<p>Hi, I've been looking all around but I haven't been able to find anything about the Grinnell College traditions. So if anyone knows some traditions (like parties, urban myths, or whatever) of grinnell please let me know. Thanks!!</p>
<p>Oh, my goodness; they have so many party traditions that have been going on for years. They have the Mary-Be-James cross-dressing ball (named after a dorm named after a prof, maybe–Mary B. James–or maybe she was a trustee or something. They have a waltz night near the end of each semester, Disco (self-explanatory), another party on day 100 when they get their first paychecks for campus jobs (anyone who wants one can get a job on campus), Block Party at the end of each year, you will get better info from students. I’m just a Mom, but I know the parties are really special.</p>
<p>10/10, Mary Be James, Chains, Drag Show (which is tomorrow, incidentally), etc. We like our parties so much that we have the same ones every year.</p>
<p>10/10 might be the biggest party of the year. It’s held on the Saturday closest to 10/10 for pragmatic reasons. I like to describe it as a bunch of drunk people taking a campus tour. It’s a moving party that starts at North Campus, goes up, over, and back around. The single thing everyone will be talking about the next morning will be “how far did you get”, and they don’t mean with the opposite sex. Most people get tired before the party actually ends, and it’s always tempting to go to your room and sleep when the party gets to your dorm.</p>
<p>Mary Be James is, uh, kind of self-explanatory. It’s a little sketchy, but it’s fun.</p>
<p>Drag Show is like Mary Be James with a runway. It’s less of a party and more of a show, and it’s basically impossible to get seats for it.</p>
<p>Chains is a party where they handcuff people together based on suggestions sent to the party organizers by other students. Both people have to agree to be chained together, but they don’t know who they’re agreeing to be chained to until it happens. It’s kind of funny, but most people don’t actually stay chained more than a few minutes, which kind of ruins it.</p>
<p>Myths? I’ve heard that tons of Grinnellians get married to each other after graduation. I don’t think it’s actually true, though, at least no more than any other college like it.</p>
<p>Also, you didn’t mention it, but catch phrases, or maybe inside jokes, that get brought up a lot on campus: “the train”, “foam machine”, “yellow bikes”, “limestone”, etc. Definitely a big part of campus culture.</p>
<p>See, I knew a student would do a better job on the traditions. I only get little bits of info from my son, but I could tell the parties were a lot of fun. My husband and I were invited to Block Party by our kid senior year (we were there for graduation). 10/10 might be what I was thinking of as 100.</p>
<p>The marriage thing is true of many colleges. Don’t know if the rates for Grinnell are higher than average.</p>
<p>The “100” party you may be thinking of, bethievt, is a party the seniors have every year 100 days before graduation.</p>
<p>Some lesser-known myths might be:
-The secret bomb tunnels underground. Supposedly, if you try to find them, you’ll get expelled. I really don’t think they actually exist, but it’s fun to imagine anyway.
-The shankerbot!!! So, legend has it, some science students made a robot once for a party, and for some reason attached a knife to its arm. The robot proceeded to shank a member of the party, and so the bot was sentenced to the basement of Noyce. This one is actually true, my friends and I found it 
-The theme parties are a HUGE tradition too, of course, but I think the other commenters covered those pretty well.</p>
<p>One year, we visited our son the morning after Mary Be James. He looked like a raccoon from the leftover mascara. Another year he swears he made his own “gown”. Glad I didn’t see that!</p>
<p>There is a really strong network of Grinnell students all over the world. People to visit everywhere. I’m not surprised if there are a lot of marriages among Grinnellians.</p>