what schools DON'T have female MS grads in white dresses?

[Anonymous]

Seeing a friend's pictures on social media of Norwood 8th grade graduation today, and the girls-in-white-dresses thing is not sitting right. I get that it's a private school tradition in these parts, and I generally love traditions, including dressing up for occasions, etc, but this one just feels off in this day and age. Do people explain the tradition of dressing teen girls in white to their DDs or just hope no one asks??

This is probably sticking in my craw particuarly because we have been thinking of applying to Norwood for MS (from a public ES) and it seems great in so many ways, but this debutante dress color thing just underscores my one or two deeper concerns about the place--that it's too country club/cotillion for us, and also kind of old fashioned wrt gender. Making kids dress "boy or girl" even on one day just feels weirdly at odds with what everyone claims to be about nowadays.

I can understand having a dress code so that things look special, but can't it be more along the lines of orchestra dress codes, where they say "black pants/skirt and white shirt OR black dress"? So the graduation version could be: "pants + jacket/white shirt OR dress, if dress please choose white or school color" or some such?

What if any schools have moved onto something a little more 21st century?

[Anonymous]

It just looks pretty and may be sentimental to mother's who attended such schools.

All grad gowns and mortar boards are dumb. Most of them are pale imitations of the medieval clothes they evolved from. And now they are made out of stuff so terrible it can't even be called cloth.

[Anonymous]

I wouldn't worry about it. I went to a super crunchy middle school and then a traditional boarding school (in the NE), and they both did the same thing. Girls could wear anything white though, as long as it was event appropriate. I think I wore a flow-y pants suit or something. You also were totally allowed to follow the boys' color scheme if you wanted, it just wasn't all that common. This was obviously awhile ago, so I'd guess the traditions are even less stringent now.

[Anonymous]

The ones with US tend to save it for the real graduation.

[Anonymous]

Hate to break it to you, but many women wear white dresses for college graduation.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Hate to break it to you, but many women wear white dresses for college graduation.

This. They aren’t asked to wear white dresses at our k-8 - just to dress up for the occasion- but most still do and often those who don’t wear a white dress will wear a white pants suit or jumpsuit.

[Anonymous]

We wore white dresses for (public school) HS graduation because the caps and gowns were white for Turks and red for boys (school colors) so other colored dresses would show through the white gowns. I didn’t even know it was a tradition with any kind of history to it.

[Anonymous]

Also my kid at Burke (6-12) had an 8th grade “moving up” ceremony and the kids wore dressed up outfits but no cohesive color scheme. I don’t think there were any plain white dresses, though some with white backgrounds and small patterns.

[Anonymous]

Op here. Part of what I am reacting to in the Norwood photos is that there isn’t any deviation from “boys in blue jackets girls in white dresses” that I can see. If there was even one girl in a blue jacket or white pant suit I would find it so much less repelling.

[Anonymous]

Friends Community School is a K-8 that (as of last year) only required 8th graders to “dress nicely” for graduation. There was a wide range of colors and styles.

[Anonymous]

I agree with you. Very weird tradition

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Hate to break it to you, but many women wear white dresses for college graduation.

Ew! Where?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Hate to break it to you, but many women wear white dresses for college graduation.

Ew! Where?

Everywhere. I am struggling to think of a college grad picture with an other than white dress under the gown in the past several years.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Seeing a friend's pictures on social media of Norwood 8th grade graduation today, and the girls-in-white-dresses thing is not sitting right. I get that it's a private school tradition in these parts, and I generally love traditions, including dressing up for occasions, etc, but this one just feels off in this day and age. Do people explain the tradition of dressing teen girls in white to their DDs or just hope no one asks??

This is probably sticking in my craw particuarly because we have been thinking of applying to Norwood for MS (from a public ES) and it seems great in so many ways, but this debutante dress color thing just underscores my one or two deeper concerns about the place--that it's too country club/cotillion for us, and also kind of old fashioned wrt gender. Making kids dress "boy or girl" even on one day just feels weirdly at odds with what everyone claims to be about nowadays.

I can understand having a dress code so that things look special, but can't it be more along the lines of orchestra dress codes, where they say "black pants/skirt and white shirt OR black dress"? So the graduation version could be: "pants + jacket/white shirt OR dress, if dress please choose white or school color" or some such?

What if any schools have moved onto something a little more 21st century?

It's a widespread thing, not just here.

If you go to bloomingdales.com, search on "dresses for women", and then filter for Occasion as "Graduation", 95% of what is returned is white.

I think it's a nice, cohesive thing for proper graduations. For 8th grade promotion, my DD may or may not wear white.

[Anonymous]

At my kids private there is no official dress code set by the school but all the girls agreed to wear white dresses. I had never heard of it, so I don’t have any associations with it. It seemed a bit weird but whatever