The National Latin Exam is among the most widely sat assessments of Latin achievement in the world. In 2021, more than 88,000 students participated from all fifty states and the District of Columbia, as well as twenty foreign countries — among them Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Australia, New Zealand, Russia, Scotland, Singapore, Spain, Switzerland, the United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom, and South Korea. Four Emerson Latin students achieved perfect papers. The full record of this year’s awards is set down below.
- William Kim
- Gracie Lee
- Jimmy Lee
- Jehyeong Suh
- Sung Won Cho
- Jian Hong
- Grace Jeon
- Tae Hui Kang
- Esther Lee
- Leah Lee
- Thomas Oh
- Sungjoon Park
- Victoria Park
- Kyungyoon Suh
- Kelly Sung
- Q-ry Baik
- Jaye Cho
- Jeongwon Han
- Joshua Han
- Edward Kim
- Alexander Lee
- Elena Lee
- Jeongju Seo
- Jewon Shin
- Roy Song
- Jihoon Lee
- Emily Son
- Emily Hwang
- Izzy Kim
A Perfect Paper on the National Latin Exam — awarded to those who answer every question correctly across the full breadth of the examination — is among the rarest distinctions the competition confers. The exam tests morphology, syntax, sight reading, and cultural knowledge with precision; a flawless score requires not familiarity with Latin but genuine command of it, leaving no category unmastered. That four students at Emerson Latin earned it in the same year is a result worth recording with some particularity. It is not the product of examination technique. It is the product of having actually learned the language.
The National Latin Exam measures the kind of knowledge that resists shortcuts. To sit it alongside more than eighty-eight thousand students from across the world and to place among its highest tiers is a distinction that belongs, in truth, to the formation — to the hours of close reading, careful translation, and patient attention that precede any medal. We are grateful to every student who brought that seriousness to the work this year.