A free ride through college courtesy of the parental unit. I got through law school with a scholarship and federal loans.
About $200 in cash from assorted relatives, and a weekend in NYC. (I’d never been and was dying to go). I made out pretty well. Of course, I was envious of all the people spending the summer after graduation in Europe, but I take what I can get. 
Lets see - a CD player and about ten CD’s (college graduation)
I got to listen to my mother tell me the night before I’d make a lousy engineer.
Thanks, mom!
I got the only thing I wanted: freedom from high school. I think I got $100 cash money too, but that wasn’t nearly as important as freedom from high school.
I got a typewriter.
An ELECTRIC typewriter!
Used it all through college, too. Who wants to schlep to the computer lab when pulling an all-night writing session?
Cross pen and pencil set.
I got luggage for my HS graduation - but then, I was going 1200 miles away for college and didn’t have any. And I still have it.
I don’t remember what else I got (yeah, the diploma and tassel with a '91 tag on it) - I was the third among the kids in my family and about the 10th grandkid to graduate, so it wasn’t a big deal at all.
I think the family went out to dinner after my graduation. Or was that after 8th grade? I can’t remember. It wasn’t that big a deal.
The obligatory family party with the few friends nice enough to endure a non-beer event and lots of cards with cash. I wish I could remember now what I spent all that money on.
The oddest present was a coin bank that looked like a miniature wooden keg, filled with dimes. The party was so boring my friends and I dumped it out to count it, there was almost a hundred bucks in there.
My 'rents would have laughed themselves silly if I’d requested a car, two?!
I got I think about three or four hundred dollars from assorted family members and my parents paid for a trip to Portland, OR so I could spend a week there with my sister. It wasn’t a summer in Europe but I had a great time and I plan on going back this summer (paying for it myself thankyouverymuch).
I got the hell out of high school, which was gift enough for me.
Freedom to leave the country. Mmmmmmmm them were the days 17 and a one way ticket to Aus! (but i paid for the ticket myself!). Oh I miss the big O.E!
A bracelet, which I lost in college. I didn’t go to graduation, and I wasn’t planning on going to college. I think my parents got me a present mostly because they felt sorry for me - the circumstances (academic) of my senior year were frustrating, to say the least. Graduation night, however, was mine and Mr Mercury’s anniversary, an he bought me diamond earrings.
-M
I got a round trip plane ticket to Florida, where I stayed with my girlfriend’s brother. Inexpensive and fun!
What, do the people who received your invitation not give you people gifts? If you count those gifts, I got probably $500 in cash along with some unbelievable items for the hope chest - crystal candlesticks, silver platter, things like that. No kidding.
My dad had given me the car he was driving when I turned 16, so a car wasn’t a question. Mom gave me a silver necklace and bought me a mini-fridge for my dorm. Grandparents gave me a check to buy a computer when I told them that’s how I was going to spend my money. Oh, and along with my tassel, the school gave me this gigantic gold medallion with a big “V” on it for being valedictorian. I had to wear it throughout the ceremony. It’s blinging, let me tell you.
More spoiled than most, I guess. But certainly not $50,000 worth of cars. My mother has a saying about people like that - “They’re just so happy that they actually graduated.”
Let me think …
Money. I can’t remember how much.
Giving a kid a car for high school graduation is ridiculous, IMHO, although if I’m financially able to I’d like to buy LittleSnoopy a new car when she graduates from college.
Well, I know I got some small amount of cash from family members, but not a whole lot.
What really got me was my mom and stepdad surprised the hell outta me by getting me a VCR. I expected nothing at all. Still, it made sense as I had a TV for a couple years and they refused to run a cable line to my room. At least I had something new to play my videos on. (I had been using a VHS camcorder I bought during my first summer job.)
I got a 500.00 check from my Dad and a small, black and white TV from my mom.
My great-grandfather’s pocket watch given to him as a wedding present in 1895. It’s still at Mamma O’s house but it’s mine, all mine.