Anyone reading this newsletter who’s been through the college admissions process knows a lot goes into it. Whether you went to a public high school or a fancy prep school, one recalls meetings with guidance counselors, studying for standardized tests, obsessing over grades in high school, and (generally speaking) laying that all out in lengthy and exhausting applications to places that you absolutely must attend.

My reason for doing everything I could to matriculate at and graduate from college was that my father had gone to that same school. That isn’t a great reason for everyone, but it was the only reason that truly mattered to me. I couldn’t not go. Which is to say, I wouldn’t have been satisfied anywhere else.

From that admission, one intuits that I had a lot of help getting to college: guidance, family assistance, people to advise and assist my navigation through a byzantine process.

Today we talk with Alec Emmert, the CEO of Service to School. S2S is an organization that takes active duty troops who are getting out and veterans (few of whom have the resources I did) who want to become students, offers them guidance and assistance, and helps them match with the college that’s best suited for their skills and ambition. The help often makes a big difference.

THE BIG STORY

A Pathway to Success

Service to School’s CEO Alec Emmert talks about how prepping student veterans to excel in higher education

Service to School (S2S) has great energy. It’s been around as an institution for over a decade, coaching and preparing veterans to attend colleges and universities, and supporting them as they make their way through to graduation. There’s no question that without it, and the few other organizations that fulfill a similar purpose, fewer veterans would become students. Those veterans who did matriculate would probably have difficulty gaining admission to the more competitive schools, and graduate with poorer outcomes (or not at all).

The current CEO, Alec Emmert, sat down with Military Media to explain S2S’s model: what’s special about it, and how it fills a gap in the education system that few see.

Adrian Bonenberger: Thanks for making the time to talk with me, Alec. The first thing I thought might be interesting to readers was what Service to School does, exactly — and how when folks were leaving the military about 10 years ago, nothing like this existed.

Alexander Emmert: In a nutshell, Service to School provides free college admissions support to any veteran who wants to pursue higher education, whether that's going to community college or earning a PhD. We want to make sure that our veterans attend schools that will set them up for success, and that align with their personal goals.

A decade ago, our founders — three West Point grads, and the former director of admissions for the University of Chicago Law School — got together and recognized that veterans were having real issues identifying good undergraduate colleges to attend and completing their degrees. There was a big problem with for-profit schools that existed to eat GI Bill benefits and did little for student veterans because they are not geared to help students graduate. The very first thing Service to School’s founders tried to do was establish a mechanism for providing students with the equivalent of college counseling. It's that simple: getting veterans to give other veterans advice on which schools to pick, how to write an essay, and how to present their military experience in a way that a civilian reviewing their application will understand. This near-peer mentorship through Service to School’s Ambassador program is the key to its impact.

About two thirds of veterans are first generation college students. Many don't have the kind of foundational knowledge and advice on the home front about selecting a good college. S2S has grown since then. We offer both undergraduate and graduate school support and also have a program called VetLink, which is a partnership we have with 28 schools, including some of the most highly selective schools in the United States. We've got six out of the eight Ivy's, and schools like MIT, Stanford, in the mix, as well as some other fine state schools, such as University of Michigan and the University of South Carolina. There are some criteria to be part of that program: the school has to be able to provide a direct admission point of contact for our students. They need to be a yellow ribbon school. And they need to have a 70% or better graduation rate, which is to us kind of the key differentiator because we want our veterans to attend schools from which they will graduate, and not waste their GI Bill.

 Adrian Bonenberger: It occurs to me, listening to you, that maybe one of the big differences between, college prep schools, private schools that are geared toward prepping folks for college, and the majority, not all, but the majority of public schools, is having a really robust college guidance counselor slash college prep program.

 Alec Emmert: Absolutely. I was not a first-generation college student. I went to a private school in Washington, DC, where everybody went to college. Many students had tutors, an SAT prep, they all were able to take the SATs untimed and we had fantastic results in college admissions. I had a very different experience when I joined the military. I met some of the smartest, most capable people, almost none of whom shared the advantages of my high-school classmates. For example, few of the enlisted sailors on my submarine had a college education, many of them came from economically disadvantaged backgrounds. However, these were very smart people who could solve problems, work under pressure, build teams, and I thought: “these are the kind of people who should be going to top schools and running this country.” So to me, I saw what I had at my prep school, and what even many people at public school don’t always get — good college counseling, real counseling — and that’s what S2S does, fulfills that critical role. It’s our way of helping democratize higher education, through getting veterans into schools.

 Adrian Bonenberger: That's a great way to put it. It's interesting and important, because you wouldn't know necessarily, if you went to a prep school like you and I did or have family legacies pushing us toward college, that it isn’t like that for everyone, that everyone doesn’t have those formal and informal systems to help folks get to the right college for them. So it wouldn't necessarily occur to anybody to know about that gap, let alone be capable of identifying it as something to be fixed with the veteran population applying to college.

Alec Emmert: When I left active duty in 2013 and joined the Reserves, the narrative was that veterans were people who have been to war, seen terrible things, and done their part for our country, so we owe them a debt of gratitude. But the narrative has shifted. Now, the narrative goes, we’re giving veterans educational benefits because they are people who are capable in addition to the service they did, people who don’t deserve help like a handout or entitlement but because they’re smart people who will make the most of the opportunity. If you look at the demographic statistics of people serving on active duty in the military, they are by and large less economically advantaged than most Americans. And less educationally advantaged, that goes along with it. People who took a hard route through life, to college, by joining the military, whether they saw combat or not they did something quite difficult. They committed themselves to self-improvement and had an opportunity to stand out based on their merits when they were in the military.  They got money from the GI Bill or other various programs, so they don't need a rich relative to pay for their college education, they earned it themselves. It’s awesome to see enlisted veterans joining the children of America’s one-percenters at the nation’s top colleges.

Adrian Bonenberger: The narrative historically about the military is that especially when it comes to enlistment, not necessarily officers commissioning, but with enlistment, that this is something people do if they messed up or they can't do anything else. So people who haven’t gone through it themselves or don’t have direct family members probably don't understand that basic training has, I think, like a 10% weed out across the board. But 50% of the people who walk into a recruiter's office don't even get to basic training, they don’t meet the physical qualifications, or have committed some disqualifying crime or action. So there are actually portals that people have to cross through before they even get to the military. It’s quite selective. And then you reach your unit, and to stand out, it’s also quite difficult — a zero sum game.

Alec Emmert: This is such a tremendous opportunity, military service, for so many veterans. I was just interviewing this veteran, who grew up in the foster care system. He joined the military right after high school, did his service, was discharged honorably, was able to pay for school with the Post-9/11 GI Bill, went to an Ivy-plus school, and just won a prestigious scholarship for further work after graduation. If you think about what it takes to succeed in the college admissions process, you really need three things, right? You need money to pay for school: the military gives you that. Then there are two other things. And that's what S2S gives. First, you need a cheerleader saying: “you can do this.” Because few of these vets went to a prep school. Nobody ever told them they could go to Harvard or UChicago. And they're just like, oh, Harvard, that's for rich kids. They need to hear and see success stories. Success stories help veterans cultivate an inner belief that they can do it, too. The second thing S2S gives and the third thing that’s needed to get through the admissions process is guidance, logistical support, and mentorship — someone who understands the process. And S2S provides that. So basically, the three things that people would get by going to a prestigious prep school, we provide two of them, and the government provides the third.

Adrian Bonenberger: What are some of the challenges you see colleges facing with their student veteran populations?

Alec Emmert: The big thing is assimilation. Our typical student veteran is significantly older than the typical college student. And it's over about 50% of veterans have families when they go to school. So, and they don't have parents, you know, paying their bills, they are the parents. Coming from the military, which is a highly structured environment, into a much less structured environment, and balancing that freedom with the commitments of having a family and the learning curve that comes from going back to school… that's really the biggest challenge that I think a lot of veterans have once they get to campus.

Adrian Bonenberger: Do you feel that colleges in general are doing a better job with helping student veterans through that assimilation process?

Alec Emmert: One of our prerequisites for the S2S veteran program is that our partner schools have a dedicated veteran representative on staff. It doesn’t have to be their only responsibility with the school. The University of Chicago does an incredible job, they've got a director of Veterans Affairs there, who is an incredible guy. He looks after all the vets, he brings them all in, when they all get to campus he holds a a meet and greet, goes through all the different challenges they may have — how do you sign up for health care? How do you find housing? That is one of the things that we have with our VetLink program. That's why we partner with certain schools because those are the ones that set veterans up for success.

Adrian Bonenberger: Is there anything that you would like Service to School to do that it doesn't currently — anything that you're hoping to sort of add to the repertoire? Or if you feel S2S already does everything it needs to well, is there anything that you'd like it to do better?

Alec Emmert: What we do, we do very well. And if you look at our mission as getting veterans into the best college for them, we succeed at that. So there's no question that that we're fulfilling our mission. My goal as CEO is to step up the things that we do well and expand on them. We are seeking to grow our impact to dramatically increase the number of veterans we support by building up our outreach and advising efforts and growing our VetLink partnerships.

Adrian Bonenberger: Any final thoughts?

Alec Emmert: Don't self-select out of college. If you're a veteran, you've got to think about what you bring to a college campus. Your typical 18-year-old student has probably never traveled or — if we’re being honest — done anything very hard, certainly not on par with the military. Anybody who's gone to boot camp has done something hard, has stepped outside their comfort zone and put themselves in a pressure filled situation then made it through. Veterans have traveled the world and solved complex problems with real world consequences. Veterans have to keep in mind that they are special, they are top material for top college. They have what it takes to get there because they've already proven it. And colleges are looking for them.

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