Soon to be graduates try on class rings, caps, gowns

While the only costumes most IU students are thinking about in mid-October are for Halloween, it's time for those graduating in December to think about their caps and gowns as graduation creeps up on them.\nThe Grad Fair going on from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Tuesday and Wednesday in the IU Bookstore in the Indiana Memorial Union features displays for class rings, gowns and graduation invitations.\nStudents shuffled in and out the afternoon Tuesday, but Patrick Cavazos, a Herff Jones representative, said his company receives much more orders online and in the spring. \nSenior Amber Brandes was excited to get her cap and gown in preparation for her early graduation after only three and a half years at IU. \n"It's real now," she said. "It's less than two months away. Every assignment I do I think of as one step closer to graduation."\nErin Ayres and her roommate Lauren Jaffurs plan to graduate in May but came to check out class rings and look at gowns and graduation invitations.\n"We got really excited-slash-nervous when we walked by the door," Ayres said. "It's so surreal. Not many people make it to this point."\nGetting a class ring is an option for anyone with 56 credit hours, graduating students or alumni. There are a few variations on ring styles -- from the traditional garnet with the red stone or the signet all-metal ring with the IU interlocking symbol. \nCavazos said rings are not as common as they were decades ago, when it was commonplace for people of all walks of life to get class rings.\n"Years ago, everyone got class rings," he said. "Now they're more reluctant to spend ($400) to $500. We get a lot more alumni who want rings 10 years after they graduate now that they can afford it." \nAyres said her family will be "pouring in" for graduation since she is the oldest family member of her generation. She was nervous about asking her parents to spend a few hundred dollars on her ring.\n"They'll let me get it. I'll have to break it slowly, gently to them," she said. "I'm gonna be rocking on graduation day," \nAyres asked Cavazos what finger she should get her ring for.\n"I've seen people wear rings on their pinky, thumb and one girl got the ring for her middle finger, so when she flicked people off, they could see where she went to school."\nCavazos said he has a couple of funny memories from his time selling rings around the country. He recalled a Texas football player who needed a size 22 ring, which is double the average men's size of 10 to 11. Some students he has sold to should have looked at a bigger ring.\n"I've had people have the ring stuck on their finger and had to have (the ring) cut off with ... cutters at a local jeweler." \nJaffurs did not need to get a cap and gown, since she won't graduate until May, but she did try on rings. She said she was nervous about entering the real world after graduating. Passing by the caps and gowns, she longed for more time at IU.\n"It's making me really nostalgic," she said. "Wishing I was a freshman again, starting all over"