Class rings probably have gone out of style because where you went to high school isn’t really important anymore. Most people go to college, so high school is just a stepping stone. In fact, it might look worse to have a HS ring because the implication would be that you didn’t go onto college. Maybe in the past it was more prestigious to let people know you were a HS grad, but now it’s not so important.
At my kid’s high school you can’t just buy a letter jacket, it has to be earned with your second varsity letter. We had to pay a bit but not much for a very good quality jacket.
My daughter has also been awarded one from her university (yes, she is an athlete). This one was entirely paid for by the university.
Rings were the rage when I was in HS (70’s) but none of my kids have expressed any interest in them.
Rings were out by at least 1995 in my area. They still sold them and some kids got the cheep ones as a trinket to throw in a box with their dance pictures and stuff. I still see jackets around town quite a bit.
I didn’t want a ring. Since my brothers had both gotten one, my parents gave me the money one would have cost. I got a letter without a jacket in college; it didn’t cost anything and I’m not sure if I moved it out of my parents’ house. Our older son is a senior and I don’t remember seeing anything about rings. Younger son looks like he’s about to make a team, so we should see later this year whether they offer jackets.
In the spirit of the courts overruling the Stolen Valor Act, what if a kid buys (or even sews) his own? Does the school make him take it off?
(He can certainly wear it around town, i.e., not on school property. Do dress codes give the school enough authority for them to enforce the monopoly on letter jackets on school grounds?)
Around here its sports, band, chorus, pep squad, school clubs and just anyone with a pulse and the bucks to afford one. A lot of the kids get the jacket as freshmen or sophomores and don’t get the letter (if any) until senior year.
I got a college ring in 1982. My modern poetry prof always wore his Harvard ring to class. He had studied there with Robert Lowell and really made Yeats, Eliot, Pound, Auden, etc. come alive for me.
Neither of our rings are the enormous Zircon paperweights. Simple gold bands with the university coat-of-arms on the face.
Mine is in a box on my dresser along with a variety of broken watches, tie-pins, and other miscellanea.
Little Pianola, my daughter, graduated Yale in 2012, thirty years after I did. I asked her if she wanted a class ring, and she said “What the fuck for?”
Yea, my school’s band alone was larger than all the sports teams put together, and was maybe a quarter of the school population. Band letters were notoriously easy to get, so there were a lot of letter jackets out there.
They did differentiate the sports letters and the arts letters (one was gold, the other black, our school colors), but pretty much nobody cared which you wore. Plenty of people got the jackets without the letter anyway. They were super warm and comfy.
I was a total näif starting high school, so I bought a ring, but I wised up quick and didn’t pay class “dues” or any of the other stuff.
The payoff: I didn’t want the ring any more a few years back and sold it at one of those “We buy gold” stores. It cost $65 in 1978, I got $100.
Econ majors: please refrain from harshing my buzz.
In college I think only people in greek societies got rings.
I was one of the few who did not get a HS class ring, Class of 65. I was going to the Maritime Academy after HS so no HS class ring. But I did get a class ring Class of 1970E. Then it was a big deal. Dunked in the water from the 7 seas before I put on my finger. Big tradition.
I understand the rings are still popular at the service academies; West Point, Annapolis, Air Force, VMI, The Citadel, Norwich, and Texas A&M. But I suspect that’s mostly so after they’re commissioned graduates can subtly tap their ring on a desk top to let lesser humans know “Hey, I’m a PROFESSIONAL officer, not OCS or ROTC scum like you.” Those types are referred to as “ring knockers”.
My kids graduated in 2010 and 2015. Neither of them wanted rings. Both of them got letterman jackets. One for drama and the other for orchestra.
At least at A&M, the rings are still a huge deal among the non-Corps students. I also suspect Virginia Tech (the school you left out of the service academies and senior military colleges) is much the same as A&M with respect to non-ROTC students getting class rings.
And yes, the Corps of Cadets at A&M, VT, Norwich, VMI and the Citadel are all ROTC cadets; just ones with better Federal funding and more ability to go active-duty after graduation.
Only the 3 service academies (West Point, Annapolis, USAF Academy) aren’t ROTC.
I don’t think that has anything to do with it, since college class rings are equally unpopular (if not more so). I think it’s more that people now realize that the ring designs that Jostens and their ilk have been shitting out for decades are hideous and it’s just too expensive to get a non-ridiculous one made.
I had a hs class ring but never wore it once I graduated. I have no idea what became of it. I was a female jockette in hs and earned sports letters and year patches. We were given the jacket to sew them on as a gift from the alumni association, but since it was a men’s jacket, it didn’t fit very well and I never wore it.
I did get a class ring in college, but it’s not the standard design. It’s a 14-k gold signet-type ring with the college logo surrounded by a ring of diamonds. The graduation year is on the band. I wear it on my pinkie finger and have done so ever since I got it.
Neither of my kids wanted hs class rings or college class rings, but both had - and wore - hs and college letter jackets.
Except for MIT ones. Most grads I know have one. In fact I sat next to a guy who was writing a mystery where one of the clues was an MIT ring - and mine was the first real one he saw.
I think the distinctive design has something to do with it.
I got a high school ring in 05. I’m not even sure why I did, to be honest. The company showed up at school and classes for seniors were cut so that we could specifically go peruse the goods. Does the school get a kickback? Otherwise those sorts of accommodations for a third party seem a bit odd, looking back. Everyone wanted one, though not everyone could afford even the cheapie $60 ones. Our public school was considered a very good school and the honors and AP kids were extremely preppy, too, which probably contributed to this.
I liked my ring, but in an abstract way. It could have been any ring I liked the look of and I’d have been as happy with it. I did wear it for 5 years following graduation. On my left hand, since it interfered with drawing on my right. I supposed that it kept unwanted attentions away or I’d have retired it earlier. I heard nothing about college rings and wondered whether that was a thing. Only at that point, upon graduating college, did I even question the high school ring (“Why did I get this? Why did everyone want one? Isn’t college a better thing to be proud of? If it’s a big thing why aren’t they advertising college rings here? Maybe I was gypped.”)
No letter jackets though.
When I was a high school sophomore (1980), the Jostens salesman came to my high school. I had some interest in getting a class ring, but my father (wisely) said, “you’re planning on going to college…once you go there, you’ll likely never wear that ring again”.
My parents gave me a college class ring when I earned my bachelor’s degree; I opted against one of the big honking ones with the cabochon (like my father has) in favor of a smaller one, in white gold, with a signet face (showing the school’s crest). I liked that ring a lot, and wore it pretty much all the time, but lost it about 20 years ago.
I’ve looked into getting it replaced in recent years; Jostens makes a design today that’s not dissimilar, but a version in white gold would cost $800 – even in inexpensive metal, it’d cost $400. So…no.
I only got a class ring (1973) because my girlfriend wanted to wear it. I guess I got it back at some point, because my wife has it now. I got a letter in college (fencing) and, to this day, I lost it.