Last week during advisory, the prom invitations were handed out to the junior and senior classes. Prom has been a high school tradition for upperclassmen around the world for a long time; Juniors get excited for their first prom, while seniors get sentimental for their last, and the anticipation of waiting for your turn as an underclassman is what makes the event so special. 

In recent years, though, large groups of underclassmen have been spotted at prom. Juniors and seniors have always been allowed to invite a date from either outside of school or in lower grades, but in recent years students have been taking advantage of this. 

The last couple of prom’s have seen underclassmen pushing upperclassmen to buy tickets for groups of sophomores or freshmen as dates. During last year’s dance, there were so many underclassmen that in the Gauntlet’s photo gallery of the event, there were photos containing only sophomores. 

In fact, 25% of the sophomore class attended prom last year. This turnout created a lot of controversy among the upperclassmen, so much that people are worried it will happen again this year. Prom is meant for upperclassmen only; underclassmen are allowed to be invited through an upperclassmen relationship or strong friendship, but otherwise, the young Falcons should wait until their junior year.

These controversial feelings are not because of any harsh feelings toward the groups of people that went, but because underclassmen attending prom diminishes the whole point of prom: It’s an upperclassmen privilege and a time for them to bond. Having to wait until eleventh grade makes the event that much more fun when the time finally comes.

Being an underclassmen and seeing older grades go to prom should make people excited to go when it’s their time, rather than being envious of the people who are going right now. Everyone will be able to enjoy it at one point, and so the underclassmen should just keep prom what it is— an upperclassmen dance. While I celebrate under and upperclassmen relationships and think they should go together, the time is more special if people wait their turn.