College Admissions and Multiples

Last week, the NY Times published an article on quadruplets who were all recently accepted to Yale.  The article describes the scene of Ray, Kenny, Carol, and Martina Crouch all logging into the Yale website to see if they were admitted.  I can only imagine how agonizing it must have been for all four siblings and their parents.
As a former admission officer, I know it can difficult to review applications of multiples.  Sometimes the siblings have similar credentials and the decision is easy.  Other times the applicants that are siblings may present two entirely different applications and the decision is not so cut and dry.  While I don’t think any school would grant admission to a student who is not qualified to enroll just because their brother or sister was also admitted in the same class, I do think that most admissions officers reflect on how the decision will affect family dynamics.
It appears that this story of the admission process and multiples has a happy ending, but it is not over yet.  Each Crouch sibling has other schools besides Yale that they are considering and while they say they are “reluctant to part” one them comments on how “fun” it might be to go somewhere where he is not “one of the quads.”
Katherine Price