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Commencement Attire

The ceremonial clothing for your big day. A custom fit to mark the occasion. This outfit means celebrating you and the biggest academic milestone you’ve reached yet.

Your outfit consists of a robe, cap, tassels, cords (if applicable) and a stole of gratitude. The gown you’ll wear is a lightweight black gabardine robe, with braided crimson piping. Graduates will also wear a cap adorned with the tassel from the school they’re graduating from.

Apparel orders are now closed, see this page for more information.

Returning Apparel

Graduates, please disregard the return information on the red card in your apparel package, and use this information instead to return your apparel:

After the ceremony, graduates must return apparel in the mailer provided by Herff Jones by May 31. Failure to return apparel may result in a fine.

All Associates and Bachelor students need to return their gown, they will keep their cap, tassel, and stole.
All Master and Doctorate students need to return their gown and hood, they will keep their cap/tam and tassel.

Types of Gowns

A young female graduate wearing her undergraduate gown and mortarboard, with both IU's stole of gratitude, the Neal Marshall Black Culture Center kente stole, and honor cords.

Bachelor’s and Associate Gowns

The bachelor’s and associate gowns have a closed front and open sleeves.

Candidates for bachelor’s and associate degrees also receive a crimson Stole of Gratitude, embellished with the Indiana University seal, which they wear during the ceremony.

A male graduate student from the Kelley School of Business, wearing master's graduation attire, waves to the audience. The unique style of his gown's sleeve is on display.

Master’s Gowns

The master’s gown has extra long, closed sleeves, with a small opening at the wrist. The end of the sleeve is square, with an arc cut away just above the bottom.

A female doctoral student, with her hair modestly covered, wears the velvet gown, tam, and doctoral hood accented with School of Medicine kelly green.

Doctoral Gowns

The doctoral gown has velvet panels down the front and voluminous, bell-shaped sleeves. Each sleeve has three velvet bars. The velvet is usually black, but may reflect the color of the discipline.

Tassel & Hood Colors

Honor Cords & Criteria

Doctoral Hooding

Questions? Get in touch with our Commencement team for help.

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