Garden City High School students shine in Latin examinations
Throughout the 2024-2025 school year, Garden City High School Latin students excelled in five Latin examinations: the National Latin Exam (41 award winners), National Roman Civilization Exam (13 award winners), National Classical Etymology Exam (16 award winners), National Latin Vocabulary Exam (6 award winners) and Medusa Exam (7 award winners).
Sixty-three Latin students at Garden City High School participated in the scholastic National Latin Examination. This competitive exam co-sponsored by the American Classical League and National Junior Classical League featured different levels of difficulty and was taken by over 100,000 students from all 50 states and the District of Columbia, as well as 20 other countries.
To earn an award on the NLE, a student must score above the national average on a respective level. Forty-one GCHS Latin students earned awards for their performance on this highly regarded examination, with 13 receiving awards on the Beginning Latin Exam, 14 on the Intermediate Latin Exam, 10 on the Intermediate Reading Comprehension Exam and four on the Advanced Latin Prose exam.
Congratulations to the following students on their performances:
National Latin Exam
Gold – Summa Cum Laude
Mason Chan (Latin 1)
Jane Foley (Latin 1)
Bradford Gillette (Latin 1)
Abigail Hogan (Latin 1)
Emmran Ishtiaque (Latin 1)
Mariella McQuade (Latin 1)
Carter Herrera (Latin 2)
Kaitlyn McDonald (Latin 2)
Fionn Ryan (Latin 2)
Brendan Wilde (Latin 3)
Emily Cook (Latin 4)
Angela Yu (Latin 4)
Silver – Maxima Cum Laude
Seamus Ryan (Latin 1)
ElisaMaria Santos (Latin 1)
Julia La Monica (Latin 2)
Joseph LoPiccolo (Latin 2)
Annemarie McCarthy (Latin 2)
Ava Pineda (Latin 2)
Madeleine Walsh (Latin 2)
Analisa Winter (Latin 2)
Kayla Cherney (Latin 3)
Sinae Cho (Latin 3)
Gabrielle Marchese (Latin 3)
Laura Kahn (Latin 3)
Gabriella Tromba (Latin 3)
Certificate – Magna Cum Laude
Beatrice Ehrig (Latin 1)
Nicole Geiger (Latin 1)
Minyi Huang (Latin 1)
Teresa Gregory (Latin 2)
Brooke Breheny (Latin 3)
William Egan (Latin 3)
Keathan Ho (Latin 3)
Cecilia Santos (Latin 3)
Kaitlin Cook (Latin 4)
Annika Margolies (Latin 4)
Certificate – Cum Laude
Edmund Gaffney (Latin 1)
Michael Haedrich (Latin 1)
Mae Gaffney (Latin 2)
Michael Sack (Latin 2)
May Paisley (Latin 2)
Ashlyn Tarr (Latin 2)
National Classical Etymology Exam
Gold
Emily Cook (Advanced)
Silver
Madeleine Walsh (Intermediate)
Analisa Winter (Intermediate)
Sinae Cho (Advanced)
Annika Margolies (Advanced)
Jennifer Roller (Advanced)
Brendan Wilde (Advanced)
Bronze
Sabrina Li (Intermediate)
Kaitlyn McDonald (Intermediate)
Ava Pineda (Intermediate)
Kayla Cherney (Advanced)
Kaitlin Cook (Advanced)
Keathan Ho (Advanced)
Leila Massina (Advanced)
Gabriella Tromba (Advanced)
Angela Yu (Advanced)
National Roman Civilization Exam
Gold
Olivia Allsbrook (Advanced)
Emily Cook (Advanced)
Kaitlin Cook (Advanced)
Silver
Nicole Geiger (Intermediate)
Ava Pineda (Intermediate)
Amber McDonald (Advanced)
Jennifer Roller (Advanced)
Bronze
Joseph LoPiccolo (Intermediate)
Kaitlyn McDonald (Intermediate)
Sinae Cho (Advanced)
Keathan Ho (Advanced)
Matthew IsobeRussell (Advanced)
Emily Pelter (Advanced)
National Latin Vocabulary Exam
Gold
Abigail Hogan (Latin 1)
Bronze
Annemarie McCarthy (Latin 2)
Kaitlyn McDonald (Latin 2)
Sinae Cho (Latin 3)
Brendan Wilde (Latin 3)
Emily Cook (Latin 4)
Medusa Mythology Exam
Gold – Summa Certificate
Olivia Allsbrook
Silver – Maxima Certificate
Emily Cook
Ribbon – Magna Certificate
Mason Chan
Abigail Hogan
Brendan Kennedy
Cum Laude Certificate
Kaitlyn McDonald
Amanat Jain
Several Garden City High School students earned special recognitions for their performances and contributions to Latin across multiple exams. For their gold medal performance on the Latin 4 exam, seniors Emily Cook and Angela Yu are eligible to apply for National Latin Exam scholarships which support studying Latin or Greek at the collegiate level. Emily is one of the few students who has won awards on each of the examinations in multiple years. Sophomore Kaitlyn McDonald merited a perfect score on the Intermediate Latin Exam and will be honored with a special certificate for her performance and sophomore Nicole Geiger was awarded a certificate for her submission to the 2025 Bernice Fox Writing Contest, sponsored by the Monmouth College Classics Department.
“These annual exams are extremely difficult, and I am so impressed and delighted that the students' performance merited these successes,” said Latin teacher and club adviser Magistra Kathleen Durkin.
Magistra Durkin would also like to thank the GCHS Latin Club and Honor Society’s fundraising efforts, which helped pay for student examinations throughout the five exam categories. “This is a great way of giving back to the community and it allowed for a greater number of students than ever to participate,” she said.
Congratulations to all participants in each of these exams.