At the Miss Porter’s School graduation last year, the grads were all given cigars. I personally was not impressed by that tradition!
I’d much prefer gnawing on a carrot to smoking a cigar. No thanks!! 
I still have a photo of my BS graduation. It is me and 3 of my best friends having a beer and a cigar with the head of school in front his house. Colorado had a 3.2% beer law back then and 18 was legal.
They’re not given out by the school at Miss Porter’s, but some of the parents bring them. Same thing happens at Andover. It’s parents, more specifically dads. Not a school-promoted tradition.
I asked D who provides the cigars and she said she didn’t actually know.
^that’s sketchy.
Successfully completing 4 years of boarding school is no small feat. If the students want to smoke a cigar at graduation that is fine by me. Kind of like the idea of the girls participating in that tradition.
A victory cigar, like the ones for NBA Finals winners.
I plan to bring a box of groucho marx glasses to go with the cigars. It would make a great group photo.
^Wish I had thought of that!
@neato, if S1 posts a FB photo wearing groucho marx glasses + cigars, it’ll b because of you!
http://www.zymetrical.com/groucho-glasses-p-800.html
Let’s make it happen!
Considering that smoking cigars often gives me a buzz/makes me nauseous, I hope this does not happen to any of the class of 2015!
Rejected from Northwestern yesterday and waitlisted at Vanderbilt the day before. Glad DS1 had the UVA early action acceptance - it is really good for his mental health right now. 7 schools left to hear from over the next week or so. The scattergrams on Naviance make me wonder about his essays, going to be an interesting week.
@RedSoxFan18 - UVA is amazing - I’d rather live in Charlottesville than Evanston any day. (Husband went to Kellogg - I lived in Evanston for 2 years!) Congrats to your son.
UVA is a great place. The weather is so much better in VA than Northwestern…brrrrr!
RedSoxFan18 quote:
Are you saying Andover didn’t teach the kids how to write good essays?
UVA is awesome and DS is particularly interested the McIntire School of Commerce. I think DS would have a great experience at UVA.
@sanguine12 my comment about the essays is me grasping to understand the results. When I look at the Andover scattergrams DS’s GPA and SAT are significantly better than the average accepted Andover student. Every student with both a higher GPA and SAT was accepted and the vast majority with a higher GPA or SAT was also accepted. Those are the most easy to access comparisons to other students. I read his essays and IMO they were strong, I have not ready any other Andover student’s essay so I no basis for comparison. He gets great reviews from his teachers, which hopefully translates to strong recommendations, and has good ECs. Process of elimination leaves me wondering about the essay. We did visit UVA and UNC, two early action admits. We did not visit Northwestern or Vanderbilt but I have hard time thinking that is a major factor.
@RedSoxFan18: Congratulations on your son’s terrific acceptances. Don’t spend another minute wondering about rejections/waitlists. You’ll never really know the reasons for those decisions. Just like BS admissions, not all schools accept all the “top” applicants who apply for institutional reasons that they never share, so no use guessing. Move on and be happy. UVA and UNC are GREAT choices!
Funny how we never question why our kids were admitted, but that’s an even more interesting question to me. During revisit days at Choate when our son was making his BS decision, Ray Diffley, the director of admissions, told the families gathered in the auditorium that day that Choate saw something “big fish” about each admitted student. The story he told about the “big fish” never left me. During our son’s sophomore year, I told Ray that I had a question for him that I would ask him during our son’s senior year when his BS journey was almost over. I caught him during opening days this year and asked him what Choate saw that was “big fish” about our son, and he didn’t think twice before telling me. You may be very interested in getting that answer about your child from your school’s DoA if s/he will share it.
For the college he chose, the answer was apparent and shared. We did not need to guess.
@RedSoxFan18 If you son’s scores were significantly better, those school might just protecting their acceptance and yield rate.