About Graduation Announcements
Whether a student has graduated from preschool, kindergarten, elementary school, high school or college, graduation announcements are important notices that alert friends and family members that someone has completed one portion of his academic career. In the past, graduation announcements were more or less preprinted form cards. Today, these announcements come in a wide variety of shapes, sizes, colors and wordings.
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Function
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Students and their families send out graduation announcements to allow friends and family members to take part in the commencement ceremonies. Although some graduation announcements are more symbolic---usually, kindergarten graduations do not merit a lot of familial recognition other than a card or a phone call---other graduations, usually high school or college, do result in big gifts and family members traveling in from out of town to attend the festivities.
Features
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Graduation announcements always contain a publication of the commencement ceremony details. This includes the location of the ceremonies, the start time and an invitation to a later party, if applicable. In some cases, the announcements also include preprinted maps to help out-of-town guests have an easier time finding an out-of-the-way location. If tickets are required for entry, a stamped RSVP envelope may also be included to make responding easier for the recipient. If you are confused about the layout of such an announcement, the Ace Printing site offers 72 different styles that you may be able to incorporate in your own announcement design (a link is included in the Resources section).
Types
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With the advent of prolific picture-sharing websites, the ability to transform a personal photo into an announcement card is now used quite frequently. One such website is SnapFish (a link is provided in the Resources section). For example, if you have a photo of the student on the first day of school, you may use it to announce that she has now completed her course of study. Add a frame, lettering and even some clip art, and the graduation announcement is complete and ready for printing with the help of a photo printer. Other announcements are custom-printed by a professional. These are usually a lot more expensive.
Considerations
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Like any other formal announcements, there are some etiquette rules to observe when sending graduation announcements. First and foremost, they need to be sent out early enough to allow recipients to make travel arrangements. Usually, 2 to 3 weeks prior to graduation is an appropriate timeframe for sending out the formal announcements. The wording must be clear with respect to the scope of the invitation. For example, if the recipient is invited to the ceremony and a party later on, both events need to be clearly distinguished so that there will be no confusion. The Ace Printing website offers some great wording suggestions (a link is included in Resources).
Warning
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Students also enjoy a party just with their friends. In this case, social networking sites--such as MySpace, FaceBook and DTSpace--play a huge role in announcing the graduation and location and time of the party. Be careful if you post your graduation announcement on your personal profile page; you may have throngs of partiers showing up, and the odds are good that you do not know them all.
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Resources
- Photo Credit Linuxerist/Wikimedia Commons
