Cho Seung-Hui was born in South Korea and emigrated to the United States as an 8-year-old child with his parents in September 1992. According to Virginia Tech, Cho was an undergraduate student in his senior year as an English major. He was a South Korean national but was a permanent legal resident of the United States, and had a permanent address listed in Centreville, Virginia, an unincorporated community in western Fairfax County located within the Washington Metropolitan Area His family currently resides in Virginia where they run a dry-cleaning business.
He was living on campus in Harper Residence Hall at the time of his death.