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Camila and Mateus Shida, 18-year-old twins from Bastos (SP), were approved at MIT and Cornell after being alphabetized in Portuguese at age 2 inside an oncology hospital, training in knowledge olympiads and Soroban, cell phone only after 15, and one book a day since birth.
The 18-year-old twins Camila and Mateus Shida, born and raised in Bastos, in the interior of São Paulo, have just been approved at two of the most demanding universities on the planet: Camila at MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) and Mateus at Cornell. The twins’ story begins in a pediatric oncology ward in São Paulo, where Camila, diagnosed with leukemia at age 2, spent eight months hospitalized while her mother, a dentist by profession, decided that time would not be wasted: instead of giving screens to hospitalized children, Lucila alphabetized her daughter in the hospital and her son at home with their father, an alphabetization process that resulted in both twins learning to read in Portuguese before age 3 and in English shortly thereafter. The two also collected approvals in Brazil: Camila passed Production Engineering at Poli-USP, Computer Engineering at Unicamp, and Medicine at UFRJ, while Mateus was classified in Mining and Petroleum Engineering at Poli-USP and Electrical Engineering at Unicamp.
What makes the twins’ case exceptional is not declared genius. Mateus laughs when someone suggests they are gifted and summarizes the formula: “The thing was to sit in the chair and study, there was no other way.” The trajectory that led two children from a city known as “Egg Capital” to Ivy League universities was built upon deliberate family decisions: encouragement of reading from birth, prohibition of screens until adolescence, immersion in Bastos’ disciplined Japanese culture, obsessive participation in knowledge olympiads, and a healthy sibling rivalry that transformed each achievement of one into the new standard of expectation for the other.
The twins’ alphabetization in the hospital that changed everything
When Camila was hospitalized at age 2 for leukemia treatment, her mother faced the reality that her daughter would spend months in a hospital environment. In the neighboring beds of pediatric oncology, families resorted to tablets and cell phones to distract the children during treatment, but Lucila chose a different path: origami, drawing, nail painting, and, above all, learning to read. Guided by a doctor friend, the mother began Camila’s alphabetization in the hospital while the father conducted the same process with Mateus at home, ensuring that the twins progressed together despite the physical separation.
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The result was that before turning 3, both were already reading in Portuguese, and shortly after, in English. The twins never attended a language school: Lucila hired three different private tutors, from different cities, two online and one in-person, so that her children would be exposed to varied pronunciations, methodologies, and stimuli. This decision, made when the twins were practically babies, created the linguistic foundation that 16 years later would allow both to write application essays and conduct interviews in English with the confidence of someone who grew up bilingual.
One book a day and cell phone only after 15 years old
The twins’ house in Bastos functioned as a mobile library. The parents spread children’s books around the cribs, and every day, without exception, the children chose a work and listened to the story before bed, a ritual that was maintained throughout their childhood and adolescence. Camila describes herself as passionate about reading. Mateus says he read more than 50 books in a single year during the pandemic, moving between fantasy, science fiction, and romance.
The fuel for this habit was the absence of screens. The twins only received a cell phone when they turned 15, a decision by their mother who replaced digital stimulation with books, board games, and activities that required prolonged concentration, emotional control, and strategy development. Lucila explains that non-electronic games teach children to deal with frustration without the option of simply “moving on to the next,” a persistence training that the twins transferred to everything they did afterward: olympiads, entrance exams, and international applications.
How Soroban and the olympiads took the twins to the world
The twins immersed themselves early in Soroban, the Japanese abacus, a technique that develops absolute concentration and mental speed for calculations. Their dedication was so intense that Mateus would practice up to five hours a day after classes, including on weekends, and the two traveled to compete internationally in Japan and Taiwan, an experience that put children from the interior of São Paulo in competitions with students from all over the world. The influence of Bastos’ Japanese culture, a city founded by Japanese immigrants, was decisive in making Soroban discipline a routine rather than an exception.
Knowledge Olympiads dominated the twins’ adolescence. From Astronomy to Robotics, anything that started with “O” became a target for participation, and since the local school had material limitations for advanced levels, their mother studied the content on her own to be able to teach her children at home. In the final years of elementary school, the twins began receiving remote tutoring from teachers at Colégio Etapa, and in high school, they moved to São Paulo to study in person at the institution with 75% and 100% scholarships, an environment where they found peers who dreamed big and were not content with little.
The healthy rivalry between the twins that raised both their standards
The partnership between Camila and Mateus always came with constructive competition. Mateus explains that when his sister decides to do something, it automatically becomes the new standard of expectation: he performs better when they are both on the same project, a dynamic that served as a driver for mutual overcoming throughout their entire journey. Neither twin wanted to be left behind, and the result was that both rose together instead of one pulling the other down.
The competition extended to the moment of their acceptances. Mateus received his Cornell result while playing at the Bastos club, with bad internet and a wrong password locking up the site, and only confirmed his acceptance at home on the computer. Camila found out about MIT on Pi Day (March 14), alone in São Paulo, when the university’s beaver mascots appeared falling on the screen and she went into shock while her mother screamed on the phone. Two different moments, two intense reactions, and the certainty that the twins who learned to read in an oncology hospital would reach the other side of the world together.
What the twins’ story says about education in Brazil
Camila and Mateus’s journey is not a replicable recipe for every family, but it contains elements that are independent of income or location. Daily reading, screen time limitation, participation in academic competitions, and a family environment where studying is valued are decisions the twins’ parents made in Bastos, a city of 20,000 inhabitants without any international school infrastructure, and which produced results that families in large capitals with much greater resources do not always achieve. The cost of studying at MIT or Cornell can reach US$100,000 per year, but both universities assess the student’s economic condition to offer financial aid according to need.
The twins intend to study engineering in the United States but carry with them the Japanese principle of reciprocity they learned in Bastos. Camila states that she wants to apply what she learns abroad in Brazil, and both have already given voluntary math classes in public schools in the city during their adolescence. The story of the twins who began literacy in an oncology hospital and reached the best universities in the world is not about genius: it is about what happens when a family decides that time, even the most difficult, is never wasted time.
And you, do you think the decision to limit screens and prioritize reading made a difference in the twins’ development? Do you know any similar stories? Leave your opinion in the comments.
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