Her smile shines out of the pictures posted on the popular Facebook website under the title: “Why Emily Hilscher was cooler than me.”

Ms Hilscher, 19, is believed to have been the first victim of the loner Cho Seung Hui, as the object of an envious rage.

She was never short of friends, and more than 200 had posted tributes to her yesterday. Described as a straight-A student, Ms Hilscher spent much of her free time riding and hoped to become a vet.

“My friends are what keeps me smiling,” she wrote on her MySpace page, in which she referred to herself as The Pixie.

She had met a new boyfriend, about whom she gushed on her page. “I live, love and get booted but eventually that will change. I now have a wonderful guy who is hopefully going to change all of that.” College friends said her new boyfriend had just dropped her off before the massacre.

Will Sonnett, from Rappahannock County High School in rural Virginia, said on the tribute page: “Emily Hilscher was cooler than me because she could make friends with a glance and a smile.”

The first-year student was studying animal and poultry sciences and equine science. Her grandmother, Merle Hilscher, 71, described the tight bond that Emily had with her sister Erica, 21, who attended a nearby university. “They were very close all their lives,” she said. “Now one of them is ended, but we have to carry on.”

Ms Hilscher was a neighbour of Ryan Clark, 22, a residential adviser at the dormitory where the shooting started. It is thought that he rushed to help his neighbour when he heard her arguing with Cho Seung Hui. Both were shot dead

Mr Clark, “Stack” to his friends, was a biology and English student as well as a member of the Marching Virginians band.Back home in the Atlanta suburb of Martinez, Georgia, Vernon Collins, the coroner, had the task of telling Lettie Clark that her son had been killed. Mr Clark’s sister, Nadia, sent a message to friends, saying: “God needed a good angel to come home so he called my brother.” Courtney Dalton, who met Mr Clark two years ago when they worked at a restaurant, said: “When I was upset about something, he would come over and ask, ‘Are you OK?’” she said. “If you ever needed to talk, he’d listen.”

Details and pictures of victims were still emerging yesterday from family and friends. Christopher “Jamie” Bishop, 35, an adjunct professor of German at Virginia Tech, was teaching his class on the second floor of the Norris Building, when the gunman entered the room and shot him. Kevin Granata, described as one of the top five biomechanics researchers in the US, was teaching in the engineering faculty when his class was attacked. Professor Give Loganathan, 51, from Madras, had been teaching civil and environmental engineering.

Other victims included Mary Read, 19, born in Korea; Matt La Porte, 20, from Dumont, New Jersey; Ross Alameddine, 20, from Saugus, Massachusetts; Brian Bluhm, 25, who was weeks from finishing a master’s degree in civil engineering; Caitlin Hammaren, 19, who was majoring in international studies and French; Daniel Perez Cueva, 21, from Peru, studying international relations; Julia Pryde, a master’s student from Middletown, New Jersey; Jocelyne Couture-Nowak, a French instructor from Canada; Daniel O’Neill, an graduate engineering student; and Rachael Elizabeth Hill, an 18-year-old freshman.

British students were caught up in the shooting. George Barnwell, 20, from Kings Heath, Birmingham, a mechanical engineering student, said: “I woke up and could hear sirens but I didn’t think much about them until a room-mate checked his e-mails and found out what was going on.”

His room in the Cochrane Hall of residence is 100ft from the West Ambler Johnston Hall dormitory, where the first shootings happened. His girlfriend, Claire Harrison, a nursing student from Birmingham University, said: “It’s all been shocking.”

A journalist from Walsall, West Midlands, helped to keep the students informed. Tom Porter, 37, locked himself in his studio at Virginia Tech so he could broadcast reports on the college radio station, WUVT. He said: “I thought the best thing was to keep calm.”

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