Sending Twins to College - [Warning - Tome]

This is a double post - I already put this in the Twins Club not realizing this would be a better section for it... sorry for the double posting.

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So now that we have finally got the boys all moved into their dorm rooms, I thought I would write a note about this experience. I have been sharing stories with other parents who are sending off one of their children to college, but I have not shared this with any who were sending off two at once and in our case all of our children at once.

The madness really started about half-way through their senior year of high school. Making sure scholarships were applied for and paperwork was completed for college applications and student aid. In October, BYU invited Dave & Mike to their "Y Weekend" experience. They send out invitations to (we think) about 10% of the top students who scored well on their ACT test and showed interest in attending the university. It lasted two days. They had an orientation, a couple of mini lectures, a tour of the campus, special pizza party and get together (promoting BYU's honors program), a tailgate-BBQ party and football game. It was after that weekend the boys decided they were pretty sure that is where they wanted to go. David was thinking about Harvard and Stanford but he only applied to Harvard and BYU in the end. Mike applied to Harvard, BYU and Humboldt State. Mike was accepted to BYU and Humboldt, neither of the boys were accepted to Harvard, even with the 4.0+ GPAs and high ACT and SAT test scores. We later found out that Harvard had a record setting year for applications. The boys also decided they wanted to participate in the honors program at BYU. David did receive a full tuition scholarship (from BYU) and a local scholarship while Mike received several local scholarships and a one year, half-tuition, renewable each year (dependent on grades) scholarship from BYU.

In January you have to get the FAFSA paperwork finish and submitted... which is very challenging since you have to have all the information for your taxes finished before you can file the paperwork. That experience IS NOT FUN.

Once they received their acceptance emails, they watched the calendar intently, making sure they didn't miss any deadlines, especially for Late Summer Honors and housing. They wanted to make sure they got the room and bed assignments of their choice. They wanted to make sure they were on different floors and opposite sides of the same hall. They succeeded. They also got into the building which is closest to the dining hall and baseball field... this is the hall they have stayed in almost every summer since they have been going to sports camps at BYU. This is like a second home to them, they are very familiar with the layout and surroundings... they were very happy with the outcome!

As the school year ended and we got through all the graduation rigamarole the boys got temporary summer jobs (hard labor on a local ranch) and started to prepare for going off to college. We made our reservations to stay in a hotel next to BYU so we could come up a few days early and purchase all of their dorm stuff locally (meaning less to transport from California to BYU). We finished all the major shopping (linens, office supplies, books, etc.) in just a couple of days. This left an extra day for the boys to visit with family (I have a brother that lives about 30 minutes away) and to relax before starting late summer honors. The bad thing about late summer honors is that the dorm room they were assigned was not the dorm room they would be in for the fall semester... they were in this "temporary" dorm for two days and then they got to move into their fall dorm rooms. This meant that we left the majority of their things in the hotel room with us until they could move into their dorm. We had to extend our stay one more day because they couldn't move into their fall dorm until 5pm and we would have nowhere to store their belongings if we checked out at 3pm.

So... it is done... we are now "empty nesters" sitting here staring at each other. We go from "run, run, run" to "now what?"

I have posted a photo album on Facebook titled "Trip to BYU" showing the progression of this trip. I don't know if this link will work or not but it is worth a try Facebook Photo Album - Trip to BYU.

When I get home, I will work on posting all these photos on our website www.watsonworld.org so they will be easier to see.

So there you have it... if you have ever wondered what it was like to send your twins off to college... this is it.

 

I was wondering how are you and your wife handling them being gone?

My mum is HATING the fact that in under 6 months we will be gone, (Australias school year is different) She cannot handle her "babies" turning 18 and moving away.

Is there anything that helped yous with knowing they would be gone soon?

She will be lost! She cant accept it so I gave her the offer of accept it or have another baby, she took the accept it but she HATES the thought of us being adults!

 

Hi Code -

We really don't know yet how we will handle it. So far it has only seemed like when we would drop them off for summer camp. It will hit us for sure when we get home and settled back in and back to work. It will be much quieter that is for sure.

I don't know that we did anything special to prepare ourselves... we spent a lot of time with them helping them prepare, maybe that helped some.

I don't know if our children were girls if it would be different... I think I would be a lot more protective... a lot more! But that is me... there is a reason God gave us boys... I don't think I would have fared well as a father to daughters. I think they would have run away from home... I am way too strict!

 

I think all dads are protective of their "little girls"
I want to get mum to understand that Ill always be her baby but I need to go away for uni as there is not one in the coastal town we live in, she and dad are way strict also on myself and my twin as were the babies and the only ones to complete the HSC. I think getting her involved in more things would be a good idea.

Good luck I hope yous are alright when yous get back

 

I just wanted to add, its a good thing, I like having rules to follow.

I turn 18 in two weeks, legal rules in Australia are at 18 you can legally go out, drink and gamble. I have rules and rules for once I turn 18. I think its a good thing!

 

We have always felt that children want to know where their boundaries are and that is where rules come in. It is natural for children to push their boundaries to see how strong they are but I have always pushed back hard so they knew that I meant it. As they got older, it was time to relax it a little (and I mean only a little) and let them make decisions on their own.

Glad to hear you have set rules for yourself. It will make life easier and decisions quicker... won't have to ponder over if you should do something or not, if it falls within your rules. Just make sure your rules are good ones

Good luck getting out there on your own... You will do fine I am sure

 

Hi Cliff! Haven't heard from you in forever. I'm glad you survived getting them all set up.

 

Hey Donita...

Yea... I almost feel like we fell off the end of the Earth with Twinstuff. It seemed that once the boys started high school and playing sports our free time was completely absorbed. Between helping them with school, sports and getting their Eagle Scouting awards, we were kept pretty busy. I don't know how parents of twins that also have other children do it. They must be blessed with super time management skills

Hopefully I can make it up now that I will have more free time

 

Cliff,

So nice to see a post from you. Hope you and your family are well. Wow, your boys are off to college! I imagine your sons were about Brady and Colby's age (they just turned eight) when you first started visiting Twinstuff. My, how time flies! We need for your sons to create Twinstuff ID's and post about their college experiences.

Did they ever consider going to different schools?

 

Hi Craig -

I think they did at one point create their own IDs but they probably don't remember them. I will shoot them an email and remind them about Twinstuff and posting their experiences here.

They did think about different schools. Up to their junior year, David was considering Caltech or Stanford and Mike was considering UCLA. They both said they didn't want to go to BYU because it was the "place the Mormons always go" and they didn't want to be labeled. David dropped Caltech his senior year (he didn't even apply) as did Mike with UCLA (too many of his goofy friends were considering attending there). The Y Weekend experience changed everything... BYU really shmoozed them and it worked. They both eagerly chose BYU. I think the all the sports summer camps there helped too... they attended baseball camps since they were about 12 every summer at BYU so the campus and the dorms are very familiar to them.

I like what you have done with the website! It is interesting how you have connected it to Facebook... I am still trying to figure out how to get them to talk to each other smoothly. I have to keep going to my profile and updating it from there to pull in my profile picture (from FB).

Time does fly... you are hitting the stage in your boys lives where I REALLY started to enjoy Dave & Mikes social experiences... especially Little League...

 

Oh yeah, tell them to come by. We are trying to get the twins areas moving.

They look sorta like when I met them but older.

We went to college in town and lived at home so no moving away experience.

 

It's supposed to update the information directly from Facebook (but just that one direction - you post updates on Facebook and it will automatically update the stuff here once a day) as long as you've activated that tool in your profile.

I'd love it if my boys consistently wanted to get more into Little League (right now they waffle back and forth if they want to do it or not). This past summer they were on the swim team and it was a huge success! My soon-to-be 4-year-old is also showing signs of being more into sports than his older brothers.

Let us know if they need any help retrieving account details.

 

Oh I hear ya! My TS time is very limited right now also. Between the girls in band and Tae Kwon Do and the boys in football and Boy Scouts, I am constantly driving someone somewhere. Right now I'm sneaking on before I run off to Walmart for more school supplies.

Congrats to your boys on earning their Eagle. We're getting their slowly.

I hope to see you around here more.

 

It's great to hear that you had such a good experience with getting them settled in. I work in higher education administration at a Big 10 school and each year we see at least a couple sets of twins in my office. It's interesting to hear this now since I was reading an article a few weeks ago in one of our publications about twins and multiples in higher ed admissions. It was an interesting article about how many twins end up choosing to attend together in the end even though they never thought they would go to school together. It also talked about how many colleges and universities accomodate twins in the admissions process and beyond, so it's great to hear that BYU was accomodating for you guys.