I have over 20 awards from latin competitions but my school of choice (northwestern) doesn’t have a classics program. I’m going to include it in my app. but I’m not sure if its going to be that influential. What do you think?
<p>Northwestern certainly DOES have a program in classics - here's the link:
<a href="http://www.wcas.northwestern.edu/classics/%5B/url%5D">http://www.wcas.northwestern.edu/classics/</a></p>
<p>Even if they didn't, however, I'd say those awards are a wonderful addition to your application.</p>
<p>Definitely include it. That's something to be proud of.</p>
<p>My latin teacher (of all people!) told me NW didnt have a latin program. eh, he's old. but thanks!</p>
<p>I agree. Latin is a little off the beaten path these days and 20 awards testifies to depth and committment.</p>
<p>Nemine dissentiente.</p>
<p>Latin is for NERDS. It is a dead language. No one speaks it so no point in taking it. And don't go there with "It helps on the SATs" crap. Yeah if you consider 20pts a lot. My friends took it and there SATs went up no more than 40pts.</p>
<p>Latin is not dead so much as it is immortal.</p>
<p>Coureur, LOL</p>
<p>One good thing about taking Latin: there are no native speakers to mess up the curve on standardized tests! (According to our Spanish teacher this is a problem.)</p>
<p>bballplayer-</p>
<p>Don't diss it until you've tried it. Those of us who chose to challenge ourselves with Latin have more advanced English and Grammar skills than students of most other languages. We can read ancient texts in their original language, and explicate quickly and accurately. We have sharp critical thinking skills, and we think analytically. I'm willing to bet every Latin student on here knows the difference between "there" and "their", which you clearly don't. Plus, a year of Latin (Which I assume is what your friends took, considering you say that their scores went up "no more than 40 points", which implies that you have a starting score off of which to base your argument. It's unlikely that more than year passed between their two testings, and therefore, it's unlikely that they had more than a year of Latin in the interim.) doesn't do all that much. Had they gotten to more advanced Latin, I'm willing to bet that their scores would improve more. Latin may be for nerds, but I'd rather be a nerd than an idiot. </p>
<p>Need more convincing?
<a href="http://www.promotelatin.org/TCAsurvey2.pdf%5B/url%5D">http://www.promotelatin.org/TCAsurvey2.pdf</a></p>
<p>The awards sound impressive to me, even if the college of choice does not have a Classics department or study of Latin, and even if you were not pursuing that field of study.</p>
<p>Elizabeth22
-I took Hnrs. Latin I,II,III. I scored a 1380</p>
<p>Then you obviously had a bad teacher, read bad stuff, or just didn't have the mindset to appreciate any of it. But I do respect your opinion more knowing that you took some Latin.</p>
<p>liz,</p>
<p>I couldn't have defended my old pal Latin better than that. Perfectly said.</p>
<p>After four years of Latin, including two AP courses, I've noticed tremendous difference in my cognitive skills. Most of these differences are in writing in English and in Spanish, but the improved logic even extends to mathematics. Looking at a verse of poetry, with its verb four lines down from its subject and other convoluted word orders, is no different to me than writing a derivative.</p>
<p>As for the Latin, penandfury, definitely include it. Twenty awards is pretty impressive; there are your school's unique awards like gold and silver medals I assume, and then the National Latin Exam and the Philadelphia Classical Society exam, but what more could you have taken? :o</p>
<p>Well, I won't say Latin is not important, but I'd rather learn Spanish or French or Chinese since it's more applicable. And Latin is not the only study where you think critically and analyze. Lemme just name off a couple...math, chemisty, physics, english, history, etc. all require critical thinking and analytical skills, so it is rather naive to distinguish only Latin students for their critical thinking skills, when 99% of all other studies require some sort of brain usage. And I will say medicine, engineering, law, business, music, art, etc. is more useful than Latin. Society can survive without Latin, but society cannot survive without science and art.</p>
<p>And oh yeah...i never took Latin and got all of the vocab questions on the SAT correctly...</p>
<p>Latin prepares your mind to learn other languages, and truly understand them. Reading ancient works in the original language is second to none. Having taken classes in each of the disciplines you've mentioned (i.e. Math, Science, English, History), I still maintain that all are second to Latin in their development of cognitive abilities. I didn't say that non-Latin students can't think critically, but I do believe that on average, Latin students have more developed thinking skills than the student body of almost every other subject. I also disagree that art is more fundamental to society than the language from which many modern languages are derived.</p>
<p>20 awards?! Someone pwned the ajcl, congrats!!!</p>
<p>and Elizabeth pretty much pwned you all, but I have to say that I believe the true benefits of Latin which she mentioned can only be reaped if you actually LIKE the language. If you bum your way through the class, not caring, not doing anything unnecessary and even still get As, can you really expect more than a 40pt increase? Like everything in life, you get back essentially what you put in. From A Separate Peace: "The winter loves me," he retorted, and then, disliking the whimsical sound of that, added, "I mean as much as you can say a season can love. What I mean is, I love winter, and when you really love something, then it loves you back, in whatever way it has to love."</p>
<ul>
<li>It's also sort of weird that you took 3 years of something you apparently hate for one section of one test :rolleyes:</li>
</ul>
<br>
<blockquote> <p>Society can survive without Latin, but society cannot survive without science and art<<</p> </blockquote>
<br>
<p>Society can survive without Latin? What alphabet did you just use to write that post? (Hint: it wasn't Greek, Hebrew, Phoenician, or Chinese). If the Latin language and alphabet disappeared tomorrow, society would be hurtin' bad for long, long time.</p>
<p>Mortua lingua sola est bona.
"The only good language is a dead language."</p>
<p>without latin. we learn Chinese or some form of it that has nothing to do with latin. China and Japan are doing fine without latin arent they?</p>
<p>And if u want hard. try to learn Chinese as a second language. I am a native- Chinese speaker and Chinese is VERY VERY hard. Not only do you have one character for every word, and the character gives NO CLUE on how to sound it, but you also have about 50,000 of those words. Tell me Latin is harder than that. Latin is great.... sure. but is it useful? Does it really matter at a job interview that you can recite the Aeneid or the Illiad back and forth in latin? It may matter that you can speak Chinese or Spanish though (people who know practical foreign languages tend to get a higher salary than the people who do not know a practical foreign language). Perhaps latin develops your cognitive abilities, but is it worth it learning a completely impractical language just so you can have 1 IQ higher (its definitely not much higher than that... kids in China and Korea sure as hell dont learn latin and they're kicking our butts in the international academic competitions) than the guy who instead learned Spanish?
Also, just cause you can read ancient texts in its original form doesnt mean that we cant read Canterbury Tales or Sun Tzu's Art of War (in chinese) in their original forms. Another major problem i find with latin is the fact that those that tends to take latin consider themselves "intellects" and "scholarly". Hell, at my high school (which has one of the best latin programs around.. in fact, half the kids come to my school JUST TO TAKE LATIN even though they live like 30 minutes away), the kids who take latin seem in general to be much more pretentious, upper-class and snobbish. They can consider themselves to be as intellectual and scholarly as they want, but when it comes down to the "real" world, latin is not going to get you a higher paying job, make you THAT much smarter, or get you a hotter girlfriend (hell its probably the opposite). Sure i sound materialistic, but I want to see you live on "intellectualism".</p>