JumpStart Helps Thousands of High Schoolers Succeed

High school graduates in 2020 faced a very different end of the school year than they had planned.  Recognizing their unique challenges and hoping to provide a much-needed academic bright spot, NOVA launched our JumpStart initiative. Leveraging a portion of our institutional scholarship funds, NOVA offered Northern Virginia’s 2020 high school graduates the opportunity to take up to two free classes to JumpStart their post-secondary careers. 

The program was extremely popular. Despite the short application turnaround time, almost 4,000 students applied. Students had to meet dual enrollment placement requirements and submit a high school transcript. Overall, 2,599 individual students were registered for 4,148 classes. Fairfax County had the most JumpStart students (1,037); but all of NOVA’s jurisdictions were represented in the JumpStart population. As of August 10, approximately 34% of the JumpStart students had enrolled in Fall 2020 classes at NOVA; with Latinx students having the highest retention rate, at 60%.

Of the JumpStart students attending NOVA this Fall, the most popular programs are Business Administration; Science; and General Studies, Health Sciences specialization.

JumpStart students could choose from ART-101, CST-110, ENG-111, HIS-112 or MTH-154, all of which fulfill degree requirements at NOVA and at most senior institutions. Students also could take our new cloud computing course, ITN-257, to learn more about Amazon Web Services. With 1,014 and 894 students, respectively, ENG-111 and CST-110 were the most popular choices for the JumpStart population. Overall, JumpStart students enjoyed an 83% success rate.

NOVA is extremely proud of the JumpStart program and the success the students enjoyed. It is an excellent example of what happens when we remove barriers and open access to higher education to students across our service area.