A nurse, Tracy had not been to university herself and didn't mix 'in those circles'. She'd agonised over her own outfit, desperate not to let down the bright, brilliant son who the family jokingly called The Prof.
'I remember saying to Ethan, "Is this OK? You won't be ashamed of your mother wearing this?",' she says, wiping her eyes.
'He said, "No, mum, you look good".'
Tracy had left some of the detail to Ethan because, as she says, 'when they are grown-ups, you have to, don't you?'
She had transferred money to his account to hire a graduation gown and book a slot with a photographer. And she had offered to iron Ethan's shirt for him.
'He said he'd already done it. I said, "Let's see", and he had. His good suit was hanging up. I went to bed thinking everything was ready.'
The next morning, she was up and dressed early, 'hair curled and everything', when she shouted to Ethan that he should be up by now.
'You'd usually get a grunt from him or something, but there was no reply at all, so I just went into his room. But as soon as I opened the door, I saw. I knew. Then I screamed.'
There would be no graduation. Aged just 23, Ethan had taken his own life.
He had never been on the list of students who were graduating that day. The suit, the shirt, the gown hire – it had all been a sham.
Having failed to complete a module, he had been told by Glasgow University that he would not be awarded his coveted Honours degree.
'And we think – or we thought then – that he was too ashamed to tell us he had failed,' says Tracy.
'There were so many opportunities where he could have told us.'
His planning had been as meticulous as his mother's. Ethan was a tidy soul who could not bear anything out of place.
Four suicide letters – 'pages of them', says Tracy – sat neatly on the very desk where Ethan had carried out his studies.
One was for the police, two were for his family and one was for his best friend Kyle.
In them, Ethan apologised for his actions, but explained that he thought he had let everyone down.
The detail was vague at that point about his reasons but, in that moment, no one cared much about the whys.
Today, Ethan's stepfather Colin is with Tracy in their solicitor's office. It was Colin who followed the 999 operator's instructions on the morning Ethan had been found – December 13 – and gave him CPR, even though they knew it was pointless.
'Even the woman on the phone was crying as she was telling me what to do,' he says.
What an incomprehensible loss.
Ethan was Tracy's second child – her only son. It had been his life's dream to study at Glasgow University, just like his Auntie Marilyn, Tracy's sister.
In his primary school year book, he had written about where he saw himself in ten years' time.
'Still begging Glasgow University to accept me,' he wrote.
But Ethan's death is more than a family tragedy. It is a national scandal.
Earlier this week, the family held a press conference, making public the truth behind Ethan's death – which they had had to piece together themselves.
There was 'no help at all from the university, which didn't even send a note of condolence, and which has acted as if Ethan didn't exist', says Colin, bitterly.
Their solicitor Aamer Anwar, a former rector of Glasgow University, goes further. 'Callous,' is how he sums up the way the family has been treated.
In fact, Ethan had not 'failed' his degree, as he had gone to his grave believing. He had been the victim of a series of errors by staff at the university.
Ethan himself had contacted the university several times, querying what had happened and asking to be allowed to graduate.
He had also 'reached out', says his mum, about mental health issues, particularly after the loss of his grandmother.
'Ethan never wanted to accept help. He was so independent. But he asked for it from the university. He tried to sort this all out himself.
There was a stage – when he learned he didn't have enough credits to graduate and he just didn't understand it – when I said, 'Do you want me to ring the university?' And he said, 'No, mum. I can't have my mum phoning up'.'
How she now wishes she had picked up the phone.
Only after his death were questions asked about Ethan's state of mind and about how a capable student can suddenly 'fail' his degree – despite being on track to do well.
An investigation was launched and it emerged that there had been a catastrophic series of administrative errors. Ethan, who was studying geography, should actually have been awarded a 2:1.
'How could no one have noticed?' asks his mother. 'How did no one care?
'Ethan fell through the cracks in this system and he can't be the only one.'
An internal report, written by Professor Jill Morrison, pinpointed where mistakes had been made. She concluded that this was a 'systemic' problem, rather than an error by an individual.
Glasgow University has since apologised to the family, saying: 'We are profoundly sorry that this terrible event occurred and understand the deep distress it has caused.'
It also insisted that the error in relation to Ethan's marks was an 'isolated one and that no other students have been affected'.
Tracy is outraged. 'Did they forget we have read the internal report? You don't need a degree to know that a 'systemic problem' is a big deal.' The report makes for devastating reading.
While it records that the university staff who were interviewed about the events leading up to Ethan's death were 'visibly upset', it says: 'Staff expressed regret that they had not known the student and felt the circumstances of his time at the university meant that he was less well known than many other students.'
What does this mean? How can a student – a good and capable student – not be known to his own tutors and lecturers?
'This is what I don't understand,' says Tracy. 'Ethan was a good student. He went to all his classes. He loved it. But the big decisions about his future weren't made by tutors who knew him.
'It was all done by people who are called Professional Non-Academic Staff. I didn't even know what this meant. At some point, he was just lost in the system. He fell through the cracks. He was just a number to them.'
Ethan began his university course in 2019. Glasgow was only a short train journey from his family home in Coatbridge, Lanarkshire, so he lived at home, commuting in every day.
His 'in person' studies were interrupted by the Covid pandemic. But Tracy says: 'Still, when it was optional to either go in or do lectures remotely, he tended to go in. I think he went in more than most.'
Ethan probably wouldn't have been the loudest person in the class, but he was known for his cheeky sense of humour and wide smile. He loved fancy dress parties – his mum laughs about the time he got a perm.
He didn't have a girlfriend. When he died and the family were looking for answers, Tracy says she wondered whether there was 'some great unrequited love or something that we'd known nothing about. There wasn't'.
She thought he had taken to university life like a duck to water. 'He still had his home friends,' she says, 'but he made a new group of uni friends'.
Ethan spent his third year abroad, delighted to be picked to go to Stockholm to study.
'I was worried sick about how he'd manage, but he had a great time,' Tracy says.
But she adds: 'When he came back, he tried to register for his final year. He couldn't. The university didn't know who he was, they didn't remember him and had no record of him.
'Then they said he couldn't register for his final year because he hadn't completed his third year.
'We laughed about it at the time because it was so ridiculous. Ethan ended up having to get proof – transcripts I think – himself. He wasn't the sort to make a fuss about it. He just kind of rolled his eyes.'
However, when he finally settled into his final year, things started to go wrong.
Tracy insists she saw no sign of depression, but he was deeply affected by the death of his grandmother around this time.
'He had to hand in a dissertation in the December and he asked for an extension,' she explains.
'In the email, he cited mental health issues.
'This extension wasn't granted and he had to scramble to get the dissertation done. I think he submitted it three hours late, but he did get it done and he wasn't penalised. He did well in it, too.
'After that there were another couple of pieces of work that he was struggling with and he did ask for extensions for those. This time they were granted.
'My point is this: why did a red flag not go up then? Why did no one get in touch to ask, 'Ethan, is everything OK?'.'
So were there any signs at home that he was losing his grip, I ask her. 'No and we've racked our brains since, thinking, 'How could we have missed this?'. But Ethan would never have wanted to make a fuss or for us to worry.'
Ethan's final exams took place in spring last year and he should have graduated in the summer.
But he received word from the university – via a cursory email, his mother believes – that he had failed to gain a required ten credits. His family were aware of 'some issue' but Ethan downplayed it.
'He was upset that he wasn't going to be graduating in the summer but he said he was sorting it and he'd be able to graduate in December,' Tracy says.
'To this day, I don't know if he genuinely thought the university would sort it all out in time. But the point is he reached out to them and he got nowhere.'
It wasn't until a few weeks after his death that Ethan's family discovered that he had never been due to graduate.
'We were devastated,' says Tracy. 'We never considered that the university would be at fault. We just thought Ethan had failed and had been too ashamed to tell us.'
It wasn't until three months later that his aunt – who has more knowledge of university systems – started digging, getting Tracy's permission to ask the university about these missing credits.
The family had tried to access Ethan's emails but it hadn't been possible. 'Before he did what he did, he wiped his laptop, restoring the factory settings so I could use it,' she says. 'He told me that in his letter. He was trying to be helpful.'
Tracy says is it unforgivable that the university let the family believe for three months that Ethan had failed his degree.
'Even when they heard he was dead, did no one think, 'This seems odd'? We had to fight them to get any information at all. This wouldn't even have come out if we hadn't pushed.'
Quite how depersonalised the system seems is shocking.
Tracy says she had no contact from university staff after Ethan died – not even his immediate tutors or advisers. 'There wasn't a phone call or a letter of condolence, nothing.'
There is proof, however, that Ethan did reach out himself several times before he died.
The report says that there were two requests for extensions – in December 2023 and February 2024 – which detailed 'deteriorating health and distress'.
Professor Morrison says these 'could have alerted staff to a student with deteriorating wellbeing and provide an opportunity for communicating with him. As far as I could ascertain there was no follow-up contact with the student'.
On the issue of the missing credits, there was 'misunderstanding or confusion' – with even staff at the university not being aware of what should happen if a student fails to complete an assessment.
There was only one essay that Ethan had failed to submit and even without the marks for it, he had reached the bar necessary to gain a 2:1.
But when his marks were recorded on a spreadsheet, the computer said he hadn't. And no member of staff intervened to say, 'This cannot be right'.
Even when Ethan sent emails – and there were at least two requesting clarification about the process for getting his degree – he was 'fobbed off', Tracy says.
'He was told someone would get back to him and they didn't. They just abandoned him.'
The report recommended that changes should be made to how marks are recorded and that students 'individual circumstances are discussed'.
But it is astonishing to Ethan's family that this level of contact with a student would not be carried out routinely.
Their solicitor Mr Anwar says: 'One of the issues and one that is continually raised by university students and staff – not just in Glasgow but in all large-scale universities – is that these are huge money-making operations now.
'When I was at university, you had tutors who knew you by name. There were regular meetings, contact. There was a way of catching you if you had troubles.'
Tracy nods. 'Ethan should have been caught and they let him fall,' she says.
Ethan's university books are still sitting in his bedroom in a neat pile just as he left them. The watch his mum bought him is there, too, still wrapped.
There will never be a graduation picture on the wall, but there will be his degree certificate.
Glasgow University has agreed that the family will be able to collect it at a ceremony.
'And we will, because he worked so hard for it,' says Tracy, her pride in her son undiminished.
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