@abasket Agreed. And it certainly depends on the school. That wouldn’t fly at any of the schools my D interviewed at or at any where my recent clients have interviewed for scholarships/special programs. Those kids dressed inappropriately (ripped jeans and sneakers is inappropriate) would have not received the scholarship for sure. So I’m curious as to what school this was and am interested in hearing if those students actually won. Making a good impression is important for these things.
That dotted blazer is really cute. I think every woman should have a pair of plain black pants, they are so versatile!
There’s a ton of variation in “business casual” these days, and probably a significant variation between East and West coasts.
Last year I joined a new company and went on a sales call with one of the company’s VPs. I showed up for the customer meeting in slacks and wool blazer, and my VP showed up in jeans.
Slacks were “business casual” at my previous company, but now are replaced with jeans at my new company. Except for women, who never get to wear jeans and really get the short stick in the whole “business casual” definition. Well, they could wear jeans if they wanted but almost never do and tend to dress a notch or two above the men.
Anyway, sounds like OP and her D dressed appropriately while everybody else was under-dressed.
Yes, “business casual” is a huge range overall, but could be a much narrower range at any given organization. Perhaps people have difficulty realizing that their organization’s definition of “business casual” may differ from that of others, so that telling an outsider to “dress business casual” is not very helpful.
For whatever reason, women commonly tend to dress a notch or so dressier than men in workplaces where dress is not specified for functional reasons (e.g. uniforms, protective clothing).
“Except for women, who never get to wear jeans and really get the short stick in the whole “business casual” definition. Well, they could wear jeans if they wanted but almost never do and tend to dress a notch or two above the men.”
This is my daughter’s major complaint with business casual. She tells me I can wear jeans to work, lots of the men do, but none of the women, do so I just don’t feel right doing it. From what she tells me, the women mostly wear nice pants instead of jeans (even if they are just khakis or black jeans.)
Same with footwear. Seems like the men get away with sneakers and the women can’t.
One might argue that “business casual” dress codes are one of the ways in which women (and others) are made to feel like outsiders. I found this to be quite a thought provoking article:
Pinsker: You also talk a lot about the unwritten codes of behavior that can shape who advances and who doesn’t at certain workplaces. What’s an example of how that played out?
Laurison: Probably the best example of this is the television-production firm we studied. The name that we gave to the culture there was “studied informality”—nobody wore suits and ties, nobody even wore standard business casual. People were wearing sneakers and all kinds of casual, fashionable clothes. There was a sort of “right” way to do it and a “wrong” way to do it: A number of people talked about this one man—who was black and from a working-class background—who just stood out. He worked there for a while and eventually left. He wore tracksuits, and the ways he chose to be casual and fashionable were not the ways that everybody else did.