(CNN) — Eleven sets of twins graduated from a New Jersey high school this week, but surprisingly, that’s not a record for the school.
“We have a lot of twins here, I don’t know what’s going on here but something’s happening!” Joseph Occhino, principal of North Highlands High School told CNN.
“Pretty wild to have so many sets of twins,” said Occhino, who described Thursday’s graduation ceremony as a “beautiful night.”
Occhino said that of the 340 students in the Allendale school’s 2023 graduating class, 22 are twins, making up approximately 6% of the senior class.
It’s not even a record
After a closer look, the principal realized this isn’t the first time Northern Highlands has seen so many sets of twins in a single class.
“We actually had 16 sets of twins (in) the graduating class of 2021,” Occhino said.
The number of sets “probably went over our head because it was COVID,” he added.
A school that keeps on twinning
Occhino said he went on to look through the current student body and discovered the school’s sophomore class contains 12 sets of twins.
“It’s astonishing in itself,” he said.
Of the 11 twin sets that just graduated, only one set is attending the same college, Occhino said, adding that some plan to attend schools “down the road” from one another while others will be across the country from each other.
“They’re really close knit, they really look out for one another,” Occhino said.