High school graduating class includes 17 sets of twins and triplets

Attendees at a Massachusetts high school's graduation ceremony this year may have thought they were seeing double -- or triple -- and they were right.

Among the 2023 graduating class at Westford Academy, a public high school in Westford, Massachusetts, were 16 sets of twins and one set of triplets, according to Daniel Twomey, the school's dean of students.

Twomey told "Good Morning America" that most of the students had attended the school since their freshman year, but no one realized just how many sets of multiple were in the class until their senior year.

"We always knew there were a lot, but we didn't know there was that many," Twomey said. "Nobody actually sat down and counted how many there were until the beginning of the school year when they started to put together the senior yearbook section."

Once school officials and the students themselves realized the senior class of just over 420 students consisted of 17 sets of multiples, they created a special feature in the 2023 yearbook to commemorate what is considered a record number of multiples for the school.

The twins and triplets were also honored at an awards ceremony and at their graduation, which took place on June 3, according to Twomey.

Among them, there are seven sets of identical twins and nine sets of fraternal twins.

Twomey said he watched over their four-year high school career as the sibling sets pushed each other to great heights.

"They were hard-working, academically driven types of students," Twomey said. "I’ve always seen that with twins. There’s a competitive piece to them, so they’re always kind of driving each other, whether it’s sports or academics or curriculars."

Twomey noted that all 35 of the students are planning to attend college in the fall.

"They’re just a great group of kids," he said. "Whether it was academics or their co-curriculars or their sport, they were just a great group. All awesome kids."