Double the choices for twins attending college

Sean Effinger-Dean '06 never had much of his own space, even before he was born. While in the womb, his foot was jammed against his twin sister's face, leaving her jaw slightly pushed in for months after birth.

"It grew out after a while," he said, explaining, "I was a big baby — we both were."

Despite their pre-birth battle for space, the pair grew up close friends, sharing a knack for math and a love of musical theater.

When it came time to pick a college, though, they knew they wanted to go their separate ways. Effinger-Dean applied early to Princeton, while his sister chose to attend Williams College.

And when Effinger-Dean arrived for freshman orientation week, he learned that two of his three roommates had made a similar decision: Kirk Hou '06 and Matt Mims '06 had both chosen to go to college apart from their identical twins.

At least seven pairs of twins currently attend the University together. Some share a room, play on the same athletic team and take many of the same classes. But Effinger-Dean, Hou and Mims, who are rooming together again this year, are among those who have chosen to make college a separate existence from their twin.

Effinger-Dean explained that he sees college as a time to become independent. Having made the decision to go to school four hours from home, he said, "If my sister came with me, it wouldn't be that complete experience."

The three roommates agreed that splitting up has affected how they are perceived by others.

"We always knew that we had our own separate identities, even though we shared a lot of the same interests," said Mims, whose brother attends the University of Pennsylvania. "But it was always this thing with other people — the first thing they knew about us was that we were twins, and so they would react to us based on that."

For Hou, the past two years have been a chance to assert his own identity.

"In high school, we were collectively known as the Hous. We were the same person to everybody," he said. "I never viewed us as the Hous, but it was always such a part of our daily life that it became part of my personality. I had to worry about what I did because it would reflect on him.

"Now," he added, "I can just watch out for me."

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Mims, who plays in a band with his brother, said it would be nice to have him around more often so they could rehearse together. But he has no regrets about the decision to split up.

"People are getting a truer picture of our identities because the twin thing is in the background," he said.

Though Effinger-Dean, Hou and Mims had long since known they wanted to go to college apart from their twin, they went on college tours as pairs — which meant Effinger-Dean was forced to visit a couple of all-girl schools.

Hou and his brother even applied to several of the same colleges, where, he said, "We were worried that we were going to compete with each other. A lot of schools are so selective that it was like, 'Why would they take two of the same person?' "

Elizabeth and Margaret Feuille '06 took the opposite view. "We were so similar on paper that they couldn't have justified taking one and not the other," Margaret said.

The two, who had almost exactly the same test scores, transcript and extracurricular activites, applied to the same schools and received the same responses from all 14.

Having chosen Princeton for its academic reputation and dance opportunities, the Feuilles are both members of Expressions who hope to go to medical school after graduation.

Margaret said that while she is fine with how things turned out, she sometimes wonders what it would have been like if the two had separated.

At times, she said, people associate them too much. When things didn't work out between Liz and one male student, he asked a mutual friend to set him up with Margaret.

"That was really weird," Margaret said. "It was like, 'Can't have one, so I'll take the other.' "

Given the option, she admitted, she might have opted for Princeton without her sister.

"It would probably have been better if I didn't go to school with Liz," she said. "I have learned to be a lot more independent, but it can be hard comparing myself to my twin."