New Trier school dances are commonly viewed as different from other schools, and this stems from a variety of reasons, the most noticeable is that students at New Trier dress in costume for many of the dances.

Of the three school dances, Homecoming, Turnabout, and Prom, juniors and seniors dress in costume for only two.

Every year at Homecoming and Turnabout, it is easy to tell the underclassmen and upperclassmen apart because of this one detail.

Freshmen and sophomores are often excited to dress formally, while juniors and seniors get to dress up and form a group with a specific, often comical or clever theme.

No other schools in the area does this which makes the experience that students have at other high school dances significantly different.

Sarah Shafiq, a senior at New Trier, went to the Evanston Township High School homecoming her freshman year.

“Everyone dressed up and you couldn’t tell the difference between the underclassmen and the upperclassmen,” Shafiq said.

While apparel may be the most noticeable difference there are other smaller details as well.

Every high school has different types of students, with a specific culture and set of social norms.

This can be visible at other school dances through the atmosphere of the dance, the activities before and after the dance, and even how much money people spend preparing for that night.

Senior Carly Levy went to prom at St. Viator last year. The biggest difference between the proms was that at St. Viator only seniors attend, but still may ask dates from any class, according to Levy.

Another difference Levy noticed was how much smaller the dance was, due to St. Viator’s smaller class size.

“It was a really nice environment to have prom in because everyone was friends with each other and people weren’t dancing in different groups or anything,” said Levy.

Another point of divergence between New Trier and other area high schools is the rules of the dance and how the night pans out.

Senior Steph Gacek attended Loyola Homecoming, and the rules of the dance stood out to her.

According to Gacek, Loyola requires students to attend the whole dance, or not go at all.

This is extremely different from New Trier, with its more laid-back policy that you can stay for however long you want, as long as you arrive before a set time.

“At Loyola everyone’s there at the same time. After the first hour it’s boring,” Gacek said.

Gacek added that there are negatives to doing dances both the Loyola way and the New Trier way.

At Loyola you want to leave at a certain point, and the dance gets tedious.

At New Trier not everyone is there at the same time so you don’t get to see all the people you want to. Either way, there are both pros and cons to the mechanics of a dance.

Many schools also value the dance over other parts of the evening.

New Trier is, for the most part, the opposite, and this is seen in that we don’t require students to stay at the dance for an extended period of time.

Most students don’t even stay for more than forty-five minutes.

“I think that other schools are more about the dance, but for us the dance is not the most important part, it’s not the reason people stress. It’s more about who you go with, if you have a fun group, the pictures, and the after party,” said senior Jeffrey McHugh.

No matter what school dance you attend, whether you dress in costume, how much money you spend on the event, or who the people around you are, you’re still bound to have fun.