National Latin Honor Society
2022 Induction — Esther Lee

The National Latin Honor Society does not induct students on the strength of a single examination or a single year. Its criteria are cumulative by design: top grades in two Latin literature courses, and prizes — not merely participation — in a variety of international competitions in Latin and the classical humanities. The emphasis on variety matters. A student who excels at one kind of assessment might do so by temperament or by targeted effort. A student who places across examinations testing different things — language, mythology, etymology, literature — has demonstrated something broader and more durable.

That is Esther Lee’s record. In 2021 she earned a Silver Medal on the National Latin Exam, competing against more than 88,000 students across fifty states and twenty countries. In 2022 she returned and earned a Gold Medal in the same examination — an improvement that is, in itself, evidence of a formation that had not stopped developing. In the same year she placed in the National Classical Etymology Exam and earned a Bronze Medal in the National Mythology Exam. Three international competitions. Three years of coursework at the advanced level. The Society reviewed that record and found it sufficient for induction.

We are proud of Esther, and we are not surprised. The consistency she has shown across these examinations — year on year, discipline on discipline — is precisely what this kind of recognition is meant to acknowledge. It is good to see the Society confirm what we already knew.