HEMPSTEAD, N.Y. -- A precocious schoolhouse successful the suburbs of New York City volition beryllium seeing treble connected graduation time this weekend: Among the astir 500 students successful its graduating class, 30 are twins.
It’s a choky knit group. Some of the students astatine Long Island's Plainview-Old Bethpage John F. Kennedy High School person known each different since kindergarten, their parents gathering done a section twins club. Some adjacent inactive program household vacations together.
These days, immoderate of the twins are connected a radical substance chain, which has helped them header with their newfound notoriety arsenic graduation time approaches.
“Honestly erstwhile we’re together, the country is electric,” said Sydney Monka, arsenic she attended graduation rehearsal with the different twins earlier this week. “We’re each precise comfy astir each different and we each person these shared experiences truthful we’re each bouncing disconnected each other. It’s truly cool.”
Save for the shared past names, though, the pairs whitethorn beryllium hard to spot arsenic they locomotion the signifier Sunday astatine their precocious schoolhouse graduation, held astatine Hofstra University successful Hempstead.
The students are each fraternal twins — meaning calved from antithetic eggs and sperm — truthful nary of them are identical. Many of the twins are antithetic genders.
That doesn’t marque the bonds immoderate little tight, says Bari Cohen, who is attending Indiana University successful the fall.
“Especially for boy-girl twins, a batch of radical deliberation it’s just, like, siblings, but it’s much than that, due to the fact that we spell done the aforesaid things astatine the aforesaid time,” she said of her brother, Braydon Cohen, who is headed to the University of Pittsburgh.
Most, erstwhile prodded, springiness a playful motion astatine the funny improvement successful the precocious school, which is located successful an affluent, mostly achromatic territory astir 35 miles (56 kilometers) eastbound of Manhattan.
“I conjecture there’s conscionable thing successful the water,” said Emily Brake, who is attending the University of Georgia, echoing a communal refrain among the twins.
“We’re each conscionable precise lucky. I deliberation it’s conscionable a coincidence,” added her sister, Amanda Brake, who volition beryllium attending Ohio State University.
Others admit there’s much than Mother Nature astatine work.
Arianna Cammareri said her parents had been trying for years to person kids and successful vitro fertilization was their past option. Back then, it was much communal than it is present for IVF babies to beryllium twins oregon triplets.
There besides whitethorn beryllium a familial constituent astatine play.
“There’s a fewer twins successful our family, similar I person cousins that are twins, truthful I conjecture that raised the chances of having twins,” added the incoming freshman astatine Stony Brook University, besides connected Long Island.
Large cohorts of twins are not antithetic astatine Plainview-Old Bethpage. The precocious schoolhouse had back-to-back graduating classes with 10 sets of multiples successful 2014 and 2015, and adjacent year's incoming freshmen people has 9 sets of twins, according to schoolhouse officials.
Among the different schools astir the state with large sets of graduating twins are Clovis North High School successful Fresno, California, with 14 pairs, and Eleanor Roosevelt High School successful Greenbelt, Maryland, with 10 pairs.
Last year, a mediate schoolhouse successful suburban Boston had 23 sets of twins successful its graduating class, though that's inactive acold shy of the grounds for astir multiples successful the aforesaid world class. New Trier High School successful Winnetka, Illinois, had a whopping 44 duplicate pairs and a acceptable of triplets successful 2017, according to Guinness World Records.
Most of the twins astatine Plainview-Old Bethpage are heading disconnected to antithetic colleges.
An objection is Aiden and Chloe Manzo, who volition some be the University of Florida, wherever they’ll unrecorded successful the aforesaid dormitory connected field and some survey business, though with antithetic majors.
“We’re going to spot each different a lot,” Chloe said wryly.
“Deep down, my ma knew it would beryllium easier if we went to the aforesaid school,” she added. “You know, similar moving in, graduation, going to sports games.”
Some were apprehensive astir surviving acold from their longtime spouse successful crime.
Emma and Kayla Leibowitz volition beryllium attending Binghamton and Syracuse University, respectively. The 5th procreation twins accidental they’re already making plans for predominant visits adjacent though the upstate New York schools are immoderate 80 miles (130 kilometers) apart.
“I deliberation it’s gonna beryllium truly weird due to the fact that we truly bash everything together. She’s my champion friend. I truly can’t bash thing without her,” said Emma.
“We’re sleeping implicit each weekend. I’m coming for shot games — similar each of it," said Kayla.
Others were looking guardant to getting immoderate breathing room.
Sydney and Kayla Jasser said they’re some studying manner plan — but astatine antithetic colleges. Sydney is attending the University of Delaware portion Kayla volition beryllium attending Indiana University.
“We could person went to the aforesaid college, but we conscionable wanted to beryllium capable to beryllium autarkic since we’ve been with each different forever,” Kayla said. “It’s bully to get retired determination and person our ain experiences.”
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Follow Philip Marcelo connected X astatine twitter.com/philmarcelo.