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What Can Military Friendly Schools Do Better?

Hi everyone and welcome (or welcome back) to the blog “Soldier to Student”. In this blog post I want to talk about positive things military friendly schools offer and what could make them even better! First of all, what is a military friendly college? What does that mean? Military friendly is the standard that measures an organization's commitment, effort and success in creating sustainable and meaningful benefits for the military community. The website https://www.militaryfriendly.com/schools/ gives a rating of just how good schools are to veteran and military students. When I was applying to ISU I remember seeing they displayed the gold rank badge of Military Friendly on their website. ISU does have a Military and Veterans center on campus with many knowledgeable staff that can answer your questions. The military and veterans center does send out emails every once in a while with pertinent information as well as extracurricular opportunities like SVA (Student Veterans of America). When I reached out to the veterans center I could see why they got a gold rating for being military friendly. The only critique and biggest one I have is that I wish when enrolling they are automatically notified so they can reach out to you. I think it would be smart of the universities to assign each student veteran a sponsor to help provide them the information they need. I was very confused in the beginning and thought that I had to figure everything out with the VA, so even if it is just an automated email giving veteran students the contact information for the veterans center, I think there should be a link between enrollment and the veterans center. Please let me know in the comments what you all think!

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