They're identical twins who studied the same subjects, attended the same school and both decided to wait for their VCE results to arrive in the mail.
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And on Tuesday afternoon, as Nathan and Nicholas Cheng sat on the couch in their Doncaster home and nervously opened the letters containing their results, an extraordinary thing happened.
The twins discovered they had received the same ATAR of 99.85.
"It was absolutely bizarre," Nathan says.
"It was one of those things you can only imagine. We just laughed. It was phenomenal."
The twins have been named Marcellin College's joint dux for 2015 and hope to study either law at Monash University or arts at the University of Melbourne next year.
It's the first time in the Bulleen Catholic school's 65-year history that twins have been named dux.
The twin brothers hope their identical results put an end to an irritating question they are often asked — "who is smarter?"
"We are definitely equal," Nathan says. "We feel so proud of each another."
The twins both studied Economics, English, Global Politics, Legal Studies and History Revolutions. English Language and Psychology were the only subjects they took separately.
They both scored a perfect score of 50 in VCE English — an incredible feat considering they were selectively mute until they were seven.
"We were born with some inner self doubt," Nathan says. "We spoke Cantonese at home but didn't speak at school until the start of Grade 2. We were anxious about speaking with other people."
Unlike most year 12 students, the 18-year-olds chose to receive their results via old-fashioned snail mail. They said it "felt more authentic" than a text message.
"It has been extremely rewarding to see it on a piece of paper. It seems more authentic. You have more control when you open the mail," Nicholas says.
Nicholas says the secret to their VCE success was not being too focused on the end result, and having a life outside study.
"There's never a limit to education and learning," he says.
The twin brothers love dancing and dealt with the stress of VCE by taking part in ballet, tap and hip hop classes and competitions.
The phenomenon of twins receiving the same ATAR may be more common than you think.
The Age's senior writer Jason Dowling also had an eerie coincidence with his twin brother Travis when they received their results in the mail in 1989.
"My twin brother Travis and I were a little anxious as we had been "modest" students at Euroa High School," he says.
"After torturing our poor mum by leaving the envelopes on the table for too long, we opened them. For one glorious hour I had a higher score than my brother - until he worked out he had added his up wrong (modest students). We ended up with the exact same score."
