advice for twins

[Anonymous]

our first time going through college apps is on the horizon (junior, same-sex twins). we are starting to think about college visits for spring break and I'm realizing how overwhelming it is to screen and consider options and then try to visit and learn about schools. Don't get me wrong, i did all my college application stuff myself and I expect my kids to do the heavy lifting for options, etc., but we still have to plan actual travel and DH and I have limited abilities given work schedule and other kids and family obligations. Any tips for how you managed logistics? also, for helping to avoid comparisons and help each child feel like they're getting time to explore what might work for them? constant struggle for us is that we just don't have a lot of time to devote to either kid, but maybe with college applications that's a good thing.

[Anonymous]

I have same-sex twins who are night and day in many ways, including academically. We have an older DC by two years, and we made a point to visit colleges wherever we went. We focused on Pennsylvania schools not because DC were particularly interested, but there are a number of schools within a very small radius that checked the box for.: SLAC, Ivy, large public school, midsize public, inner city, suburban, rural, and everything in between. To the schools, give the kids an idea of what size they wanted in some other things that were important to them from the tours and information sessions. You can also visit schools around Virginia and the DMV any given weekend day. When we went to visit our families, we built time in our schedule to pass by different universities.

Our older DC asked for a lot of opinions, but our senior twins were pretty independent in their essays in common app. My best advice is to start early.

My other piece of unsolicited advice is to apply to at least one rolling admission school. It is so nice for both DC to know of anything else doesn’t come up- They are going to college!

[Anonymous]

Both my kids went to schools they didn’t visit first. Both were happy. We only visited schools in NY and MA.

[Anonymous]

I also have same sex senior twins who have pretty different interests, one artsy/humanities and one stem. They’re actually at different high schools because of this and we ended up having to take two different college trips because they had different spring break weeks and junior grades were too important for either of them to miss a week. It was really logistically complicated and more expensive but the upside was their trips were more tailored for fit even with some overlap schools. We also took two shorter college trips with both twins.

Because we have an older kid in college, college-aged cousins, and a relative who works in higher education they’d already seen some schools up close which helped narrow it down. Having an older one made me really organized with the application process knowing that twins already complicates everything and even organized and motivated kids could use done support with the process. Personal statements and activity lists were done before school started in the fall etc.

Now we have one in at their ED school and one still waiting to hear. That part is hard for all twin parents as far as I can tell, I’m commiserating regularly with another twin mom of seniors these days.

Good luck!

[Anonymous]

I would recommend asking them to articulate early on whether they actively want to go to the same school, actively want to go to different schools, or if they don't feel strongly one way or the other. Our twins both said "I want to go to the best school for me. If that ends up being the best school for {my twin}, fine; if not, that's fine, too." In the end, though, their lists were nearly identical, and they're both at the same school now.

Agree with the advice above about having a rolling school. Our kids' was Pitt, and even though neither kid had loved it, it was great to have that acceptance in hand early.

I also think the "visit different types of schools in a tight radius" advice above (re: PA) was good, as well, though recognize that you'll have a similar breadth of options in a number of locales.

[Anonymous]

Mine are at the same college. When they applied to colleges, they had only a few overlaps and they had no active intention of attending the same place, but that is how it shook out, based on individual preferences around courses and post-graduate opportunities in the same field(s).

They see each other a couple of times a month for dinner or lunch, when one is ill the other will drop soup and Tylenol round to their rooms, but otherwise they socialize separately and study very different subjects.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Mine are at the same college. When they applied to colleges, they had only a few overlaps and they had no active intention of attending the same place, but that is how it shook out, based on individual preferences around courses and post-graduate opportunities in the same field(s).

They see each other a couple of times a month for dinner or lunch, when one is ill the other will drop soup and Tylenol round to their rooms, but otherwise they socialize separately and study very different subjects.

As the parent of same sex twins that are sophomores in college, I could have written this post. My kids didn't intend to go to the same school, but did. They are different majors with different friend groups, different extra curriculars, and see each other a couple of times/month.

When we were looking at schools, we went to large schools/small schools/urban schools/rural schools in the surrounding area when the kids had a school break/spring break/etc and let the kids decide which type of schools they were interested in. Once they roughly knew size/landscape, we focused on actual schools. For us, finances played a huge part in looking for schools so that narrowed down options.

Doing it with twins is/can be a lot of work - but we only had to go through the process once!!!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:our first time going through college apps is on the horizon (junior, same-sex twins). we are starting to think about college visits for spring break and I'm realizing how overwhelming it is to screen and consider options and then try to visit and learn about schools. Don't get me wrong, i did all my college application stuff myself and I expect my kids to do the heavy lifting for options, etc., but we still have to plan actual travel and DH and I have limited abilities given work schedule and other kids and family obligations. Any tips for how you managed logistics? also, for helping to avoid comparisons and help each child feel like they're getting time to explore what might work for them? constant struggle for us is that we just don't have a lot of time to devote to either kid, but maybe with college applications that's a good thing.

I think that given your time limitations, you should really focus on schools close to home. With two kids in college you will have to be able to drop off, pick up and visit. You will want to make that as easy as possible.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:our first time going through college apps is on the horizon (junior, same-sex twins). we are starting to think about college visits for spring break and I'm realizing how overwhelming it is to screen and consider options and then try to visit and learn about schools. Don't get me wrong, i did all my college application stuff myself and I expect my kids to do the heavy lifting for options, etc., but we still have to plan actual travel and DH and I have limited abilities given work schedule and other kids and family obligations. Any tips for how you managed logistics? also, for helping to avoid comparisons and help each child feel like they're getting time to explore what might work for them? constant struggle for us is that we just don't have a lot of time to devote to either kid, but maybe with college applications that's a good thing.

I think that given your time limitations, you should really focus on schools close to home. With two kids in college you will have to be able to drop off, pick up and visit. You will want to make that as easy as possible.

+1
I hadn’t thought a lot about the actual get-them-to-school and pick-them-up-at-breaks logistics when we were looking at schools, but I am so glad ours ended up at the same place, especially since ours weren’t looking locally.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:our first time going through college apps is on the horizon (junior, same-sex twins). we are starting to think about college visits for spring break and I'm realizing how overwhelming it is to screen and consider options and then try to visit and learn about schools. Don't get me wrong, i did all my college application stuff myself and I expect my kids to do the heavy lifting for options, etc., but we still have to plan actual travel and DH and I have limited abilities given work schedule and other kids and family obligations. Any tips for how you managed logistics? also, for helping to avoid comparisons and help each child feel like they're getting time to explore what might work for them? constant struggle for us is that we just don't have a lot of time to devote to either kid, but maybe with college applications that's a good thing.

I think that given your time limitations, you should really focus on schools close to home. With two kids in college you will have to be able to drop off, pick up and visit. You will want to make that as easy as possible.

+1
I hadn’t thought a lot about the actual get-them-to-school and pick-them-up-at-breaks logistics when we were looking at schools, but I am so glad ours ended up at the same place, especially since ours weren’t looking locally.

+1 Me too.

[Anonymous]

We know lots of families with twins, and we've seen it done all sorts of ways.

In most of our friends' families, the twins aren't identical academically. That alone makes it likely that they will choose very different colleges. And for most, the kids were ready for some separation.

You could take a road trip to Pittsburgh to see Pitt (a big fave for all kinds of students); a highly prestigious college like Carnegie Mellon; a smallish private college like Duquesne. Do the same in Philly with a Penn, Temple, Drexel, Villanova road trip. That should help them start expressing some preferences.

You can do virtual visits, and then follow up with in-person once they've been accepted.

I don't think this was intentional, but a couple of our twin friends picked urban colleges where they just hop on Amtrak to come home. It cuts down on the driving!

Good luck!

[Anonymous]

The only advice i would give is to encourage them not to ED to the same school, especially if the school is a top20 school. Traditionally colleges tried and rendered the same decision if the twins had the same stats but this seems to have mostly gone away in recent years. I know 2 sets where the weaker twin was accepted and the stronger one not. This is certainly within the college's prerogative to do but made for a very hard year within these families when one kid was going to all the happy, accepted student events for the ED school and the other was not. I have rising junior twins and we will do our best to encourage them to choose different ED schools.

[Anonymous]

I have twins who are currently college freshmen at wildly different schools.

You want to visit a few different types of schools so they can decided what type of school they like, but you don’t have to visit every school they apply to. Our rule was that we would visit before committing to attend a particular school (so before applying ED or final acceptance), but they applied to a ton of schools without visiting in advance.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The only advice i would give is to encourage them not to ED to the same school, especially if the school is a top20 school. Traditionally colleges tried and rendered the same decision if the twins had the same stats but this seems to have mostly gone away in recent years. I know 2 sets where the weaker twin was accepted and the stronger one not. This is certainly within the college's prerogative to do but made for a very hard year within these families when one kid was going to all the happy, accepted student events for the ED school and the other was not. I have rising junior twins and we will do our best to encourage them to choose different ED schools.

I am not sure how seriously this should be taken. I think there was a set of triplets, all of whom were accepted to ALL the Ivies not long ago.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The only advice i would give is to encourage them not to ED to the same school, especially if the school is a top20 school. Traditionally colleges tried and rendered the same decision if the twins had the same stats but this seems to have mostly gone away in recent years. I know 2 sets where the weaker twin was accepted and the stronger one not. This is certainly within the college's prerogative to do but made for a very hard year within these families when one kid was going to all the happy, accepted student events for the ED school and the other was not. I have rising junior twins and we will do our best to encourage them to choose different ED schools.

I am not sure how seriously this should be taken. I think there was a set of triplets, all of whom were accepted to ALL the Ivies not long ago.

That was 2014 and they were black males. 100% irrelevant to any twins in 2026.