So, I am a lifelong member of Girl Scouts, and a member of Boy Scouts since they allowed girls in 2019. Both organizations are very different, but have been critical to my personal development.
Therefore, I decided to list them as two separate activities on my Common App. In the awards section, I also listed the Girl Scout Gold Award and Boy Scout Eagle Award.
After asking a few people to read my ECs and Awards, I was questioned about what they were, told to condense them into one activity (despite being completely different programs that I contributed to significantly), and asked whether the AO would even know what Eagle Scout and the Gold Award was.
To me, that seemed a bit absurd. However, I know many people aren’t familiar with all the top awards in Scouting and their significance.
Do you think most AOs would know what Girl Scouts, Boy Scouts, the Gold Award, and the Eagle Award are?
I would wager that an AO would be quite aware of Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts, likely aware of the Eagle Scout rank/award, and probably not the Gold Award. Unless they had been a Girl Scout.
First off, congrats! Either rank is a feat on its own, getting both is an incredible achievement, and getting them both despite the hurdles presented by a global pandemic is remarkable!
AOs will be familiar with both awards, and — even more — will probably (hopefully!) understand the significance of your being one of the first “Golden Eagles”.
(In general, I think people tend to be more familiar with the Eagle award, but an AO’s job is, in part, to be conversant with the commendations, awards, and honors that set high-achieving students apart from one another, so both of those will be on their radar. And they’ll also know both organizations, and that they’re distinct from one another.)
Congrats again. You’ll be (deservedly) proud of those two recognitions for your entire life.
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They are familiar with both awards. Do not combine them.
Some schools will even give you a grant/scholarship for the awards (I doubt they will give you two awards). Florida tech give a scholarship for either (stacks with other scholarships).
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This comment is incorrect.
All AOs will know about both awards and organizations. Both Eagle Scout and the Gold Award are long time, well-established awards and AOs understand the commitment that it takes to achieve them.
Your project for each may be what will like help advance your personal story more than than the award itself, but these are well-known, well-respected awards/activities among AOs.
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Both scouting organizations in the US are well known in the US.
Even if admission readers are immigrants who grew up outside the US, many other countries have similar scouting organizations (though often coed / all-gender for a long time).
So list then separately but make sure you have other items on your Ecs and application also. My son did many things in the chess arena from playing on a top ten state team varsity to camps to tutoring a kid etc. Once a friend of ours that is a college counselor looked at his app very early on she counted all of it as one item and said “what else you got”… Lol. He actually did but was surprised by her reactions since many hours each week were devoted to it.
But it’s impressive nonetheless. I was asked to volunteer about 5 years ago at the international Scouting Jamboree in West Virginia in one of the medical tents and we had hands on learning in surgery for the scouts. I didn’t realize that pretty much all over the world its just coed scouting. It was fun for us meeting people scouts from all over the world. Good luck.
I suspect Scouts is undervalued by some admissions offices. There is so much work involved in advancing! I’d look into breaking out some of your more dedicated Scout activities into separate activities - there’s so much to cover! Ie, instead of simply listing, Scouts, Award, years, how about that plus “managed two food drives after participating as a volunteer for four years in this twice-yearly community drive which raises xxx” and “as patrol leader, planned and organized weekly activities for a group of x students, to include sports activities, fundraising, etc.”
My son broke out his Eagle project as one EC and the rest of his scouting experience (SPL) as another.
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