Based on color samples sent by Hillsdale College, academic hood lists published by the Intercollegiate Bureau of Academic Costume (IBAC) in 1927 and 1948 assigned Hillsdale a hood lined in a single color the IBAC called “Presbyterian blue”, which was a medium shade of “true” blue. This was not an accurate representation of the ultramarine blue Hillsdale was using at that time.

To avoid confusion with the blue hoods of Mount Holyoke College, Wellesley College, or Yale University, the IBAC must have added a white chevron to Hillsdale’s hood lining in the late 1940s or 1950s, because a list compiled by Kevin Sheard in Academic Heraldry in America (1962) described Hillsdale’s hood lining as royal blue with a white chevron. “Royal blue” was a purplish shade of blue that was darker than the IBAC’s “Presbyterian blue” and was actually a closer match to the college’s ultramarine blue. An IBAC list from 1972 again inaccurately defined Hillsdale’s hood lining as Presbyterian blue, but this time with a white chevron.

Unfortunately these patterns are too easily confused with the hood linings the Bureau had assigned to Millikin College no later than 1918, Pennsylvania State University no later than 1905, and to Duke University no later than 1910, so here Hillsdale’s chevron has been modified to be a white heraldic bar, a solution to similar problems the Bureau began to use no later than 1902.