Taking Latin/classics in HS - best schools for this?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:being intentionally vague here, but i’m someone who has been highly involved in latin/classics at the state and national level, and i’m pretty familiar with the classics programs of schools in the area!

i would say that the number one extracurricular classics program will be at TJ simply because there’s such a depth of talented/involved students. the students there are REALLY passionate about latin, their club is active, their certamen is well run, and they win national championships fairly often. they’ll definitely be the strongest choice for certamen at the moment and they have a pretty big program. that being said, they’re still a public school and are restricted by FCPS. they only have one latin teacher (she’s amazing though) and they now have a weird schedule in which students take DE before AP latin (a little odd imo, but not terrible). tj has the most passionate student body when it comes to classics, at least right now.

flint hill used to be really good. they’re still decent, but not what they used to be. they have 3 classics teachers for middle and high school, most of whom are pretty good. they used to be amazing at certamen but tbh it’s been lacking for a while, the teachers don’t run regular practices the way they do at tj and its a bit disorganized, so they don’t win the way they used to. overall less enthusiasm because they’re a smaller school with simply fewer kids to get excited about latin. that being said, they have a decent sized delegation at vjcl convention, they pretty much always have officers on the board, and they do njcl online exams, latin league, medusa myth, etc. (they don’t perform as well on those exams as tj kids, but tj obviously has a generally stronger student body). the classics club is pretty active. as for classes, they have latin 1 through post AP., plus greek 1-2 (maybe adding 3?). they’ll do post ap latin for one kid if needed, and it’s overall a really good experience class wise.

sssas is trending in the right direction imo. they also have 3 latin teachers and all of them are great. they have a similarly sized delegation as flint hill at vjcl. i’d say the two schools perform pretty similarly and sssas also usually has a state officer or two. i believe they also have latin 1-post ap and sometimes greek. their club is a bit less active than flint hill i think but definitely exists. i believe that their middle school certamen teams are quite good and the middle school teacher is pretty involved in coaching them, which is a good sign that there will soon be talented students in the high school.

other public schools that are good are hayfield (only one latin teacher but she’s AMAZING and super involved in jcl), robinson (has a massive delegation at vjcl, not sure what they generally do), lightridge maybe? yorktown has some talented students too.

i saw sidwell mentioned here, i think they have a good latin teacher but they aren’t super involved in jcl stuff which will be fun for a kid who loves latin. i honestly wouldn’t choose any dc schools for latin except st anselms (had one kid who was crazy at certamen a while ago but i haven’t seen him in a while) and basis (but i think they changed their curriculum so there’s no latin in middle school, which will hurt them. they’ve had some very good latin students though).

i also saw dominion christian mentioned. their latin teacher is a former njcl president. she’s new but i think they’re going to be good in the future. that being said, i believe the school is definitely on the conservative side.

for maryland schools, i think bryn mawr is pretty good (for girls) and gilman is pretty good for boys. i think bryn mawr girls actually take latin at gilman. i don’t know a lot about maryland latin programs, but id say VA is stronger across the board.

hope this helps! let me know if i can answer any questions.

I can speak from experience that the Latin teacher at Hayfield is wonderful. My kids loved her when they attended.

[Anonymous]

Just attended Washington Latin 2nd St middle school valediction and there were probably 10-15 kids who received PERFECT scores on the National Latin Exam.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Potomac. The kids often win national contests, and some do a semester abroad in Italy junior year

You know that people don't speak Latin in Italy, right?

Don't they speak it in Latin America?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The best school? Washington Latin. It's in the name.

It's not the focus of the school. They stopped having a certamen team and hosting the events - that's pretty lame for a place with Latin in the name.

PP with the long response here. Their middle school still has a certamen team. I know the teacher—he’s a young TJ grad who’s pretty enthusiastic. I don’t know about the high school since I havent seen them at Certamen

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Potomac. The kids often win national contests, and some do a semester abroad in Italy junior year

You know that people don't speak Latin in Italy, right?

Thanks I do know that. It’s a well respected national study brought program that allows the kids to spend a semester delving into classics and focus on art history. The kids I know who have participated in the program come back raving about it, and a few have gone on to major in classics at excellent school. It’s just a nice option bc the other top privates we looked at did not offer any trip or study abroad options for Latin.
Potomac does very well in the VA and national exams. You can also do a second language at the same time. One plus for us was that they have several Latin teachers, so you don’t run the risk of an entire program riding on the back of one teacher. Their IS (7th/8th grade) Latin program is excellent, so kids enter hs at a nice level, opening up many electives beginning in 10th & 11th.

i’ve never seen them at latin competitions, but i met one kid at GLA who was pretty good at latin, he ended up majoring in classics at an ivy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:+1 for SSSAS. One of our just-graduated seniors won the Wayne Wray scholarship from the Classical Society of Virginia a couple weeks ago, and the school sends kids to VA gov school’s Latin program most summers. It offers a World Language Certificate for students who study two languages and many have Latin as one of the two.

hey i know her!

agreed with everything you say. i’m actually so excited that people know all this about HS latin programs, this is such a fun discussion of the most niche stuff.

and just to reiterate, all the sssas teachers are great. interestingly, one of their middle school math teachers was a former vjcl secretary

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Potomac. The kids often win national contests, and some do a semester abroad in Italy junior year

You know that people don't speak Latin in Italy, right?

Don't they speak it in Latin America?

Satire is not seen often on DCUM.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The best school? Washington Latin. It's in the name.

It's not the focus of the school. They stopped having a certamen team and hosting the events - that's pretty lame for a place with Latin in the name.

PP with the long response here. Their middle school still has a certamen team. I know the teacher—he’s a young TJ grad who’s pretty enthusiastic. I don’t know about the high school since I havent seen them at Certamen

.

There are now two Washington Latin campuses. The teacher you’re referring to is at the new Cooper campus. The oldest students there are now rising sophomores and just finished Latin III so were competing in Intermediate. Not sure if they will be Intermediate or Advanced next year. The old Washington Latin campus was sending some middle school teams, but I never saw any high school ones.

[Anonymous]

The Latin teacher at Swanson in APS is amazing. Other teachers literally line up to talk to her at the VJCL Latin Convention in Richmond each year. Most of the kids from APS and nearby privates heading to Virginia Governors Latin Academy this summer are former students of hers.

[Anonymous]

Avalon? At least one of their Latin teachers is actually fluent in Latin as a spoken language.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What pedagogical style works for your child/family? Classical schools will teach in a particular way that is very different from more progressive/less traditional schools, which you may or may not like.

What does this mean? I thought classical schools are more traditional on balance?

[Anonymous]

STAs Latin program is excellent.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The best school? Washington Latin. It's in the name.

It's not the focus of the school. They stopped having a certamen team and hosting the events - that's pretty lame for a place with Latin in the name.

PP with the long response here. Their middle school still has a certamen team. I know the teacher—he’s a young TJ grad who’s pretty enthusiastic. I don’t know about the high school since I havent seen them at Certamen

.

There are now two Washington Latin campuses. The teacher you’re referring to is at the new Cooper campus. The oldest students there are now rising sophomores and just finished Latin III so were competing in Intermediate. Not sure if they will be Intermediate or Advanced next year. The old Washington Latin campus was sending some middle school teams, but I never saw any high school ones.

For the 2nd street campus no HS team this year but there was last year. There are rising 8th graders, so there will be a team this coming year and a number of MS teams l/students with a very engaged coach.

[Anonymous]

My kid went to Walter Johnson high school, MCPS (public). They have AP Latin, but no classics curriculum per se: they study classics in AP Literature and apart from that you're on your own. I gave my kids a reading list of classics every summer.