<p>A religious organization restricting membership to religious people would clearly be a belief that organizations should hold like minded individuals and not intolerance so we are in agreement.</p>
<p>I don’t think that you can generalize like that. All it suggests is that the individual feels that the BSA should have those policies. Why you would assume anything beyond that is bizarre to me. I don’t see how you can claim with certainty that your incredibly broad statement is a direct consequence.</p>
<p>There are other ways to probe for intolerance besides asking that question. And I admit that I would be doing so if someone had listed the Eagle on their resume. I would probably also ask their references about it, too. And Baelor… the Boy scouts do not discriminate against any other religious group that I am aware of. So in my book their treatment of atheism IS discriminatory. They could take a page from the book of the Girl Scouts, who accept gay & atheist members equally with all others. Hasn’t seemed to have hurt the quality of girls or their experience as far as I can tell (and I was a GS leader for about 10 years).</p>
<p>Regarding figuring out people’s prejudices in an interview, you would be AMAZED at what people will say in an interview (once I had a guy say to me, “I think I would have trouble working for a woman”). Um… I was the hiring manager. And am a woman. We hired someone else. :)</p>
<p>I am on the mailing list of a large teaching hospital in my area and there was recently a photo in the newsletter of a large group of men who were all Eagle Scouts. According the article,in casual conversation between two men the subject came up and they were then curious who else on staff was an Eagle. They posted on staff bulletins boards and spread the word. I loved the photo because it showed such a range, the CEO and a few other administrators in suits, several physicians in scrubs, a few nurses, a bio medical engineer, and either a maintenance or janitorial worker as well.</p>
<p>Also my nephew is an Eagle, college grad and states it helped in college apps and job interviews.</p>
<p>I would not say that Eagle is a “hook”.</p>
<p>[As</a> I’ve written before](<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/269133-number-eagle-scouts-year-year-3.html]As”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/269133-number-eagle-scouts-year-year-3.html), Eagle seems to be more common than it was even ten years ago. At some point in the last couple years, I had a student tell me he got Eagle for cleaning out a room in a library basement with two friends. Another built a planter for a traffic island. I was pretty surprised those projects were worthy of the rank, but perhaps the students weren’t describing their projects accurately.</p>
<p>I would be sure to write a line describing the Eagle project.</p>
<p>^^^
I don’t think Eagle Scout should or would be considered a “hook” under any circumstances. My impression of hook is something intrinsic to a person that the university is looking for - the examples of first generation, URM, etc. Additionally, I can see why schools would not regard this in the same light as something like winning at Siemens, or USAMO. Those are competitions which show the student’s ability in comparison to other students. In any given troop every kid could earn Eagle if they put in the work. In fact that’s what I liked about scouting, it was me competing against myself, or against the elements, often with real help from other scouts. So much of high school is competition - even within the team, orchestra, acting group, etc. I played football horribly for 4 years, probably the worst on the team but I worked very hard. With scouting, it was nice to be able to do something that I didn’t have to be one of the best at. So I did it without even thinking about college.</p>
<p>That said, I certainly hope admissions count scouting at least as much as some other ECs. It is certainly just as involved as being on a debate team or the school newspaper staff. I honestly don’t see where all this emphasis on the project as the only thing comes from. It’s like the only thing important about the Master’s degree is the thesis. The thesis is important but there is also a lot of classwork. </p>
<p>Either things have changed a lot in 40 years or people don’t really know the steps necessary to earn the rank. When I got Eagle, the project was just one of many things we had to do - which included activities at each rank, skills tests at each rank, trips iin the wilderness, holdng leadership positions for advancement, and performing service for each advancement. Some merit badges you could earn in a passle at camp, but for at least half of them I had to study, perform certain tasks and demonstrate certain skills, and get passed by an adult counselor. In my case I had to make the appointments with the couinselors myself, and ride over on my bike to get the merit badge - often a few visits for each badge. They almost always wanted something beyond the requirements of the badge. Maybe there was less parental involvement those days. My parents never did anythig except attend some awards ceremenoies.</p>
<p>
That’s the thing. Nobody gets Eagle for cleaning out a room. That’s just the Eagle project (which in this case I agree does not seem like much). Similarly, nobody would get Eagle for building a self-sustaining non-profit that donates $5 million to Darfur. They might get some other award, but they would still have to complete all the other steps to get Eagle.</p>
<p>
I was obviously referring to the project. If you read a few past threads about this, you’ll see some interesting comments from students and parents about the process. I came across a comment from someone who sat on the board that reviews the paperwork. Their comments were interesting.</p>
<p>^^^
Generally a few anecdotal (and I assume anonymous) comments on a message board don’t interest me that much. If I run across them, I’ll read them but I don’t give them much credence either way, especially when every group may be slightly different and I have significant personal experience. I’m certainly not going to go searching for them.</p>
<p>If you’d care to provide a link or summarize I’ll see if it comports with my own experience.</p>
<p>So are you saying you completely discount scouting as a valid EC? Do you have a similar opinion about any other EC?</p>
<p>I think you also have some scouts/projects that JUST MEET the requirements for approval. Others go above & beyond. The workbook, planning process, implementation, and then manual labor are what ‘gets the award’. The public never sees that - just the project.</p>
<p>If you are in scouts…then you would understand listing Eagle on your resumes. It takes years to achieve - not only the project itself & all that work - but all the requirements through the years for each of your other ranks. It is all cumulative. The Eagle Scout award is the highest honor and is considered as important to scouts & those involved as is a high award given to military people. (For example)</p>
<p>So , those of you who think it is rediculous to list it, obviously aren’t scouters. And that’s ok ! I’m just trying to explain WHY an adult might list it. The interviewer may not understand either, but occasionally, if you have 2 equal candidates…the ONE thing that sets them apart could be the Eagle.</p>
<p>Knowing what I do about scouting, I personally WOULD put a lot of merit in the achievement. I certainly would not be afraid to list it because they may ask me questions about gays. I’m sure they could come up with equally controversial questions from some other thing listed.</p>
<p>
“Intolerance” is a word that applies to treatment that the user of the word personally disagrees with. ie intolerance is in the eye of the beholder, as you have just demonstrated. More people should recognize that certain types of intolerance are good and others not so much, but defining which are which becomes a bit sticky, eh?</p>
<p>My S, an eagle, feels strongly about the discrimination policies of the scouts and as a result, will probably not put eagle scout on a resume. I agree that it would be an interesting topic of conversation during an interview. He might answer the question about discrimination with “I don’t discriminate on the basis of religion or sexual orientation.” He may further discuss that his troop has a meeting dedicated to discussion about such scout policies with leaders of the troop and many other scouts disagreeing also against discrimination. He may discuss his work at Philmont in which most of the staff disagree with the national organization. Indeed, my son when giving rides in HS refused to allow “gay bashing” in the car. I know many catholics who disagree with the pope about selected issues. An individual does not represent the beliefs of a national or international organization. </p>
<p>But, what he will put on a resume is taking the responsibility of building an 80 foot boardwalk through wetlands and leadership/coordination/performance during many summers at Philmont. The goal should not be getting an eagle which is why it’s not a hook. The goal should be doing good and meaningful work during the time with scouts. Just doing a weak project to “get it done” will probably hurt in admissions more than help. But, our troop will never allow a weak project to “pass.”</p>
<p>It seems to me pretty clear that DeanJ is NOT saying that he discounts scouting as a valid EC. He’s saying that on the application it is important that the student describe how and why the EC is important to him. Just like any other major EC. If the Eagle project was a major focus for the kid for a year or two, it needs to be described in a way that makes its significance clear. Same thing with the rest of the Eagle requirements.</p>
<p>He is indicating that a student should not assume that people who are not involved in scouting know anything about the process of becoming an Eagle scout, about earning badges, or anything else. There are tons of us out here who have never had family involved in scouting. I, for one, knew nothing about this Eagle project thing before I started reading CC.</p>
<p>BTW, GTalum, your kid sounds like a great guy, and an application essay about how he found deep personal significance in scouting while taking concrete action–with his troop and troop leaders, who also sound great-- against intolerance would be a knockout. :)</p>
<p>
Okay. Of course I assumed that’s true. But when I get directed to some other post on a message board from some supposed “insider”, I sort of get the implication that this post may reveal some sort of “deep dark secret” about the nefarious process. That’s why I asked him to also summarize for me what that post is about. That’s all.</p>
<p>PG said re: # of freshman Ivy slots per year ~ 14,000 # of eagle scouting awards earned per year ~ 27,000</p>
<p>“That even presupposes that all those Eagle Scouts are a) academically qualified for a high-level school and b) have the desire. It seems to be continually lost on CC that there are plenty of smart, hard-working and achieving kids who simply don’t have a desire to go any place other than a nearby state flagship school, both for financial reasons and also just not having as their life’s dream getting into an Ivy or similar caliber school.”</p>
<p>No presuppositions at all . . . as a starting point the supply of Eagle Scouts outstrips the supply of HYPed school slots . . the same goes for 2200+ SATs, valedictorians, salutatorians, all 5s on six or more APs, outstanding varsity athletes, 800s on Math SATs, and so on.</p>
<p>In other words, just the basic data will tell you that none of those attributes themselves are hooks to get into HYPed schools . . . the naive fond hope that there is a magical EC or achievement that paves the way to golden HYPed admissions is - for almost everyone - simply not true.</p>
<p>What PizzaGirl said is ALSO true - that many superbly talented high school students do not aspire to the HYPed slots, for a variety of very good reasons. I didn’t assume that everyone aspires to the HYPed schools, and my post was to encourage those who DO aspire there to realize that getting into them is chancy at best.</p>
<p>In the meantime, if anyone DOES want to go to a HYPed school (like Brown,for example, that denies admissions to 3/4s of all valedictorians who apply) . . love thy safeties!!!</p>
<p>Dean J is not a supposed insider with any deep dark secrets. She is a Dean of Admissions at UVa. She has a blog ‘Notes From Peabody’ that is one of the most transparent views of the admissions process I have seen.
You just never know who you are taking to on the Internet…</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I did not mean that she is an insider with deep dark secrets. I meant that she referred me to a post that sounded like it was from some insder with deep dark secrets (my own admittedly exaggerated characterization) -</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Obviously, I got the point that she was a valid source for admissions information. Which is why I even bothered to ask her about her view on scouting in the first place.</p>
<p>It’s a well known fact that the Air Force Academy has a high percentage of Eagle Scouts (last I heard, it was 1 in 10 cadets). But why is that? Is it that the AFA favors Eagle Scouts or is it that Eagle Scouts are more likely to want to attend a military academy? Maybe it’s some combination of the two, but I think those who really love scouting are often well suited for a career in the military. </p>
<p>Becoming an Eagle Scout is like becoming a member of National Honor Society or having a high grade point average; there’s a broad range of difficulty. Some schools rarely give Cs to students, but in other schools a C is still average and they’re given out all the time. Some schools have a huge membership in NHS; some schools make it very selective. Some scout troops make it a real accomplishment to become an Eagle and require a project that has a significant degree of difficulty…some don’t. In our area, it’s very tough to get a 3.5 GPA, but the last Eagle Scout project was a one day food drive with significant parental assistance. Colleges know that in these categories they are comparing apples to oranges and that’s why they rely so heavily on nationally ranked test scores, class rank, and AP classes.</p>
<p>In spite of my concerns about adults putting it on their resumes, I think it is a perfectly respectable EC. It can be helpful in the admissions process (as any solid EC can), but won’t get you special treatment beyond other ECs. </p>
<p>Regarding the projects Eagles do, the Girl Scouts have (or had a few years ago, they do change the requirements sometimes) a requirement for the Gold Award that the project has to involve interaction with people. You can’t do a project that builds or cleans or documents something without components that bring in other people in the community (so get those underprivileged kids out there to help for a day with building that boardwalk! :)) This killed some of the ideas D had for projects, and required her to “extend” her final project to include some other activities. Worked out for D1, but if D2 (who is quite shy) had stayed in scouts, I bet it would have killed her interest in completing the Gold Award.</p>
<p>“an application essay about how he found deep personal significance in scouting while taking concrete action–with his troop and troop leaders, who also sound great-- against intolerance would be a knockout.”</p>
<p>Already a rising sophmore in college. But, he did write an essay about how his deeply held liberal Quaker beliefs contrasted with not only scouts but the Christian Fundamentalists he hung out with (active in the youth group which his best friend belonged to) and the personal significance he got out of all the organizations in which he belonged.</p>
<p>
As well they should. I also certainly don’t think that a school should put Eagle on the same level as other national awards, or major achievement in say, a sport or academic competition. </p>
<p>But I just think it would be a shame if a kid had such time constraints they had to choose between, say, Model UN and the Boy Scouts, and they picked Model UN only because they thought it would give them a bigger bump in admissions. </p>
<p>OTOH, that might be a good thing. Kids would get involved in Scouting because they wanted to, not for some admissions bump which seems to influence so many students these days.</p>