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When Rafael Lovo was only 5, he told his mother he wanted to read the newspaper. A few years later, he took to counting the money his mother made in her small store in El Salvador.

"I got used to thinking really quickly about adding and subtracting," Lovo said.

Lovo and his family immigrated to Maryland in 2005, with little money and ability to speak English. But four years later, 19-year-old Lovo has graduated from Parkdale High School in the top 5 percent of his class, with a 4.0 grade point average and a full scholarship to study engineering at the University of Maryland, College Park.

"We came [to the United States] because there's basically no future [in El Salvador.] All the time, we went to public schools and you have to pay for college," the New Carrollton resident said of his time in El Salvador.

Lovo, who graduated Monday, will be the first in his family to attend college. He is one of nine students accepted into the University of Maryland Incentive Awards Program, which provides four-year scholarships for students with a great need for financial assistance, high academic ability and extraordinary persistence despite obstacles.

Parkdale ESOL counselor Linda Cooper remembers when she first met Lovo as a quiet, serious and focused freshman who stood out by "the seriousness of his intent to learn."

"It was immediately apparent that his performance was above the level of English placement the papers indicated and I said, ‘You can move up a level if you want.' And he said, ‘No. I want to learn it the right way,'" Cooper recalled.

Lovo said he supplemented Parkdale's ESOL classes by spending most of his spare time watching closed-captioned television and writing down English words.

"I wanted to express myself and I wanted to give people my opinion and let them know what I was thinking," he said.

The first two years in America were not easy for Lovo. His father, Rafael Lovo, was still in El Salvador and his mother worked long hours to support him and his sister.

"It was very difficult, but we were working together. What I wanted was that they would have a better future," Lovo's mother, Ana Panameno, said in Spanish of her children.

Lovo's sister, 17-year-old Marcela Lovo, called her brother an inspiration, saying in Spanish, "He is the best brother that one can have."

"He worked so hard. He helped me, too, because I didn't know English either," she continued in English. "When he sees me giving up, he keeps telling me to keep pushing and never give up."

The ESOL program is normally four years long, but Lovo finished it in two years. He then took an honors English class his junior year and three Advanced Placement classes his senior year.

Lovo said when he first came to the United States, he never thought he'd be able to attend a university, saying the scholarship "was basically my only hope."

"My counselors helped me a lot. They were the ones who actually encouraged me to go through the process of the scholarship," Lovo said.

Cooper, a counselor for 30 years, said immigrant families are increasingly focusing on higher education, adding that Lovo is "exceptional. He's really at the top of the heap."

"I feel confident that he'll go on to graduate school. He knows full well that this level of success comes internally and he's got it internally. I don't see that getting diverted at any time," Cooper said.

Although Lovo will leave his home for college, he wants to eventually help the Parkdale High School community. He encouraged other students facing similar obstacles that what he's achieved "is possible" for them.

"They have to work hard and they have set goals for themselves and if they keep working, they'll [be able] to do whatever they want," he said.