To avoid assigning duplicate hood linings to colleges and universities that used the same school colors, the Intercollegiate Bureau of Academic Costume (IBAC) used different types of heraldic patterns to divide the two or more colors in an academic hood. In IBAC lists from 1927 and 1948, a number of hood lining patterns were described as “[color] above [color]” or “[color] over [color]”, which referred either to hood lining colors divided per chevron, per reversed chevron, or per bar. Unfortunately, today it is not usually known which of these three patterns the Bureau intended to describe.

The IBAC assigned Rollins College a hood lining of this type no later than 1927, according to an IBAC list from that period which described the hood lining as “Yale blue” (dark blue) above gold. But in 1948 the Bureau said the hood lining was “blue and gold”, which was usually how the Bureau described colors divided vertically per pale. In 1972 an IBAC list returned to the original “Yale blue” above gold description. The IBAC did not define how the Yale blue and gold were divided in any of these lists, but in Academic Heraldry in America (1962) Kevin Sheard said that the Yale blue and gold were divided per chevron. Here this heraldic pattern has been retained, but in the correct colors of Rollins College: royal blue and gold.