"When I got my student ID card a few weeks after picture day, I noticed that something was wrong; it was like a prick at the back of my mind. I couldn’t figure it out. I looked at the picture closely. Weird, I thought. I wasn’t wearing that dress. After a second, I realized what was wrong. That photo wasn’t me. It was of Penelope, my identical twin!" --Violet Hirsch, 6th grade
When I got my student ID card a few weeks after picture day, I noticed that something was wrong; it was like a prick at the back of my mind. I couldn’t figure it out. I looked at the picture closely. Weird, I thought. I wasn’t wearing that dress. After a second, I realized what was wrong. That photo wasn’t me. It was of Penelope, my identical twin!
When I showed the ID card to my family, they laughed so hard they could barely breathe. I think that I would’ve acted the same way. An ID card with my name and my identical twin’s photo? Unheard of!
“I couldn’t believe it! I felt like I had been waiting for something like that to happen for over 11 years,” said my mom, Justine Hirsch. “It feels so easy for people to mistake who you are in person, but for a bureaucratic error to happen is very surprising. It was bound to happen eventually. It's just really strange that it happened when they have such a strong procedure in place.”
“You know that feeling when you’re so surprised you laugh? That’s what I was feeling,” said my sister, Penelope.
After the incident, I started to wonder if people could really tell us apart. Saige Clark, a 6th grader in Visual Arts, said “Well, now that I have known you for about six-ish years, I can tell you apart like this.” They then proceeded to snap accordingly.
“I can tell you apart easily; I've been able to tell the two of you apart for your whole lives, except for that one time,” my mom said. “I’ve had to explain to people how I can tell you apart for so long it's given me a chance to really think about how I can. Your face is wider, and your sister's face is longer, but only by the tiniest bit. Your facial expressions are very different. You each have unique looks you give, even when your face is at rest. Your voices sound different to me, and your hairstyles have always been slightly different.”
I believe that at first glance, a lot of people can’t tell us apart, but after spending some time with us, it’s easy.
After hearing all this, I decided to try to find out information on the topic of the fake ID. Here’s what I learned:
Memory Makers—the organization that made our student ID cards—has a system for creating these student IDs. When interviewing Thai Nguyen, the president of Memory Makers, he said that “First, we have to acquire the photos that the students take on picture day. Then, using the student's name and info provided from the school, each student checks in by giving our Team their first/last name so we can properly identify who's who. Then, a photographer takes the student's image(s) [and] selects the best image to use. Back in the office, images go through an editing process (color correction, proper cropping, etc.). We load images along with the student data info into our ID software, and finally, the software prints out the ID cards grouped by grade, [alphabetized] by Last Name.”
When asked if a photo and/or name can be switched up accidentally on an ID card, Nguyen said, “This can happen at the check-in process: wrong names given, and/or our Team mixed up their names accidentally (common last names, duplicate names, etc.).”
He went on to give an example. “Sofia Williams and Sophia Williams. Or multiple Luis Garcias, Julie Smiths, etc…”
However, he said that on a rare occasion, the mix-up comes from the students themselves. “Worse is if students do it on purpose—they switch names, they tell us someone else's name since our team doesn't know them... [but this is] VERY rare. The name the student gives us is what we'll match them up with, so there's potential for error if our Team is not diligent.”
So, a variation of my situation has happened before, but to my knowledge, nothing exactly like my circumstance has ever occurred. So, where did that leave me? At this point, my ID card still had Penelope’s face on it.
After a few weeks of telling and retelling my story, Penelope and I were directed into the Student Center, where they were having School Picture Retake Day. After being told that people would be making new ID cards for us – Yay! – Penelope and I worked out a few details. Two people (who I believe were from Memory Makers) showed us our actual pictures, and had to ask us which picture belonged to us. After a few weeks of waiting, we finally had our real student IDs.
Through it all, this journey has taught me that while mistakes might be made, there’s always a good way to correct them (and to make stories out of them).
When I showed the ID card to my family, they laughed so hard they could barely breathe. I think that I would’ve acted the same way. An ID card with my name and my identical twin’s photo? Unheard of!
“I couldn’t believe it! I felt like I had been waiting for something like that to happen for over 11 years,” said my mom, Justine Hirsch. “It feels so easy for people to mistake who you are in person, but for a bureaucratic error to happen is very surprising. It was bound to happen eventually. It's just really strange that it happened when they have such a strong procedure in place.”
“You know that feeling when you’re so surprised you laugh? That’s what I was feeling,” said my sister, Penelope.
After the incident, I started to wonder if people could really tell us apart. Saige Clark, a 6th grader in Visual Arts, said “Well, now that I have known you for about six-ish years, I can tell you apart like this.” They then proceeded to snap accordingly.
“I can tell you apart easily; I've been able to tell the two of you apart for your whole lives, except for that one time,” my mom said. “I’ve had to explain to people how I can tell you apart for so long it's given me a chance to really think about how I can. Your face is wider, and your sister's face is longer, but only by the tiniest bit. Your facial expressions are very different. You each have unique looks you give, even when your face is at rest. Your voices sound different to me, and your hairstyles have always been slightly different.”
I believe that at first glance, a lot of people can’t tell us apart, but after spending some time with us, it’s easy.
After hearing all this, I decided to try to find out information on the topic of the fake ID. Here’s what I learned:
Memory Makers—the organization that made our student ID cards—has a system for creating these student IDs. When interviewing Thai Nguyen, the president of Memory Makers, he said that “First, we have to acquire the photos that the students take on picture day. Then, using the student's name and info provided from the school, each student checks in by giving our Team their first/last name so we can properly identify who's who. Then, a photographer takes the student's image(s) [and] selects the best image to use. Back in the office, images go through an editing process (color correction, proper cropping, etc.). We load images along with the student data info into our ID software, and finally, the software prints out the ID cards grouped by grade, [alphabetized] by Last Name.”
When asked if a photo and/or name can be switched up accidentally on an ID card, Nguyen said, “This can happen at the check-in process: wrong names given, and/or our Team mixed up their names accidentally (common last names, duplicate names, etc.).”
He went on to give an example. “Sofia Williams and Sophia Williams. Or multiple Luis Garcias, Julie Smiths, etc…”
However, he said that on a rare occasion, the mix-up comes from the students themselves. “Worse is if students do it on purpose—they switch names, they tell us someone else's name since our team doesn't know them... [but this is] VERY rare. The name the student gives us is what we'll match them up with, so there's potential for error if our Team is not diligent.”
So, a variation of my situation has happened before, but to my knowledge, nothing exactly like my circumstance has ever occurred. So, where did that leave me? At this point, my ID card still had Penelope’s face on it.
After a few weeks of telling and retelling my story, Penelope and I were directed into the Student Center, where they were having School Picture Retake Day. After being told that people would be making new ID cards for us – Yay! – Penelope and I worked out a few details. Two people (who I believe were from Memory Makers) showed us our actual pictures, and had to ask us which picture belonged to us. After a few weeks of waiting, we finally had our real student IDs.
Through it all, this journey has taught me that while mistakes might be made, there’s always a good way to correct them (and to make stories out of them).
