During commencement, graduating students, faculty, and administrators dress up in academic regalia. Here is what I’ve learned about the regalia for those whose top degree is a Ph.D.:

1. The velvet robes are specific to the university from which you graduate. If you are graduating and staying in academia, it can be useful to purchase your outfit instead of renting it, as you will probably use it for future graduation ceremonies. Purchasing will allow you to have the correct regalia in those ceremonies. However….

2. Many professors/administrators never purchased their regalia. They rent them every time they need them. While your university may make a token effort to rent you robes similar to the ones in which you graduated, they are rarely perfect.

3. When you are graduating, you wear your robe and hat (called a doctoral tam) to start the ceremony. After your name is called and you walk across the stage, there is a hooding ceremony in which someone (typically your advisor) attaches your hood over your robes.

4. The color of the hood is specific to your discipline, with the caveat that everyone that receives a “Doctorate of Philosophy” gets blue. As such, most people get blue. If you are getting a doctorate of pharmacy/education/nursing/medicine/etc., your hood will be a different color.

Here is a picture of me on stage, shaking hands with Dr. McRobbie, president of IU. Note that I am carrying my hood still at this point and that Dr. McRobbie’s robes are different because he did not graduate from IU:

Here is a picture of my advisor hooding me after I walked across the stage: