PROVIDENCE, R.I. — It’s not easy to find military veterans in undergraduate programs at most Ivy League schools.
Harvard has only three in its undergrad liberal arts and sciences school. Princeton, just one.
Students from the eight Ivies hope to change those kinds of numbers. They see a chance for institutions to diversify and for veterans to get an education that will help them become leaders.
“If we deny veterans the opportunity to go to these schools, not only do we deny them the same opportunity that others have, but we don’t give our future leaders a chance to meet them,” said Peter Kiernan, a Columbia University student who served six years in the Marine Corps. “They don’t get a chance to learn what it was like on the ground in Afghanistan or what combat is really like. These are important lessons that make them better leaders.”
Student veterans have formed the Ivy League Veterans Council to talk about boosting the number of veterans at their schools. They want admissions, enrollment and recruiting policies to be more receptive, and they want veterans to know the Ivy League is an option. The council met for the third time last month, at Yale University.
The council wants the Ivies to address barriers, whether by establishment of a veterans’ office, having veterans as recruiters or even just accepting transfer credits.
Officials say they’re making changes. Princeton is reinstituting a transfer admission program, partly to help attract and enroll more veterans, a spokesman said. Most veterans have some college credit when they apply, but Princeton couldn’t admit them without a transfer program. Brown University, Harvard and the University of Pennsylvania said they’re reaching out to veterans organizations.
Dartmouth College partnered with the nonprofit Posse Foundation in 2014 to enroll groups of veterans and provide strong financial and academic support. Yale has conducted informational sessions for veterans and contacted academically strong veterans at community colleges.
