Founded in 1915, Menlo has accumulated a century’s worth of rich traditions, some newly introduced and some traced back to the school’s early beginnings.
Although many traditions still stand, such as the homecoming parade and spirit competitions, the administration has discontinued some of the older traditions for various reasons.
Even starting from the first day of school, all freshmen would wear shirts designed by the seniors, often so large they reached down to some students’ ankles, and freshmen weren’t allowed to change them. Throughout the day, nearly every senior would stop the freshmen to ask them how their day was going. “I feel like a lot of people didn’t see it as hazing,” Alum Riley Holland (‘19) said.
Holland remembers that the student body enjoyed carrying out these traditions and no one complained about them; instead, students were just excited they got to take part in Menlo traditions. “I think everybody took everything more lightly and lighthearted and less targeted than people do nowadays, so that was what made it so the traditions were more fun and enjoyable,” Holland said.
However, not everybody was unbothered by the traditions, with some students viewing them as too intense. According to Global Programs Director Peter Brown, the freshman hazing didn’t bring out the kinder side of the seniors and did not properly reflect their caring character. Brown is glad that students don’t haze as much anymore and that traditions surrounding hazing have been discontinued.
When Holland was a freshman at Menlo, the returning water polo players picked a song and choreographed a dance for the new players on the team to dance to in front of the student center during lunch. There was just one catch — they had to wear their speedos during the dance. The water polo team discontinued the tradition because the new players felt uncomfortable having to dance in their speedos in front of the student body. “Everyone looked forward to it, even the water polo guys,” Holland said.
Other lost traditions have been revived from time to time. The class of 2024 decided to bring pets to campus day as part of their senior prank, but it actually used to be a yearly tradition. Every year, there was a day when students were allowed to bring a pet to school with them. “One year someone brought their pet horse,” Brown said. Although Brown thinks it was a very fun and upbeat tradition, teachers found that it disrupted the teaching environment in class, so it was discontinued.
It makes Holland a bit sad when she visits Menlo and does not see the same traditions that defined her high school experience, although she understands why some have been stopped. “I would have loved to have come back and seen this generation doing them,” she said.
