We don’t have to pay for any tassels, etc, or AP tests for that matter! Feeling grateful. We do pay for the cap and gown, it was pretty cheap.
@Mwfan1921 wow! Tuxes and formals? And this would be in addition to just doing all that for prom? My D17 did have to wear a white dress under her white gown, and it was hard to find something that wasn’t mid thigh or very plunging.
Yes @TS0104 Prom dress was much cheaper, and less fabric LOL!
My D19 goes to a K–12 school, so graduating seniors who have been there all thirteen years get green and grey (the school colors) honor cords, and any student in the district graduating with a 3.5 or higher gets a gold honor cord; the cost for the former is borne by the school, the latter by the district.
Students sit and are called up in alphabetical order by last name (graduating class of 28, so getting everyone in place is feasible), with no separation by academic achievement except that a district-mandated moment of applause for the students with a 3.5 or higher.
Cords and stoles are covered at our school.
We don’t pay for cap, gown, or cords/medals and they are the kids’ to keep. They can wear any normal dress clothes underneath. DD has a Valedictorian medal and Summa Cum Laude medal to wear. She is really impressed by how solid and heavy the Val medal is LOL. Students sit in alphabetical order but stand for applause for cum laude recognition. 54 kids, doesn’t take too long to run through.
Sunday she saw on Instagram that her roommate is a valedictorian too, so that’s cool. I’m taking it as a good sign that they’ll both be serious about their classes. At least from what we can gather they seem similar enough but DD is curious what she is really like.
No caps, no gowns, no tassels, no cords for us…
“Students are asked to wear jackets with ties, white dresses, or white slacks and tops.”
I am happy that our HS uses caps and gowns as it will be the only time my boys will wear one most likely. Their college wears white dinner jackets and black pants .
I paid for an NHS stole ($25!), D received summa cords compliments of the school district. I guess I paid for it with my taxes, LOL. Our HS had the most summas out of all of the high schools in the district, about 140 kids. There are almost 900 kids in the class. The ceremony took quite a long time, as each summa kid got to speak 50 words or less about a teacher they were honoring. It was a pretty neat ceremony.
I paid for cap, tassel, and gown but only bought those items ala carte, I didn’t pay for a big package of stuff that they were trying to sell the kids.
I heard of Project Repat (why is it called that?) only because it shows up on my Instagram feed. Must be because I follow Grown & Flown or something.
I think cap and gown are included in the senior dues. I don’t know, S19 didn’t order one and I just hope one magically appears after the first graduation rehearsal when they hand them out. If not, I guess he doesn’t go to graduation. There was no communication at all with parents about it and it escaped Capt. ADHD’s notice. Some lucky kid may get his tickets and those things are a premium! I finally sent an email to the class sponsor to see if graduation is still a go.
He has a cord from music honor society that was probably paid from dues. I don’t think there is a cord for “honors” or “scholars” or whatever they call the kids who graduate with over a weighted 4.0. (I also don’t know if he will reach that threshold despite starting senior year with a 3.95!) This is usually about 20 to 25% of the class.
@bjscheel Congratulations!! Congratulations to @Curiosa as well.
Because the HS messed up with the cap and gown order (it’s the first year in its almost 150 year history that the HS is graduating with cap and gown) it is being provided free of charge to all seniors. Since this is the first time, I do not know if they even have any idea as to whether and what cords or stoles or anything to add.
As for colors, Midd’s are boring blue and white, while the HS’s are orange (sorry, BURNT orange) and navy. Since those are the same as UIUC’s where my wife and I went to grad school, we are well aware how much this combination clashes with almost every decent color out there (especially with the royal blue trim of our hoods).
Since we got to choose our own colors, my daughters came up with Tardis blue and gold. Haverford has red and black, I think? Which is fine if not anyone’s favorite in our family.
@milgymfam Dr. Who fans?
For graduation, we paid for the cap and gown, but we don’t have to pay for any tassels, cords, etc.
I think S19 will accept all AP credit he can get, unless there’s a special honors version of a class, in which case he may retake in the honors section. My S11 (CS through an engineering department) took everything he was entitled to and did not regret any of it. My S14 (Mechanical Engineering) declined credit for BC Calc but took the credit for everything else (including AB Calc) and was satisfied with that choice as well. I don’t think it would have hurt him to take the BC credit as well, but he felt more comfortable being conservative.
S19’s HS requires students to take the AP exam or else the course goes on their transcript as Honors instead of AP. So he ended up having to take one exam (Physics 1) which he knew he would get no credit for. Needless to say, not a lot of effort went into preparing for that one.
He’s not sure if he’s going to prom or not. He’s not really into that kind of thing. Tickets are free due to strong fundraising by his class junior year, but he’s still not sure he wants to. He probably will if his friends are going.
Btw, I’ve been away for a while but the final decision was University of Pittsburgh, School of Computing and Information (and Honors college). In the end, he narrowed his choice down to Pitt or University of Waterloo for co-op Math and Computer Science and both were strong contenders, but very different. In the end I think Pitt will be a great fit for him. (Interestingly, Northeastern, which seemed to be the compromise between the 2 extremes, was ruled out much more quickly.) Any other Panther parents here?
Congratulations on your son’s decision! We’ll be looking at UPitt next year for D20.
@MWolf it will be interesting to see. Yes, a “D” on a final would feel like well, a D to him. He doesn’t mind calc…but doesn’t necessarily love it either. Testing out of (and getting credit for) both project based calc classes would be nice. If he does not, I am not sure if he will want to take the credit for project calc I and start at II or, take I so to be well prepared for both.
@ninakatarina you can do those through project repat for reasonable prices and coupon codes. I have one on the way (may arrive today) with shirts of my fathers. He passed away last June and I took enough tees to make a quilt. Offered to do one for DS but he wasn’t interested. I had a coupon, it was under $100 plus shipping the tees to them so “maybe” $100 all in but I think it was less.
I see others mentioned it.
Colors…HS is green and gold, college is Orange and black because well, tigers. I love the orange but it is ORANGE!
Poor S17 has the same colors for college as he did for HS! Green and Gold. I’m personally a fan of purple and gold…even though not one of 4 kids will be wearing it.
@milgymfam D19 is a huge Dr Who fan and has been for years. We have more dr who mugs than any normal family should have, she has a tardis blanket, a tardis onesie…
Apparently the kids want to have the pre-prom get together at our house. Quite pleased about that 
@peachActuary73, huge Doctor Who fans. My license plate is actually TMELADY (I love Missy too much) with a don’t blink plate frame, and my girls have tardis blue lockers for their school stuff. Ha.
I now have a high school graduate! There were only 5 seniors at the homeschool graduation, and 9 students total (including one absolutely adorable kindergarten graduate), so the ceremony was short, sweet, and wonderful. We ended up with twenty-five people in our hotel suite for the open house, which almost got us kicked out of the hotel, but it was an amazing time. We were so happy that people traveled so far for her special day.
Sounds like it was a great time @milgymfam, congrats! it’s nice so many people came to her party.
@milgymfam a don’t blink frame! I need to get one for D19! Did you find it online?
The day sounds like it was wonderful.