At my high school everyone wore royal blue and they were owned by the school. The top kid in every class was awarded in a speech by the teacher of that class.

When I graduated last year the girls wore white gowns and the boys wore black ones, but that was changed just this year to black gowns for everybody. We were not allowed to wear our NHS tassels as far as I know but I didn't want to anyways because they weren't nearly as nice-looking as the ones everyone got that had our school colors in them. The top ten got to sit on the stage but the rest of us were seated alphabetically. I'll see this Friday if anything else has changed because MY LITTLE BROTHER IS GRADUATING AND I AM NOT EMOTIONALLY PREPARED FOR THIS.

Good gosh, I'm not THAT old!!!! :p

We had the guys in gold, the girls in white. We had honor cords which weren't knotted for the 3.5 GPA, knotted once for 3.75, and knotted twice for 4.0 and above.

At my small public school, we rented our gowns - white for girls, maroon for boys. My husband wore black at his high school graduation, also at a public school.

What I find fascinating is that at the majority of the private schools here, the girls wear long white ball gowns, almost like debutante dresses. It is apparently a long standing tradition with the majority of schools.

We wore school colors, differentiated by boys and girls, and my kids' school does the same. They had a classmate who died right before sophomore year, and they draped an empty chair with an orange gown, which was his favorite color.

I know Southfield Public Schools has the genders wear the school's colors.

But when I graduated out of the Plano Independent School District (this applies to all 3 high schools btw), our robes were the school's primary color and we all wore the same color. So, I graduated in maroon with 1300 other people.

I wish it was black, though, to save the cost of buying a new college one!

Touches like that are what makes the day.

The principal asked those in our class who had scholarships to stand. We all looked around, no one wanted to be the first to stand. Then suddenly, the guy who was graduating LAST in the class of over 700 people stood up! I doubt that he'll ever hear so much applause again!

My HS did boys in red, girls in white. Everyone had the same tassels, stoles/cords/medals differentiated the other things. Mine is still in my closet at home

The thing about caps and gowns: is there a person alive who looks good in a mortar board?

LOL. No, it's just that while I've seen pictures of guys and girls in different color robes (with the guys usually in a darker color and girls in white), I've never seen it IRL. It seems to have died out around here the middle of the last century. I just didn't realize it was still common other places.

Now, I am used to seeing the girls wear collars, like this:

http://sav-cdn.com/sites/default/fil...rialDay4_0.jpg

I graduated from a public high school. Boys wore black gowns and girls wore white. Our tassels were red and black (school colors) and National Honor Society members wore gold cords. Graduation was held in the gym, but a few years later was moved outside to the football stadium. It's been there ever since.

Graduated in '96. Everyone wore blue gowns, the school's primary color. We rented the gowns and were glad to return them afterward. I remember that they were thick material, maybe nicer gowns than the one I had in college. NHS members had gold cords, valedictorian/salutatorians had special cords, as well.

We had a separate night for honoring awards, so no special recognition of scholarships, "scholars" awards or things of that nature during the ceremony itself.

Many of the schools in the Chicago area just do their school colors, usually all the same color, which is good cause I also hate the different color thing. WTF is the point of that? I went to an all girls private school and we did the same thing. Our school colors were red and white so we went all white--I thought we looked really nice.

A lot of the $$$$$$$$ private schools (not mine, lol) did the ball gown/tux thing though. I'm personally not a fan. It seems off to me.

I went to a private, Catholic high school. We all graduated in royal blue gowns. The girls wore gold collars like the ones in the picture MC posted. NHS wore a medallion on a gold ribbon. We returned the gowns, but got to keep the hats. I don't remember if we had to pay a rental fee. One of the other Catholic schools in the area is all-boys and they wore tuxedos with white dinner jackets and red roses on their lapels (I'm talking about Chaminade for those of you from NY - it's fairly well known). I think one of the all-girls schools did white gowns.

So true - they're awful!