[15][16] Boston Latin prepared many students for admission to Harvard,[17] with a total of seven years devoted to the classics.

[20] Boston Latin has produced four Harvard University presidents, four Massachusetts governors, and five signers of the United States Declaration of Independence.

Helen Magill White was the school's first female graduate and the first American woman to earn a doctorate.

[23] The school appointed Marie Frisardi Cleary[24] and Juanita Ponte[25] as the first two women in its academic faculty in 1967.

[27] In 2016, Mooney Teta resigned amid a federal probe into racially charged incidents at the school.

Until 2020, admission was determined by a combination of a student's score on the Independent School Entrance Examination (ISEE) and recent grades.

[44] As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, however, the entrance exam was suspended, and admission was based on grades and Boston residency.

Before the 1997 school year, Boston Latin set aside a 35% quota of places in the incoming class for under-represented minorities.

[citation needed] In recent years, the admissions exam has continued to cause controversy due to the lack of diversity among admitted students.

[50] The Educational Records Bureau (ERB), the organization responsible for creating and updating the ISEE, reportedly decided to end its yearly contract with the Boston Public Schools (BPS) in April 2019.

In an email sent to the school district and other clients, ERB claimed that the test’s scoring metric had been incorrectly applied by BPS, resulting in underrepresented race groups failing to be admitted.

BPS claimed instead that it had ended the contract in search of a test enabling “more equitable access” to the exam schools.

The petition, directed to Boston City Council, argued that cancelling the test would increase disruption due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The school also holds Public Declamation, in which students from all grades are welcomed to try out for the chance to declaim a memorized piece in front of an assembly.

Over the years, however, it evolved into a purely literary magazine, publishing prose and poetry written by members of the student body, as well as artwork.

[69] Boston Latin has graduated notable Americans in the fields of politics (both local and national), religion, science, journalism, philosophy, and music.

Of the 56 men who signed the Declaration of Independence, five were educated at Latin: Adams, Franklin, Hancock, Hooper, and Paine.

The Hall of Fame, known casually as "The Wall," refers to the upper frieze in the school's auditorium, where the last names of famous alumni are painted.

These names include Adams, Bernstein,[71] Fitzgerald, Franklin, Hancock, Hooper, John Hull, Kennedy, Mather, Paine, Quincy, Santayana, Winthrop and others.

[72] There are no names of female graduates, mostly because women have attended the school for just 46 years and the honor is only bestowed posthumously.