HULL - Seven minutes and .008 grade points separate 17-year-old twins Raven and Jade Dunstan - which makes Raven older, but Jade number one in their senior class at Hull High School.
Not that they’re competing or anything.
“We compete even in gym class,’’ Jade confessed in a recent interview. “Whenever we have a team sport, one of us has to win. [If I’m] goalie, I never let any goals get by when it’s Raven [shooting]. It works out pretty well.’’
Last month, the school district recognized the girls’ achievements by presenting each of them with the Massachusetts Association of School Superintendents Academic Excellence award.
Superintendent Kathleen Tyrell had to get special permission to give two awards. The school was limited to one because of its small size - there are 82 in the graduating class - but Tyrell successfully argued that Raven’s and Jade’s accomplishments were too close to call only one a winner.
“I am very proud of them,’’ said their mother, Kowsillia Dunstan, who emigrated from Guyana in 1982. She said she came to this country with her family “for betterment’’ and met her husband, Bradley, while both worked at a shop in Hingham. Neither graduated from college.
“I stress that it is very important for them to have a good education,’’ Kowsillia Dunstan said. “You have a chance of having a better job and a better life, and I wanted them to have that.’’
Bradley Dunstan, who grew up in Hanson and spray-paints fabricated metal for a company in Randolph, said the girls never needed to be pushed to work hard. In fact, he said he and his wife sometimes suggested they take fewer Advanced Placement classes and stop studying and go to sleep.
“They are so busy between working, volunteering, and all their AP classes; they are amazing at time management,’’ he said. “We have been so blessed. Parents come up and say, ‘I wish I had one child doing as well,’ and for us to have two - they make us look really good.’’
Dunstan credited the Hull schools - and his wife’s full-time mothering - for his daughters’ success.
“We don’t make a lot of money, but we found we didn’t need that to raise the kids right. We found if you’re there for them, pay attention, show up at school events, let them know you’re interested and that you’re watching - good things happen.
“I think they’re going to reach for the stars,’’ he said.
The girls are busy now with college applications, and they’re shooting high. Raven’s list includes Harvard, Brown, Yale, and Georgetown, as well as Boston College, New York University, Boston University, Vanderbilt, University of Massachusetts Amherst, and other schools with good pre-med programs. She wants to be a doctor.
Jade, who wants to be a veterinarian, is looking at Tufts, Harvard, and BC, among other schools. “I always liked animals; I’ve never been able to have them around the house because my sister is allergic. I’m not,’’ she said.
The girls are fraternal twins, and an allergy to animals isn’t their only difference. Jade is taller with straighter hair and, she says, a more serious personality. Raven is bubblier and tends to stay up later finishing her homework. As children, Jade was the tomboy and Raven the girly-girl, according to their parents.
And for their Jan. 6 birthday, their mother would bring a vanilla cake into school for Jade, and a chocolate one for Raven.
They both took three AP classes as juniors and are taking four this year, although Raven is doing AP Spanish and Jade is taking an AP French class online.
Raven is on the student council; Jade was elected to the homecoming court. Both girls volunteer at the Wellspring thrift shop in town and work about nine hours a week at Weinberg’s Bakery. Both girls like to read, and to visit their grandparents, who live upstairs in their duplex home.
The girls say having a twin helps cut down on academic pressure because although they constantly compete, they also cooperate. “Raven generally helps me with the math, and I’m better at sciences, so I help her out with that,’’ Jade said.
She said their older brother, Bradley, a college student who wants to be a veterinarian, set an example of studying hard and doing well. “We’d always try to match him, or do better,’’ she said.
And some teachers have been inspiring, the girls said. History teacher Mark Galligan encourages students to do their best and not worry about grades. Jeffrey Fuller teaches English, but also how to balance serious learning and having a good time, Jade said.
Raven said geometry teacher Edwin Menon is known for telling students, “Don’t be a pigeon, be an eagle. Don’t settle for the ground, try to soar.’’
Fuller said he has the girls in separate classes this year and they’re “energetic, outgoing, everything you would want in an Advanced Placement student. They enjoy giving each other a hard time. But Jade did write her college essay about her sister and the healthy competition they have with each other. What I appreciate about them is they really appreciate each other and, as the students would say, they definitely have each other’s back.’’
Both girls said they liked the atmosphere at Hull High School and its small size.
“Everybody knows everybody,’’ Jade said. “If it were a bigger school, more people would call me Raven. But most people have figured it out by now.’’
Johanna Seltz can be reached at seltzjohanna@gmail.com.