As families in luggage-laden minivans and SUVs arrive on Elon's campus each move-in day, you usually can count on one or two sets of twins to be among the new students. Not this year: the Class of 2015 holds six sets of twins.
Barbara and Paige Becker, of Greensboro, N.C.; Blaine and Quinn Bower, of New Cumberland, Pa.; Clay and Garrett Esler, of Rye, N.Y.; Becca and Charlotte Goodman, of Darnestown, Md.; Ben and Nick Stringfellow, of Crownsville, Md., and Chanelle and Danielle Walker, of Fayetteville, Ga., will all call Elon home starting Aug. 26.
Elon admissions records don’t specifically track the number of twins in a given class year, so it’s difficult to say whether the six sets of twins in the Class of 2015 represents a university record. But it is a “remarkable point of note,” says Susan Klopman, vice president of admissions and financial planning.
“There’s a lot to be said by the choice each of these pairs of siblings has made, that they’ve both decided to attend Elon,” Klopman says, adding that while it’s common for prospective students with older Elon siblings to attend the university, twin siblings present a unique challenge in the admissions process. “A lot of the time, the family will say that they’re fine with their children going their separate ways or they’re a ‘package deal.’
“Our philosophy is to focus on what is important to the prospective student and how we can make that work with the admissions standards of the university.”
Being one of six sets of twins is nothing to Clay and Garrett Esler. Among the 206 students in Rye High School’s Class of 2011, Clay and Garrett were one of seven pairs of twins. “We just can’t get away from the twin thing!” Garrett says.
For Blaine and Quinn Bower and Chanelle and Danielle Walker, there was an additional hoop to jump through – securing athletic scholarships to play for the Phoenix baseball and volleyball teams, respectively.
“Some schools recruited us separately, but we told coaches that our big thing was to stay together,” Quinn Bower says. “We might have scared some schools away because of that, but not Elon.”
Chanelle and Danielle Walker took a similar approach to the recruiting process. If a school only offered one of the two a scholarship, their reply was, “No, thanks.”
“From the get-go, we knew we wanted to go to school together and keep playing together,” Chanelle says. “We have an automatic connection on the court that makes us better.”
For Paige and Barbara Becker, the idea of going to college together certainly was a possibility – but not the only one.
“If we didn’t end up liking the same school, or didn’t get into the same school, it wasn’t going to be the end of the world,” Paige says of their college search.
“But,” Barbara adds, “I think that if we went to different schools, we wouldn’t be as happy as we would be if we had each other there. With your sister there, you know you always have a friend.”
Similarly, Becca and Charlotte Goodman were perfectly comfortable attending different colleges, though both had their hearts set on Elon. When it came time to find out whether they’d been accepted, it caused a bit of anxiety in the Goodman home.
“Becca got her acceptance email about 15 or 20 minutes before I did,” Charlotte recalls. “She’s like, ‘I got in! I got in!’ and I began thinking, ‘Uh-oh, what if I didn’t?’ Obviously, I did, but it was scary there for a while!”
On campus, the siblings won’t be straying far from one another. The Bowers and Walkers will be rooming with one another in Smith and Staley, respectively. The Beckers will live in West and the Goodmans will live in Danieley Center, though not in the same room as one another. Nick and Ben Stringfellow both will live in Virginia but on different floors.
“We want to see each other, but we don’t want to be joined at the hip,” says Ben of he and Nick’s decision not to be roommates.
While each set of siblings acknowledges the potential difficulties of forging their individual identities with their “other halves” on campus for the next four years, they also see a bunch of positives to sharing their college experiences with their twins. It makes life easier for their parents, they say, because the students will have the same breaks, and their parents only have to make one trip for move-in, Commencement and the family weekend events in between. It also gives the students an instant support system. There’s always someone close who they can turn to in tough times.
But as Quinn Bower notes, it’s even more obvious than that. He simply doesn’t know life without his brother nearby.
“We’ve been together for almost 19 years,” he says, “and we haven’t gotten sick of each other yet, so we’ll see!”