Equity. Access. Success.
Now celebrating its 10th year, the John P. Chesick Scholars Program offers first-generation, low-income students a strong sense of belonging and the resources they need. BY DEBBIE GOLDBERG
// PHOTOS BY PATRICK MONTERO
When Naraly Mayorquin ’25 was in high school, she learned from a TikTok video about QuestBridge, a national program to help talented, low-income students attend selective colleges. Later, as a finalist in the program, Mayorquin struggled to complete the all-important FAFSA financial aid application on her own. “I worried, did I fill it out wrong, am I committing tax fraud?” she recalls. Now midway through her first year, Mayorquin has found that such challenges are not uncommon for students who are the first in their families to attend college. Like many first-generation students, she had her parents’ full support in her goal
of going to college, but they weren’t knowledgeable enough to help her through the process. When she found out she was accepted to Haverford through the QuestBridge program, Mayorquin says, “It wasn’t only my success, it was my family’s success as well.” This year, Mayorquin is one of 92 first-year Fords who are also CHRISTINA ROSE director of the John P. Chesick Scholars Program
first-generation and/or low-income (FLI) students, according to Christina Rose, director of the John P. Chesick Scholars Program, which provides resources and mentoring to help these students transition to and succeed at Haverford. All 315 FLI students on campus are considered Chesick Scholars and, of those, 136 are first-generation students, many of them also lowincome. “There has been a growing focus on first-generation, lowincome students over the past 10-15 years,” Rose says. Although
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