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Incoming Â鶹ÊÓƵ freshman and EIP graduate Muhammad Farhan Babar is no stranger to helping others.

After coming to the United States from El Salvador to join her mother late in 2010, she enrolled in Â鶹ÊÓƵ's Early Identification Program and was an academic star at Freedom High School in Woodbridge, Virginia.

Â鶹ÊÓƵ one in three Â鶹ÊÓƵ students are in the first generation of their families to attend college. First-generation college students find a welcoming environment at Â鶹ÊÓƵ, with a multi-layered support network to help ensure success and provide help through any challenge.

Of the 108 Northern Virginia graduating seniors who participated in the university's Early Identification Program, 48 have chosen to attend Â鶹ÊÓƵ. Twenty-eight of those students have been awarded partial or full scholarships.

Accounting major Isabella Bah began her Â鶹ÊÓƵ journey as a student in the Early Identification Program.

During the pandemic shutdown, EIP, just like all programming at Â鶹ÊÓƵ, was forced to pivot to online platforms.

Kristen Alleyne and Elene Lipartiani, incoming freshmen at Â鶹ÊÓƵ, have been honored with I-Achieve scholarships for academic excellence. The awards are being given for the first time this year, as part of a grant Â鶹ÊÓƵ received from the Jack Kent Cooke Foundation last fall.

The STEM Fusion program is part of Â鶹ÊÓƵ’s Early Identification Program (EIP), an extensive outreach effort to more than 650 first-generation college-bound students in the Northern Virginia area.

Chilin, whose family came from El Salvador in 2000, when she was 9 years old, has temporary protected status (TPS), an immigration status provided by the U.S. government to nationals of countries destabilized by war or catastrophe.

This Â鶹ÊÓƵ junior is majoring in finance and accounting. She is a member of five student organizations (at least—that’s what she could recall off the top of her head) and works two part-time jobs, including one as a mentor in Â鶹ÊÓƵ’s Early Identification Program (EIP).