direct information, but if you think of it from the perspective a college that wants to protect yield in the RD round – it’s a pretty dumb move to accept one twin and not the other, unless there is a huge discrepancy in stats – because it is going to significantly diminish the chance of the twin who is accepted coming.
The college don’t know what personal or parental concerns may be at play, but if the twins applied together that’s a good indication that they are hoping to stay together.
Obviously on the parental end of things it makes life and finances a lot easier if both twins are at the same college: same schedule, same start times, same break times,shared travel, one parent weekend to attend, one graduation to attend 4 years down the line, only one financial aid office to deal with, etc.
So if I was on the ad com, I’d think I’d view an application from a pair of twins as a package deal … and at a very selective college, simply the fact that they were twins could be something that brings added attention to the application. The fact that someone has to take a few extra minutes to review both apps together could be the difference between a favorable decision and simply getting lost in the shuffle of thousands of apps from students who seem virtually interchangeable.
It was not on either of my Ds applications that they were twins, and they applied to the same schools, knowing they would not both want to be at the same school. There was no mention in the essay . The financial aid office will notice, but unless mentioned the ad com may not easily know.
Er… unless we are talking about twins separated at birth and raised by different families, they generally share the same birth date, same last name, same home address, same parents … I think the ad com can figure it out even without someone pointing out the obvious in an essay.
One of my non-twins had two files at the same school and they couldn’t figure out she was the same person. They issued her two student numbers and we spent a year doing everything twice (or more) until I figured it out. I doubt there is another student at the school with the same last name, but yet they couldn’t figure out that she was just one person.
I really don’t think a big school would have any idea that two kids who applied are related.
Thanks for chiming in everyone! Of the few sets of twins we know personally, I haven’t found any twins where one got in and one didn’t. But that may just be that they are so similar. It’s hard to tell if it’s a chicken or egg situation.
I’m pretty sure my sons did not mention specifically that they were twins in any of their apps or essays. The only twin-related discussion they had with each other was about their essay subjects for the one school that they had in common. I do agree that colleges could figure out that they are twins, but who knows. I would love to see someone do a study on this.
@dmvmomx2, I recall my twin DD’s applying to at least one school that asked the specific twin question - Colgate comes to mind and maybe also Dartmouth, but can’t recall. Yes, it’s hard to figure out as mine are identical so academically profile exactly the same, albeit they are mirror twins so have different areas of interest. That said, we have yet to have a split decision.