Born minutes apart, the Wade brothers — Aaron, Nick, Zach and Nigel — went viral years ago after the four got accepted to and chose Yale University to attend college. The four were the talk of their Cincinnati suburb of Liberty Township and the nation because of their unique birth and their incredible academic ability. In 2017 they were accepted into 59 universities, including Harvard, Duke, Yale and Stanford, according to People.
The brothers, who were known as “The Quads” in high school and knew all the same people, but branched out on their own in college really developing who they were as individuals.
“We grew up in this town where we had always existed as The Quads or the Wade brothers. But when we got to Yale, it was very much small fish in a big pond,” added Aaron. In Aaron’s explanation, whenever friends and colleagues spoke about them they would mention them by name rather than ‘one of the quadruplets.’
Even though they decided to stick together in New Haven, Connecticut to attend Yale, they only saw one another once or twice a semester — and only once did two brothers share the same class before graduation.
Technically, only three of the brothers, now 22, were able to turn their tassels this spring.
According to “Today,” Nick Wade graduated with a degree in political science, with a minor in Arabic; Zach Wade had a double-major degree in chemical engineering and economics; and Nigel Wade received his degree in molecular, cellular and developmental biology.
Aaron Wade, who shared a ceremonial graduation ceremony with his brothers, will spend one more semester at Yale to complete his senior thesis, Today reported. He is majoring in computer science and psychology.
As they begin this new chapter, the 22-year-old quadruplets, who celebrated their graduation last month at a New Haven pizza restaurant with their parents, are now going their separate ways for post-grad life.
Nick and Zach both got jobs at Goldman Sachs, but Nick will be in New York City and Zach will be in San Francisco.
Meanwhile, Nigel will stay in New Haven for two years to complete a research program in a Parkinson’s disease lab. After that, he plans to apply to medical school.
Aaron will also be in New Haven for one more semester, where he’ll be doing his senior thesis. He officially graduates in December, and already has a job lined up at Google in New York City.
“It feels like an extension of our Yale experience, so I imagine that the frequency with which we see each other will be the same,” Aaron Wade told the Today Show.
Their mother, Kim Wade, a 52-year-old junior high school principal, gave birth to the quads on Jan. 8, 1999 after undergoing fertility treatments. The boys were born two minutes apart and two months premature. Since then, her and her husband have been raising the four with a combination of love, tough love and old school discipline.
When asked what their secret was to raising such successful sons, Darrin simply said: “Lots of push-ups and sit-ups and running. Discipline and structure. It’s my job as a father to be there, to reassure them. Not to coddle them.”
“For a long time, it felt like we were all a singular collective unit of a protagonist in the same show. Now, oh my God. I just get to sit back and flip through the channels in each of my brother’s lives and be like, ‘Whoa, he’s doing this and this,” concluded Aaron.