In the past several months, I have had the opportunity to meet with several pairs of twins regarding their high school careers and college admissions. Without exception, the one piece of advice I have given to parents of twins is to make sure that the siblings are treated individually and given a chance to explore their unique interests.
I know it can be incredibly convenient to have your two children in the same classes and activities, minimizing your chauffeuring duties. But in the long term, encouraging your two siblings to follow their curiosities, expand on their own strengths, and find what drives them will make them better individuals.
While parents can often list off a million differences between the two children, those differences can often be very subtle to the outside observer. And college admissions officers are outside observers. Even, and actually more importantly, if your two children want to go to the same college, they each need to be a strong applicant individually.
Here are few tips to helping distinguish your two children for the college admissions process:
1. Request that your children are in separate classes, ideally with different teachers. It is very easy for teachers to forge an impression of the two kids together. In fact, many younger siblings often feel in the shadow of older siblings who had the same teachers. That simply gets magnified when kids are in class together.
2. Encourage separate but equal activities. It is very likely that your kids enjoy many of the same extracurricular activities. This can be a result of getting the same exposures as young children or of genetics. It is absolutely fine for them to have some similar experiences, but they should also have ones that are theirs only. If both students are accomplished athletes, recommend different clubs on campus. If both are fantastic musicians, perhaps look into different school orchestras. Or perhaps both are great at one activity, but only one wants to pursue it to a higher level. Don’t force the other one simply because.
3. Academics can differ. In very rare instances I have seen both children have equivalent academic records. Typically one is stronger in one area and vice versa. You may want to have two engineers, doctors or teachers in the household one day. But chances are your two kids will want to pursue independent careers. While fostering one interest, be sure not to ignore the other. Not doing so might result in lower grades for one sibling.
4. Try not to compare. As hard as it may be, treat the two kids as uniquely as you can. Several years ago, I worked with a pair of twin boys. One did much better in school and took more advanced courses. The other tried to keep up with his brother’s pace and ultimately did not do as well. The parents were resistant to letting him take slightly easier courses because they worried that would look bad on his college applications. But when he did reduce his workload a bit, he was able to find time to excel in debate, an activity he contemplated giving up in order to have more time to study. He ultimately earned many awards and even continued with debate in college.
5. Think broadly about colleges. It can be so tempting to want both kids at the same college. They can come home together and you don’t have to travel to two places to visit. But the perfect college for one may not be the perfect one for another. While finances and logistics certainly may play a big role in the college decision, think broadly early on. While it can be tough to separate the two in such a big decision, do research for and with each child individually.
In a highly competitive admissions landscape, colleges are looking to build a well-rounded class of individuals. While both kids might be amazing in their own right, colleges may only have space for one applicant with the profile that both your kids possess. And as much as these two have been connected throughout their lives, I can bet that they want to be seen as and treated like individuals.
Purvi S. Mody is co-owner of Insight Education, an educational consulting firm that helps students throughout the Bay Area to achieve their educational goals. Email her at firstname.lastname@example.org.