School administrators and teachers typically like to boast about the high number of twins and higher-order multiples in their schools. The local newspaper stories and TV features that highlight these record-number of twins in their schools typically focus on a few recurring themes:

• Nobody can ever remember that many twins in that one particular school
• The twins are quite different from one another (although the stories occasionally focus on the fewer identical twins or those who are close with one another or even in the same classroom)

and most importantly

• It must be something in the water!

What should we expect?

Schools should mirror society's percentage of multiples. That's currently running about 3% of all births for twins in the United States according to the National Center for Health Statistics, a division of the Department of Health and Human Services and Centers for Disease Control[1]. That 3% number is important but often misidentified by media when reporting their school stories.

Let's look at a community with 500 children in their local school. By the law of averages, about 3% of those students should be twins or perhaps 15 sets of twins in a school of 500. Of course, you need to multiply those sets by two to find out how many twins are actually at the school - 30 in this example. And anyone who looks at a focus group of 30 individuals is going to see a more impressive number than if they think of it as 15 sets of twins.

You may also have a wider range of these multiples in one particular grade level. Again, if you stick with that 3% base, a teacher would probably have about a pretty high chance of having a twin in a class of 30 students. Multiply the numbers by two to realize that perhaps 6 out of every 100 students could be a twin and a large school could easily have more than one twin in each classroom as one out of every 16.66 students would be a twin if you have a school with 500 students in which 3% are twins.

Adding triplets to the mix creates even higher numbers. In 2002, just 0.17% of all births in the United States were triplets [2] with just under 6,900 triplets born in the U.S. The odds of a woman giving birth to triplets is still quite low. With less than 2/10ths of 1% of all students potentially being a triplet, many schools in the United States may not have a set of triplets in their school. But if a school does have a set of triplets among its student base, they're likely to have all three triplets among their student population so it's three students being seen, not just one.

So which schools have the most multiples?

Here are some stories on schools with perceived high numbers of twins or higher-order multiples. Information presented along with the link indicates whether the numbers seem higher than the norm.

2007-08 School Year

(please add links to stories on schools - if you just want to mention a school with its numbers, use the add reply button to provide your information)

• North Crowley High Schooll, Fort Worth, Texas - 11 sets of multiples, 10 sets of twins, 1 set of triples in graduating class (434 seniors, 5.3%) - Dallas Morning News, May 31, 2008
• Armstrong Elementary School, Highland Park, Texas - 19 sets of twins (530 students, 7.2%) - 11alive.com, Oct. 1, 2007
• Hatfield Elementary School, Fort Worth, Texas - 15 sets of twins (730 students, 4%, but 16 of the 125 Kindergarteners are twins, 12.8%) - Fort Worth Star Telegraph, Sept. 21, 2007
• The Grange School, Hartford, Cheshire, England - 20 sets of twins (1140 students) - Telegraph, Sept. 19, 2007
• Colchester Elementary School, Colchester, Connecticut - 9 sets of twins, one set of triplets in Kindergarten (21 of 223 students, 9.4%) - Newsday, Sept. 13, 2007

Past School Years

(please add links to stories on schools - if you just want to mention a school with its numbers, use the add reply button to provide your information)

• Crockett Elementary School, Baytown, Texas -10 sets of twins (805 students) - Baytown Sun, Mar. 25, 2007
• Western Middle School, Bay City, Michigan -11 sets of twins, 1 set of triplets - wlsn.com, Apr. 24, 2007
• Hastings High School, Hastings, Nebraska -6 sets of twins in senior class (238 students) - NTV - ABC , May 11, 2007
• Patrick Henry School, Hamler, Ohio -5 sets of twins in senior class (87 students; 11.5%) - Crescent News , May 27, 2007
• Zumbrota-Mazeppa High School, Zumbrota, Minnesota -4 sets of twins in senior class (108 students) - Post-Bulletin, May 31, 2007
• Bountiful High School, Bountiful, Utah -9 sets of twins in senior class - ksl.com, June 1, 2007
• Blue Mountain High School, Pennsylvania -7 sets of twins, 1 set of triplets in senior class (244 students) - republicanherald.com, June 1, 2007
• Princeton Day School, Princeton Township, NJ -4 sets of twins in senior class (88 students, 9.1%) - nj.com, June 2, 2007
• Red Bluff High School, Red Bluff, CA -8 sets of twins in senior class - Casper Startribune.net, June 4, 2007
• Catoctin High School, Thurmont, MD -9 sets of twins in senior class (245 students) - Frederick News Post, June 6, 2007
• Angola High School, Angola, IN -4 sets of twins in senior class (168 students) - Ft. Wayne News Sentinel, June 11, 2007
• Dartmouth University, Hanover, NH - 1st Set of Triplet Graduates in School History - Boston Globe, June 10, 2007
• Victor Senior High School, Victor, CA -8 sets of twins in senior class (school has 1100 students) - wham.com, June 11, 2007
• Pembroke Dock Community School, Wales -5 sets of twins in pre-school class of 20 students - Daily Mail, June 18, 2007
• Dublin Middle School, Dublin, Ohio -18 sets of twins, 1 set of triplets, 2 sets of quads (827 students, 6.4%) - Columbus Dispatch, Feb. 10, 2006
• Wheatland Elementary School, Naperville, Illinois -6 sets of twins, 2 set of triplets, 1 set of quads, 1 set of quints (9.0%) - NBC5.com, June 2, 2005