Growing up, my brother and I always said that we were both going to the University of Minnesota. We both knew the Minnesota Rouser by age three, and we always loved sporting maroon and gold. We loved attending the Gopher hockey games, and we couldn't wait until the day that we would cheer the Gophers on in the student section.    

Junior year of high school came around and we started touring colleges. Even though my brother and I knew the UMN campus very well, my mom insisted that we go on the official tour. As expected, we both felt at home at the UMN and continued with our plan to go. However, in our senior year, things changed. My brother had toured a different school, and he felt that school the would be a better choice. The school was smaller in size, not in a major metropolitan city, and just an overall better fit for him.

I tried to convince him to still come with me to UMN. I've never been the type of person who has felt the need to go somewhere because of another person, but this was something that we had talked about since we were little. But his not coming wasn't going to change my mind about whether or not I was going to UMN. However, it didn't help that the school he was considering over Minnesota happened to be the University of North Dakota. After a while, my trying to convince him didn't work, and we ended up going our separate ways.    

But this ended up not being a bad thing. As twins, we've always had to share everything, and everything had to be equal — from birthdays to the same group of friends. And now, for once, we had separate lives. I no longer knew who his friends were or what he was doing on a Thursday night. Now seeing each other was something we actually looked forward to, rather than dreaded. We needed separation because we hardly ever had any growing up.

Attending different universities helped us get along, too. From middle school and throughout high school, we didn't have the best relationship. We had very different personalities. We were close to being total opposites. There were very few things that we had in common, and we really didn't start to get along until the week before he left for school. We both came to the realization that it would be the first time in eighteen years that we would be separated for more than ten days, and that was going to take some getting used to.   

Then, with the start of fall semester of our freshman year, we both decided to go through recruitment. We joined our respective houses and for once, we both had a common activity. All of a sudden, there was a mutual understanding between us. Going Greek brought us closer, and there was now something we could talk about. Whether it was how much money we raised during a philanthropy event or how much fun formal was; we were able to have separate lives and have something to still connect us.  

Looking back now, it’s crazy to think that we almost both went to UMN. Our college experiences would’ve definitely been different, and I don’t think that our brother/sister relationship would be as great as it is now.