Gabriella (from left), Zoe, and Maya Rice spent their first couple of years at Boston University developing their own social circles and interests. Now, as the identical triplets face divergent paths after Commencement, they are celebrating their shared history.

Commencement 2024

For These Identical Triplets, BU Was a Chance to Stand Apart as Individuals

But Gabriella, Zoe, and Maya Rice still made the most of their time together before Commencement

When Maya, Zoe, and Gabriella Rice decided they’d all be heading to Boston University after high school, they wanted to set some boundaries before coming to campus. First and foremost: they’d live separately, make their own (separate) friend groups, and likely study different (ahem, separate) subjects. These rules were important because the sisters, identical triplets, were always simply referred to as “the triplets” from elementary school onward. 

“We were known as this unit,” says Gabriella (CAS’24). “We didn’t want to be a unit in college; we wanted to be our own people.” 

So instead, they sought to forge their own paths, discovering new facets of themselves in the process. And then eventually, they swung back around to each other. Now, on the eve of graduation, the Rice sisters are facing a summer when they’ll each be in a different part of the country, truly separate for perhaps the first time. 

“I was the main proponent in high school for saying that we’re all doing different things in college,” says Maya (CAS’24), “but now I’m crying all the time, being like, ‘Can we all call each other?’”

Maya, who graduates with a biology major, is staying in the Boston area over the summer to work as a medical assistant at a local healthcare facility. Gabriella, an art history major, will head to Martha’s Vineyard to serve as assistant curator of the exhibition Rising Up! at the Featherstone Center for the Arts. After that, she’s headed to Venice for a Peggy Guggenheim Collection internship—a program designed for students in art, art history, or related disciplines who are interested in gaining firsthand experience of how a museum is run and familiarity with an important collection of modern art. Then in the fall she’ll enter New York University to earn a master’s degree in art history. And Zoe (CGS’22, CAS’24), who will graduate with a major in European studies, is off to Washington, D.C., where she plans to land an internship at a think tank. 

“I’m a little nervous, I’m not going to lie,” Maya says, “because if I had a bad day or a bad week, I’d just text Zoe and Gabriella and say we should get dinner this week. But now we’re all going to be in different areas. I think it’ll be weird to hear about their lives and not immediately know about like, ‘Oh that thing you did on Friday? I remember.’”

Being “the triplets”

Maya, Zoe, and Gabriella each describe—in sometimes overlapping voices that hint at their two-plus decades of being this unit—the shorthand that their peers and teachers used to use at home in Golden Valley, Minn., a suburb of Minneapolis. 

“I think, because we all do look alike, and we went to the same schools and took the same classes, it was really easy for people to make comparisons,” says Zoe. “You’re just always aware of this sense of competition because of these comparisons—like, who gets the best grades, or who’s the most athletic. It was hard in that respect. People couldn’t always tell us apart so they would rely on these random identifiers.” 

“Even now,” Gabriella adds, “certain people will ask us, ‘Well, what’s your thing?’” And though she knows the question is usually meant as a good-natured (if awkward) way of getting to know her, it sometimes sounds like, “‘I can’t tell you apart so tell us how your personalities are different,’” she says.

This unspoken competition to differentiate bled into their self-perceptions, too, Maya says. It’s hard, after all, not to compare something like ACT scores when you’ve all taken the same test at the same time, under the same conditions and with instruction from the same teachers.

So, at BU, the sisters ventured to establish separate lives and interests. Maya recalls, for example, realizing that her labmates in one class didn’t even know she was a triplet. They each found space to be themselves, which proved to be refreshing. 

Still, even on a densely populated urban campus of more than 17,000 undergraduates, three identical faces were bound to draw some attention. 

“I can’t tell you how many times I was stopped on the street by someone who thought I’m one of my sisters,” Maya says. 

“Or the worst was when someone would just wave and stare,” Gabriella says, and her sisters nod in agreement. “Because in those cases, I’ll have to try to figure out, OK, do I know this person? No. So, then do they look like someone who might know Zoe or Maya?”

“Sometimes we’d text our group chat with, like, ‘a person with dark curly hair just said hi—who knows them?’” Zoe says of the sisters’ shared text thread.

“You’re aware there are three, right?”

An accomplished chamber musician and a cellist in the Minnesota Orchestra, Katja Linfield remembers the exact moment she learned she was having triplets. 

During a fairly routine prenatal test, the technician asked, “You’re aware there are three, right?”

“I said, ‘Three what?’” Linfield recalls, with a laugh. “It was a total surprise, called spontaneous triplets when there’s no family history. It really took everyone by surprise, including the doctor.”

Throughout her daughters’ childhood and adolescence, Linfield saw their attempts to differentiate themselves, and the fraught competition that was fostered from their closeness. But she also saw their laughter and joy, the inside jokes only the three of them share—an entire language unto themselves. 

“Like any siblings, they love each other dearly and they argue a lot. But when push comes to shove, they’re always there for each other,” she says. Her daughters’ time together at BU “has been nice for psychological support. They still found their own independent style of being, and their own confidence, and that’s been really good for them. They’re all very different from each other, even if you can’t tell when they’re at a table yammering away.” 

When it came time for her daughters to apply to colleges, Linfield was already worried about their graduations—what if they all fell on the same day, but in three different places? Gabriella applied only to BU, for the early decision 1 deadline. Maya applied to two schools, including BU for early decision 2. And Zoe applied to three schools, BU for regular decision among them. When they all accepted at BU, Linfield was relieved—and then immediately got on the phone with the Financial Aid office. The University offered a generous package, she says. 

Her daughters being at the same school “made visiting them really easy!” she says. And, it was a chance to revisit her old stomping grounds: Linfield grew up in Belmont, Mass., and studied at the New England Conservatory as part of her master’s degree. 

A new chapter

Despite their initial insistence on staying separate, the sisters found their way back to each other at BU. 

“I think we did eventually embrace being able to be our own people, even when we’re together,” Zoe says. 

“And I think we have spent more time together this year than before, since we know we’re all going different places soon,” Maya adds. “It’s honestly been fun because we get to hang out as adults now.” 

Still, the time spent learning about themselves was important, even necessary. At BU, the three had time to develop their own opinions about the world and their place in it. They leaned into their individual interests—Maya found a running community and fellow premed peers to engage with; Zoe found new meaning in a faith-based community as well as classmates to discuss politics with; and Gabriella found her passion among the works of great artists and creatives. 

“My perfect day would be going to a café and then spending hours in a museum,” Gabriella says. “Actually, I tried to do that with Maya, and she got annoyed immediately.” 

Some things never change. 

Come Commencement, all three Rice sisters will be on Nickerson Field (in the same place and at the same time—a relief to Linfield), then bound off to begin the next chapter in their lives.

“It’s mind-blowing!” Linfield says as graduation approaches. “I’m really living vicariously through them—three completely different career paths is really cool. As far as the actual ceremony, though? I’m a blubberer, so I know I’ll be crying.”