FYI

Kind of too busy to post right now, so here's my Baylor essay for your amusement. Please don't say you hate it, b/c I submitted it already.

“I wish I had a twin,” people often tell me when they find out that my sister Susie and I are identical twins. I wonder if they recognize, however, the struggles we went through while growing up as best friends and rivals. Because we shared everything—possessions, friends, even the same interests—Susie understood me better than anyone else, but she also became the yardstick against which I measured myself. I grew accustomed to thinking of myself as one half of a pair and allowed that image to confine me to the same activities as my sister. The only way to distinguish myself, it seemed, was to surpass her. In the end, we decided that going to different colleges would allow us to develop into separate individuals. I decided to attend Yale, while Susie chose Harvard.

The opportunity to explore our own identities in college stripped the luster from competition. Although my sister and I both majored in chemistry, we tailored our choices to fit our unique interests. I deepened my knowledge of people from various times and cultures through classes in the humanities and social sciences, while Susie chose an academic focus in physical chemistry, which she went on to pursue in graduate school. During a summer internship with Wyeth, I found that I enjoyed interacting with my colleagues from diverse backgrounds as much as working on my own research projects and decided to seek employment in the pharmaceutical industry after graduation.

Next year, our paths will converge as Susie and I both look towards medical school. It seems emblematic of our relationship that we have chosen the same field, yet medicine is wide enough to accommodate the distinct people into whom we have matured. While my sister comes to the field with an interest in basic research, I am attracted to the clinical side of medicine, where the opportunity to affirm my patients’ individual worth will allow me to put into practice the most important lesson I have learned from being a twin.