Athena

You'll be fine! I started at 20. Just one bit of advice: do not drink alcohol in front of anyone until you turn 21. I was very careful about this - not because I'm addicted to drink (definitely not), but because I never knew who'd be watching or care about such things. And you are definitely not missing out on high-quality wine by foregoing the plastic sippy cup (obligatory at every academic conference).

I agree with kbatulli - Michigan is a great program, a model for what a classics department at a Big 10 university should be. And have you not read any secondary literature on archaic Greek poetry? Janko is all over the bibliography for Homer, Hesiod, lyric poets...

Sorry, I don't know much about UCI's program. As far as later Latin goes, here are my opinions: - Harvard is of course, top-notch, especially with Jan Ziolkowski there. Library is renowned for its collection. I think Harvard would be a good place to do primarily classics, with a bit of medieval stuff on the side... but that's just an opinion based on the faculty I recall being there. This computer isn't very fast at loading pages, so I'll leave you to check the faculty list. - UCLA has been great for years in the area of medieval Latin - they have Patrick Geary and Claudia Rapp, both fantastic scholars; also Christopher Baswell. Friends have good things to say about their post-bacc program and assume that their graduate program is of the same high quality. I think this would be a great place for someone wanting to do more interdisciplinary study, especially something historical. I've heard good things about the library here, too. - U of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) has a few outstanding scholars in late antique/medieval Latin. Danuta Shanzer runs all the Platinum Latin sessions at the Kalamazoo Medieval Congress and she's in charge of Latin programming at the Leeds Medieval Congress. She and Ralph Mathisen (later Roman history / numismatics) have run a late antiquity conference nearly every year since 2004 - and they have attracted big names in the field (e.g. Walter Goffart, Gillian Clark) as well as up-and-coming scholars. Charles Wright is based in the English department and does medieval Latin/Old English. Library is renowned. - Notre Dame is a good place for a person who knows they want to do medieval Latin and not much classical Greek. Thomas F. X. Noble is renowned in early medieval history. Can't remember who else is there, but I know they have a long list of faculty. Their medieval institute always offers great summer courses in medieval Latin, so I imagine it's a good place to study that, especially if you are interested in religious material. (Not to mention that they are loaded - medieval studies gets lots of $). And Indiana uses daylight saving time now! I would choose ND over CUA (assuming you mean Catholic U of America).