Latin Placement

If you took Latin in high school, you do not have to take a placement test. You can take your automatic placement (described below), or you can take an in-person placement test with the Classics Department when you are on campus for orientation. (Contact the Chair of Classics to set this up.)

Placement Procedures

If you have four years or more of high school Latin, we place you into LATN 202. Upon request, we can place you lower in the sequence if you do not feel comfortable going into fourth semester.

If you have fewer than four years of high school Latin, you have three options:

  • Take our accelerated LATN 150, which covers the content of LATN 101 and 102 in one semester. You would then take LATN 201 the following semester.
  • Start at LATN 101.
  • Take a placement test with the Classics Department Chair in order to place into LATN 102 or LATN 201.

AP Credit

For AP or similar credit, please see the Registrar's resources: https://charleston.edu/registrar/transfer-student-resources/

About High School Latin

It may be confusing that several years of Latin do not necessarily transfer over to college as an equivalent number of semesters. The reason for this is a difference in high school and college instruction. At many high schools, "Latin class" covers both Latin language and Roman culture and history, but at the college level, we split these between language classes (LATN) and classics classes (CLAS).

When we assess your placement into Latin, we only considered the specific linguistic skills that you have acquired in your Latin class. Much of the material covered in high school often overlaps more with "Introduction to Ancient Rome" (CLAS 102) than with our Latin courses.

If you enjoyed the social and cultural studies of your high school Latin class, you might want to consider taking "Introduction to Ancient Greece" (CLAS 101), "Introduction to Ancient Rome" (CLAS 102), "Classical Mythology" (CLAS 103), "Introduction to Classical Archaeology" (CLAS 104), or "History of the Classical World" (CLAS 105). These all count for Gen. Ed. credit.