Twins take parallel paths to Dartmouth

In the strangest of twists, 17-year-old twins Henry and Nina Vogel have been going about their lives with great independence while proceeding on a path that has led them to an almost identical outcome.

Henry plays basketball at Studio City Harvard-Westlake and is editor in chief of the school newspaper. Nina competes in equestrian show jumping and is co-editor in chief of the school newspaper at Los Angeles Marlborough.

They haven’t attended school together since they were 12, and yet, come fall, they’ll be classmates at Dartmouth College after each independently applied to and decided Dartmouth was their No. 1 choice.

The fact they ended up back together for college “proves we really are related,” Nina concluded.

“It was weird,” Henry said. “Neither of us assumed or planned on going to the same school.”

Let the competition begin to see who’s going to be the first collegiate newspaper editor in chief among the Vogel twins.

“That’s a good question,” said Henry, who’s eight minutes older than his sister.

So far, they’ve been motivating each other living in the same house but working on different schedules. They don’t see each other during the day and occasionally run into each other at night depending on their sports and academic commitments.

“I guess you could say there’s friendly competition between Henry and me,” Nina said in an email detailing insights into the sibling rivalry. “We are both proud of the papers we put out, so any innovative layout or controversial story idea is cause for gloating. All in all, though, I enjoy having someone in my position to share ideas with and get suggestions from.”

Said Henry: “I think both of us benefit from having each other on other papers. There was a little friendly competition as we moved up the ranks of our respective publications, but more so we were sharing ideas regarding management, stylistic choices and features ideas.”

Sports has been important for both. Henry has played basketball since he was 4 and is in his second season as a backup varsity player at Harvard-Westlake. Nina has been riding since she was 8. She practices six days a week and competes year-round. Each tries to support the other when available.

But when each school newspaper comes out, they eagerly look forward to offering critiques and bragging about any “scoops.” They put the papers on the kitchen table, look for errors and seek out new ideas.

“Every time our papers come out, there is the obligatory banter about mine being better than hers and vice versa,” Henry said.

Henry took up journalism in eighth grade at the suggestion of their mother, Rachel, who has been a writer. Nina soon followed.

It’s still strange how they ended up at Dartmouth. Nina went on college visits with Mom. Henry went on college visits with Dad. They visited most of the same schools. Neither tried to influence the other about their No. 1 choice.

But one day Henry was checking to see if Dartmouth had accepted him. He kept refreshing his computer and found out he made it. He called his sister and told her to look online. Not long afterward, she called him back and told him, “We’re in.”

Watch out, Dartmouth. Here come the Vogels.

“It’s going to be interesting,” Henry said.

eric.sondheimer@latimes.com

Twitter: @LATSondheimer