Friday prom date stirs concern

Imogen Wright, Staff Writer
April 5, 2018

Prom is one of the seminal events of a teen’s high school career, the last big hurrah before graduation: the dress, the tux, the hair, the limo, the friends, the date, the photos, the party and the big shebang, Grad Gala. With the immense amount of preparation, it is easy to say that prom is an all-day ordeal. There are plenty of unrealistic expectations about “the night of nights.” After all, this is not High School Musical. But none are as unrealistic as being expected to get ready for prom after an three-hour Advanced Placement exam.

Discovering prom was on a Friday was bogus enough (does the school really expect us to sit through seven hours of classes with prom looming on the horizon?). But realizing that I was going to have to start prom-preparation after 55 multiple choice questions, three short answers and two essays was enough to sufficiently depress me.

Anyone who knows me is well-aware of the fact that I like to take my sweet time when it comes to getting ready for literally anything. I was simply born without the ability to get ready for events on time. No matter how early I begin getting ready for something, I always end up late.

Regardless of whether everyone else is like me when it comes to getting ready for an event, I can imagine most will still experience a strain to complete all preparation promptly, whether one is coming from school or Loyola Graduate Center after a long and dreary AP exam.

Additionally, people will begin walking through the doors of the Marriott Waterfront in Baltimore around 7:00 p.m. Therefore, as people are on their way to fill up their phone storage with pre-prom pictures, they will be wrestling their way through heinous rush hour traffic, like a Great Dane struggling to fit through one of those cat flap doors. Students should not be worrying about whether they are going to make it to pictures on time; instead, they should be worrying about which pictures are “insta-worthy.”

Understandably, the administrators booked prom on a Friday in part to combat drinking, adhere to athletes’ schedules and try to save money but Friday can not solve every problem under the sun and it is an overwhelmingly inconvenient day for a dance, especially in the midst of AP season.

While there are valid reasons behind placing prom on a Friday, I just can not believe that they are more important than my desire to actually make it to something on time… perhaps I will try punctuality in college.