I have boy/girl twin seniors, both interested in engineering and both expressing a desire to attend the same school. Both are applying to almost the exact same roster of schools. Daughter has +3 points on the ACT vs. son, and +0.5 GPA points on him. I am curious about whether the twin factor affects admissions decisions at all. For instance, if daughter was a clear yes but son was judged borderline, might the school be influenced to offer son an admit in the hopes of getting daughter to accept the admit offer? Or conversely, might an admissions office assume that twins who both apply will make a joint decision and turn down both if one is not a clear admit? Or does it make no difference whatsoever?
Most applications have an ‘additional information’ box.
Be sure that your twins use that opportunity to clearly, but briefly state that their intention is to attend the same school.If they don’t mention it somewhere in the application (or interview) the AdComs may make other assumptions.
If it would provide an admission boost for one or the other twin, who knows…?
Unlikely they will admit a sibling that is not qualified. So if they say they plan on attending the same college, it could negatively effect your daughter, because if they say no to your son, they may assume your daughter will turn down an offer and WL her instead
You should expect that the schools will evaluate and accept/reject each child on his or her own merits. Personally I would not state in the application that they will only consider the school if both are accepted as: 1) colleges do not like to feel that their hands are forced 2) by senior year in HS it is assumed that each child can stand on his/her own two feet and such a request may come off badly to admission officers; and 3) they may change their minds and attend decide to different colleges come May.
If they choose to attend the same college they will have to pick a school that they both have been accepted into, but many twins choose not to attend the same college.
I doubt any school would go so far to admit a borderline student for the sole purpose of having his/her twin accept an offer (unless that family has the naming rights on a new building or something!) I do not think that Ad Com’s even have time to make assumptions on an individual applicant basis as to who might accept an offer in the first place.
I would not have your twins indicate that it is their intent to attend the same school. There is the potential that this could be viewed as a negative for both applicants.