URBANA — Uni Latin students continued their tradition of excellence with strong performances this spring in the Illinois Latin Contest and the National Latin Exam.

The Illinois Latin Contest was first held in 1938 and is sponsored by the Illinois Classical Conference. Students who score in the "Superior" level (top 20 percent) or the "Excellent" level (top 40 percent) move on to compete in the state finals.

Six of teacher Krisanna Zusman's Latin I students advanced to state; all are subfreshmen. Three qualified at the Superior level:

• Brianna Hajek
• Sunjay Koshy
• Petra Rantanen

Three qualified at the Excellent level:

• Kody Carmody
• Chelsea Edwards
• Evan Ramos

All six competed at the state finals on April 25 at Knox College in Galesburg. The Uni contingent represented more than half of the students who qualified. Only 11 students in all of Illinois made it to the finals — and of those, only five placed at state, including two from Uni.

Rantanen earned an rank of Excellent at the state finals, while Koshy received a rank of Superior.

Also standing out this spring were the nine Uni students who won gold medals as the top scorers on the National Latin Exam, sponsored by the American Classical League and the National Junior Classical League.

The exam consists of tests that are tailored to multiple levels of proficiency (from Intro to Latin to Latin V & VI); they include questions on grammar, comprehension, mythology, history, and derivatives.

More than 149,000 students from all 50 states participated in the national exam this year, as did students from 13 foreign countries, including Australia, Belgium, Canada, China, Italy, Japan, United Kingdom, and Zimbabwe.

Six of Zusman's Latin I students came away with gold medals and summa cum laude certificates; all are subfreshmen except where indicated:

• Vickie Chang
• Chelsea Edwards
• Brianna Hajek
• Mohammad Jaber (soph)
• Evan Ramos
• Petra Rantanen

One Latin II student won a gold medal and certificate:

• Victoria Wong (soph)

Two Latin III students earned gold medals and certificates; both are sophomores:

• Simone Ballard
• Ziran Shang

The students mentioned above were honored at the May 19 year-end awards ceremony in Uni Gym.