After a farewell ceremony, the 130 graduating senior girls at the Towson campus of Notre Dame Preparatory School lined up along the edge of the school's indoor pool, held hands and jumped into the water - all fully clothed.
At the bell tower on the Bryn Mawr School campus in North Baltimore, 80 senior girls took turns ringing the school bell with siblings or best friends before being welcomed into the alumnae association.
On the last day of classes at Mount St. Joseph High School in Irvington, 245 senior boys climbed 121 steps to the top of the Tower to leave their signatures on the interior brick walls of the campus landmark.
With graduations at the Baltimore area's private schools having begun, many senior classes are reviving traditions that are sometimes whimsical, sometimes heartfelt and always eagerly awaited. Some of the traditions go back decades and some are so old that no one knows when or even why they were started.
"Traditions provide a sense of history," said Sister Christine Mulcahy, headmistress at Notre Dame Prep. "Traditions tie today's students back to decades of alumnae. Some traditions may seem weird to an outsider, but they are extremely meaningful to the insiders."
At Loyola Blakefield in Towson, the senior boys have been wearing white dinner jackets for graduation for at least 70 years, instead of caps and gowns. But no one seems to remember how the tradition was started.
"I wore a white dinner jacket when I graduated from Loyola in 1971," said the Rev. Jack Dennis, the school's president. "But I don't remember why it started. The reason for this tradition has been lost along the way. The young men always look classy and handsome in their white jackets at graduation. That's probably why the tradition has continued."
Other traditions aren't that old. McDonogh School's headmaster, Bo Dixon, began one in 1996 when he invited senior boarding students to an overnight campout. Set up on the school's quadrangle in Owings Mills, the spring campout includes little sleep but a lot of food.
Dixon takes the seniors on a late-night, all-you-can-eat excursion to New Towne Diner on Reisterstown Road, where the object is to outspend the previous year's senior class.
"I've never seen more food come through a kitchen," Dixon said of the late dinner/early breakfast jaunt, which consists of many orders of crab cakes, steaks, pancakes and lots and lots of milkshakes.
McDonogh senior Jonathan Nelson, 18, of Owings Mills doesn't know how much Dixon spent on food for this year's group of 35. And Dixon isn't telling: "The secret is deeply locked in a vault."
But Dixon said the cost of this year's trip to the diner exceeded last year's, and that each year the cost has exceeded the previous one.
Dixon slyly arranged a surprise for the campers, too: a 6:30 a.m. wakeup call delivered by five Baltimore County police cars, sirens blaring and lights flashing. The officers brought doughnuts for breakfast.
"You should have seen the looks on the kids' faces when the police cars arrived," Dixon said. "It was priceless."
Traditions give the seniors a chance to have fun after an extraordinarily intense year that involves a lot of work and major decisions about colleges and careers, administrators said.
No one knows exactly when the plunge into the Notre Dame Prep pool became a tradition - probably in the mid- to late 1980s - but the seniors consider it a favorite end-of-the-year celebration along with the liturgy at the senior farewell, field day, the presentation of baskets filled with good luck letters from faculty and friends, and the awarding of the white blazer.
The white blazer, which Notre Dame Prep administrators say was awarded as early as 1934, is given to a senior who has made a difference in the school community during her four years there. This year's winner was Meera Raja, 17, of Lutherville, the student council president.
"We have so many traditions here that it's hard to pick a favorite," said Notre Dame senior Jenna Canitz, 17, of Bel Air, who has watched senior classes participate in the events for the past seven years.
The bell ringing at Bryn Mawr's bell tower symbolizes what the students are leaving behind, said senior Vanessa Wachira, 17, of Columbia, who picked two family friends to help her ring the bell.
The tradition dates back at least 25 years, school administrators said, but the site for the bell ringing has changed. Families of the Class of 1992 donated money to build a bell tower that stands in an open courtyard adjacent to the upper school library. At that time, the seniors were allowed to pick a friend or family member to help them pull the rope attached to the bell.
Mount St. Joseph opens the doors to the Tower, dedicated in 1901, so graduating seniors can add their names, class year, and messages in red or black permanent marker to the bricks that line the walls of the seven-story Tower, where students were once banned.
According to Mount St. Joseph administrators, religion teachers brought students into the Tower during the early to mid-1980s, but it wasn't until the early 1990s that the walk to the top became a tradition for seniors. Many bricks, however, had been marked with the names of thousands of alumni.
"All four years, you know you get to go inside the Tower when you are ready to leave Mount St. Joe," said Bill Zimmer, 18, of Ellicott City. He said there were old trophies, pictures and carved and written names on the walls.
On the night before commencement at Boys' Latin in North Baltimore, the faculty holds a cookout for graduating seniors and competes against them in a softball game. Associate Headmaster Dyson Ehrhardt said the tradition began when the school was moved to its present location on Lake Avenue in 1960.
Senior girls at Roland Park Country School in North Baltimore, St. Paul's School for Girls in Brooklandville and Bryn Mawr turn their uniform skirts into autograph cloth when spring comes and they start wearing what they call their dress-down clothes.
"We pass our uniform skirts around to the entire class to get all the girls to sign them," said Roland Park student Edith Birney, 18, of Butler. But no one seems to know when the custom started.
One of the oldest traditions being followed is at Oldfields School in Glencoe, where a May Queen ceremony takes place during graduation. The graduating girls - 36 this year - wear long white dresses, walk barefoot down a long gradual slope on the campus to participate in the celebration, complete with a student queen and her court, and to receive diplomas.
According to school records, the tradition was started in 1901, when Polly Dodds was selected as the school's first May Queen. Although some changes have been made, the ceremony continues in much the same way, but now the May Queen is always a senior.
For most of the graduates, the end of the school year is a bittersweet time.
"We are ready to leave, but we also are a little sad," said Roland Park senior Carrie Schenning, 18, of Towson. "The school and the traditions have become a part of us."