The cadmium yellow school color for Pratt Institute was noted by the commission that wrote the 1895 Intercollegiate Code of Academic Costume and included in a list of school colors sent along with a copy of the Code to the 1896 Living Church Quarterly (which was published in December 1895). If the Intercollegiate Bureau of Academic Costume (IBAC) did not assign this single-color hood to Pratt at that time, the Bureau almost certainly assigned the Institute a hood lining color of cadmium yellow not long after the IBAC was chartered by the Regents of the University of the State of New York in 1902.

That said, Pratt does not appear in an official Intercollegiate Bureau list of hood linings until 1972, where it was cited as having a single-color lining of bright gold (which is the way cadmium yellow might appear in the satin fabric of the hood lining). More accurate descriptions of the insitute’s hood appeared in Kevin Sheard’s Academic Heraldry in America (1962) and Academic Dress and Insignia of the World (1970), where Pratt’s hood lining was stated to be cadmium yellow in color.

Here, to avoid confusion with the “dandelion yellow” hood lining of the University of Rochester, Pratt has been assigned a traditional bright shade of cadmium yellow, but the Institute may be reassigned a yellow and black hood lining pattern if desired.