While most students step into school feeling frightened and intimidated on their first day, others feel ahead of the game thanks to having a twin. Whether it’s from the comfort of having a built-in support system or the rigorous challenge of living in their academic shadow, sharing a school with a twin shapes the classroom experience while developing sibling relationships beyond it.

The high school experience is very unique for twins. They not only have to deal with being in the same school as their sibling, but also being in the same grade. This means that it is likely for them to have the same teachers and the same friends.

“We’re identical, so teachers and friends usually mix us up,” sophomore Mata Jovanovic said. “We share the same friend group, which is really fun because [my twin] is like my best friend.”

While the mix-ups can be very frustrating, people find ways to tell twins apart, especially when they’re in the same friend group.

“Usually, people tell us apart based on the clothes I wear. The more time you spend with us, the more you can tell us apart. It’s just awkward sometimes when someone calls me his name,” Jovanovic said.

With there already so much pressure on students to perform well, sharing classes with a sibling can add much more stress to the learning environment.

Junior Noa Zelermyer has a twin brother of her own and has found that having a twin to compare herself to isn’t always a bad thing.

“Josh and I are in completely different classes, we have different teachers, we get different grades, but sometimes I compare myself to him,” Zelermyer said. “It’s not always a negative thing to compare us because it motivates me to do better.”

Academically, it can be very frustrating to be constantly compared to your twin.

Others feel that the academic pressure isn’t the hardest thing about being a twin in high school, arguing that twins tend to feel more social pressure, especially when they are closer to their twin.

“I don’t feel pressure to do good at school because I’m a twin, but I feel pressure socially. We share the same friends, so if something happens with Erin and her friends, I kinda get caught in it too because she’s my sister,” freshman Charlie Dimond said.

One of the biggest challenges twins face is being recognized as separate people. When talking to all three pairs of twins, identical or not, a common consensus was that being viewed as the same person is the most frustrating part of being a twin.

“It doesn’t really bother me anymore that people think we are the same person, even though we clearly aren’t,” freshman Erin Dimond said. “While we look the same and share similar hobbies, we are different people. For example, I like math and she likes English.“