Separation Anxiety: Twins to attend college a year early
Photo Credit: Diondra Powers
The Knight twins will try to spend less time together so they can discover their personal interests.
April 17, 2010 • Diondra Powers, Staff writer
Filed under Features
On a slow Monday afternoon, Chelsea Knight sits in The Yogurt Tap eating chocolate frozen yogurt. Her twin sister, Brianna Knight, has only a few spoonfuls because she dislikes cold things. Because the two have so many things in common this teensy difference is unexpected. The twins share a clothing size. They share a bedroom. They share an almost identical schedule. They share many of the same friends. They are also sharing a college – a full year early – and are the only ones in their class to do so.
The Knights will finish their last year of high school at The University of West Georgia’s Advanced Academy. The Advanced Academy is for high–school sophomores, juniors and seniors. At the Advanced Academy, they will take college classes which also give them high school credit. Therefore, after graduation, they will be college sophomores.
They will pay regular college tuition and get access to the HOPE scholarship. “We are going to be paying college fees,” Brianna said. “So HOPE is going to pay our tuition and right now we’re looking at scholarships to pay for our room and board.”
Brianna and Chelsea are the only students from the class of 2011, and the first students from Decatur to enroll at the Advanced Academy. Manus Caldwell, DHS career coordinator, originally proposed this idea to eight students, and Brianna and Chelsea were the ones who responded. They have been in the process of applying since early sophomore year.
“[Chelsea and I] weren’t really for it [sophomore year] just because we were doing cheerleading and drill team,” Brianna said. “But we really thought about it our junior year and we decided to do it. It would be a great experience.”
“I fostered the communication between their parents and the Advanced Academy,” Caldwell said. “Once their mom got a hold of it, they ran with it and they’ve been looking forward to it since they filled out the application.”
Once the twins found out they had the grades and S.A.T. scores to meet the Academy’s requirements, they filled out the application, wrote a few essays, went through an interview process and were accepted.
Caldwell hopes that others will take advantage of this opportunity. As for Brianna and Chelsea, he hopes they do their best and will continue “opening doors for others to come through.”
“After our interview, I was dreaming about getting the acceptance letter in the mail,” Brianna said. “I was just relieved my dream didn’t turn into a nightmare … But it didn’t hit me until I walked on campus and I was like ‘Oh. I’m going to be taking college classes.’”
“I’m excited for them because it will give them another stage in their lives,” Brianna and Chelsea’s mother, Mara Knight said. “Their maturity level is just prepared for [college]. And that’s the biggest thing. It doesn’t matter if you meet all the requirements of West Georgia, you have to do a personal interview. And they turn people away because if they don’t think you’re mature enough they won’t let you in … and it’s just some kids can’t handle being away from their parents at such a young age.”
Aside from living in separate dorms from college students, Brianna and Chelsea are not allowed to pledge into sororities or participate in intercollegiate sports, which are sports played against other college teams, because they are minors. They can do intramural sports, which are sports that are played within the college. Also separating them from college students is the curfew. During week nights all students must be in their dorms and accounted for by 11 p.m.; on the weekends curfew is 12 a.m. and there is a lock-down until six a.m. where no one can enter or leave.
Although they will be more restricted than most college kids, Brianna and Chelsea see it as a growing experience.
“[Since] we don’t live with everyone else who goes to college, we only live with Academy students who are still in high school and we can make friends with them,” Chelsea said. “So we’re going to have somebody. So that will be nice.”
“We’ll be college students but with more limitations since we’re under 18. We’re not grown-ups, we can’t be out all night, we still have a curfew.”
And they still have to do the Senior Project. But, like everything else, the twins have a plan.
“We’re in AP Lang right now. So we have to write a research paper,” Chelsea said. “I’m just going to use that paper and find a topic off of that paper. So I’ll already have half the work done anyway.”
Along with coming to school occasionally to work on their Senior Projects, the twins will visit Decatur for a variety of other reasons.
“I’ll still come back on the weekends,” Brianna said. “I’ll still be able to come to games. I’ll still be able to hang out with kids from Decatur. So I feel like for the most part I won’t miss it enough to make me doubt my decision to go to West Georgia.”
“We’ll be able to hopefully make arrangements so we can still do graduation, we can still be in the yearbook, we can still come back for prom. It won’t be that much of a burden,” Chelsea said. “We’ll miss every day going to school, but when you see the same people every day [it gets kind of old].”
Now they get a new set of friends and a drastically adjusted schedule to break away from their everyday routine. The thing that has remained and will remain constant is each other. Since they were little kids, Brianna and Chelsea always had each other.
“I remember when we used to just sit on the playground in Pre-K and we would only play with each other,” Chelsea said. “And people would come to us and ask ‘Oh, you want to play with me?’ and we would be like ‘No it’s ok, I have my sister.’ Even in kindergarten, we were so sad because they split us up. Every day in kindergarten, we had a special time and we would go in the conjoining bathrooms and we would give each other a hug and a kiss and we would be good for the rest of the day. We’ve always had those little things and I think that’s what’s really helped us.”
“We’re like the perfect pair of shoes,” Chelsea said. “The way I see a single person is like someone who has mittens but you’re missing your other mitten. I have my other shoe, I have my other mitten.”
“When you find your soul mate that’s when you find your other mitten but you go a whole long time without that mitten,” Brianna said.
Trying to be independent from one another will prove quite the challenge, but the twins and Caldwell feel they are up to it.
Caldwell believes they will adapt well to their new situation especially “since they’re going down with each other. And then I think their own individual wings will spread once they get down there.”
“We’re best friends, so it’s just hard for someone else to step in and fill the shoes we’ve already made with each other,” Brianna said.
“This is our year to branch out because we don’t know if we’re going to go to the same college,” Chelsea said. “We need this experience right now to get away from each other. But it’s going to be hard.”
“We have a lot of stuff we like to do together,” Brianna said. “Nothing that we like to do apart,” Brianna and Chelsea said in unison. They do that often. Finish each other’s sentences. That’s how much time they spend together.
“Brianna and I are setting a goal. [To find out] what do we like to do even when the other twin isn’t there,” Chelsea said. “I’m trying to know myself. Not us, but myself.”
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