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Cassandra Dean and Alexis Dean are fourth-year students with much in common. They are fraternal twins who enrolled at Northeastern University together.

They are both majoring in health sciences as honors students. At Northeastern they joined the same research team. They were hired for the same emergency department co-op at Mass General Hospital. They went on the same Dialogue of Civilizations last summer. And they're now applying to many of the same physician assistant programs.

"Alexis and Cassandra believe they made independent decisions about where to go to college, their majors and career plans," says Laurie Kramer, a Northeastern professor of applied psychology. "Yet they've made the same exact choices about their futures on multiple occasions."

The Dean twins, who had been assigned work study jobs at Northeastern's John Martinson Honors Program, were hungry for perspective on their relationship. How had so many independent choices yielded so many identical results?

They conveniently were able to seek advice and support from Kramer because she was directing the University Honors Program.

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