The chevron was by far the most common heraldic division the Intercollegiate Bureau of Academic Costume (IBAC) employed to divide the two or three colors in an institution’s hood, but beginning in 1895 the “triple chevron” was also used occasionally. The typical width of a normal chevron was between three and four inches, but the triple chevron pattern used three chevrons of about 1½ inches in width placed two inches apart so that the color of the hood lining showed between them.

Pittsburgh Theological Seminary does not appear in early IBAC lists from 1927 or 1948, so the IBAC might not have assigned the college a hood lining until the late 1940s or 1950s. Lists compiled by Kevin Sheard in Academic Heraldry in America (1962) and Academic Dress and Insignia of the World (1970) described the seminary’s hood lining as old gold with three purple chevrons, which was also how it was described in an IBAC list from 1972.