<p>I will become an Eagle Scout by the time I apply to colleges, and I wanted to know how great of an honor this would be, and where to put it on my resume.
According to wikipedia, only about 5 percent of all boy scouts ever obtained eagle scout, out of the roughly 35 million Boy Scouts of America. Would this be a nice accomplishment? And where should i put it on my app</p>
<p>My friends mentioned it in “leadership positions” underneath extra curricular activities. </p>
<p>It’s a nice enough accomplishment, but it’s far from the accomplishment level of being an MOP qualifier or Intel ISEF finalist. </p>
<p>Receiving additional advancements above the basic rank would be something you would mention as well. One of my friends wears a gold and silver palm combination, and that helped put him a step above the other Eagle Scouts.</p>
<p>…Big…As big a non-academic EC as you could have.</p>
<p>You should put the Eagle under “awards” on your application, but on your activities list, or resume, you should mention scouting as an extracurricular activity where you might list volunteer or community activities.
The Eagle award is not as uncommon as some might think, but if you are otherwise a top student and have other academic awards, I think that the Eagle gives a boost to the “community involvement” area of one’s resume. It speaks to leadership, but even more to a kind of volunteer spirit that many colleges like to see in a young person. It also shows that you can follow through with a long-term commitment to something besides academics, as it takes a certain amount of dedication. Congratulations, btw!</p>
<p>just an anecdote: personally know a student; now in his second year of college…</p>
<p>was a C student in HS; didn’t even make it to top 50%…but he was an Eagle Scout; his final project was a huge community effort; got recs from the mayor, congressmen etc…was accepted everywhere he applied!! and is doing amazingly well in college…</p>
<p>It can be a big tipping factor at selective schools.</p>
<p>pretty sure it depends on who you are asking</p>
<p>ask another eagle scout and it’s bound to be considered a top achievement</p>
<p>I’m not saying it’s not impressive, but it doesn’t necessarily guarantee you anything</p>
<p>It’s a very good EC. My brother was accepted to the University of Iowa despite his low GPA.</p>
<p>But my PERSONAL opinion (As an Eagle Scout):</p>
<p>It is one of the most overhyped accomplishments of all time. Kids get this award in eighth grade.</p>
<p>Basically, all you have to do is complete all the requirements for first class, which can be accomplished over the summer an a couple of months in the troop. Then you earn some cheesy merit badges while being in a leadership position where you don’t do very much.</p>
<p>You perform a whopping 12-14 community service hours between First Class and Life.</p>
<p>You earn some more cheesy merit badges, continue to serve in some dumb position, and then complete an Eagle Project.</p>
<p>The only reason people DON’T get Eagle is because they are lazy, stupid, or just don’t care about it.</p>
<p>The Boy Scout organization is a pathetic organization that teachers bigotry, meaningless skills, and faux-leadership.</p>
<p>Some of the most hilarious “leaders”:</p>
<p>Our Chaplain’s Aide was an atheist.
There is a position called librarian. Seriously.
There is a position where you just keep equipment and give it to people when they need it. Seriously.
Troop Guides do nothing at all.</p>
<p>I’m sorry that your experience was such a negative one, Saugus. Your troop leadership must be very poor. My son’s experience was quite different. As SPL, he led a troop of 56 Scouts for a year, planned and led each weekly meeting, oversaw all of the planning of the Patrol Leaders, planned and led his troop at their summer camp, oversaw all of the troop outings (one a month) spoke at various council and community events, handled troop discipline issues that came up fairly often, diplomatically dealt with parents who often thought their kid was in the right and often complained about one thing or another, and was basically “on call” for any issues that came up over the year of their very active group. And all of that had nothing to do with his Eagle Project.
Granted, he was 16-17 at the time, so he had the ability to actually lead the troop, but this was not uncommon for his troop. There were no 8th grade Eagles. There’s no way they could have had the leadership experience necessary to get that far in his troop.</p>
<p>I do know that some troops are “Eagle Mills” and kids don’t do nearly as much for the honor, just like there are high schools (and classrooms) where an A means something, and others where you basically turn in your work and get a good grade.
It’s a shame that you and your scout troop missed out on the enormous growth potential inherent in Scouting.</p>
<p>My son held several leadership positions at his high school, but even adding them altogether, they didn’t equal the amount of effort, dedication and commitment that his years in Scouting required.</p>
<p>^I second what moonchild said. And as far as the teaches bigotry claim, all I’m going to say is that what’s true on a national level is not always true on a local level. I thought about leaving Scouts when i heard about their discrimination policies, but my Troop personally does not participate in them and actively works against them. Since becoming an Eagle Scout and turning eighteen I’ve learned that our council as a whole is run by people who feel the same way about the policy. It’s terrible for Boy Scouts, they are losing all public funding at a rapid rate because of their discrimination against homosexuals and atheists, and of course this is all being made up for by generous donations from a certain religious organization responsible for those policies in the first place.</p>
<p>Also, and this is just another anecdote about a “good” troop, I personally spent around 120 hours on my Eagle Project, and that’s a conservative estimate, not to mention all the volunteer hours put in for it.</p>
<p>The point of whether or not you had good experiences with scouting means nothing, as the admissions officer reviewing your application will have no knowledge of them, unless you explicate them in an essay or elsewhere. All candidates claiming to hold the rank of Eagle will be viewed in the same way (disregarding previously stated explications and additional achievements regarding Scouts). The point is, there are far better commendations one can receive in one’s high school career and, for most people aspiring to top-tier colleges, the point of Eagle is merely just a passing reference, more or less in the shadow of something more impressive. </p>
<p>The friend with the gold and silver palm that I mentioned earlier certainly didn’t write any of his college essays about his experience with the Scouts. It was just one more on a list of achievements. And he’s going to Yale.</p>
<p>To me, it would be much more impressive if Scouts could do all those volunteering projects for purely altruistic reasons, instead of as a way of garnering a title. After 18, most Eagles simply stop with their volunteering activities. Instead of caring about how many hours they might have put into something, they should be more concerned with how much they have helped whoever or whatever they are spending their time on.</p>
<p>^
Agreed.</p>
<p>Boy Scouts doesn’t make people better. It doesn’t teach discipline, respect, or kindness in the least. SO MANY Eagles and other scouts are horrible people.</p>
<p>And the ones that aren’t? They were already good individuals BEFORE they joined the troop. They have their parents to thank for that.</p>
<p>i think it’s as big as you make it sound… If you make it sound like it changed you as a person, taught you hard work, and other stuff along those lines, then yeah i think it’s great. however, if you treat it as just another EC i don’t think colleges are going to look at it in the same light.</p>
<p>Never thought I would say this…but I agree with Saugus…to an extent. </p>
<p>As, an Eagle Scout, I think the award is too watered down and pretty easy to get. Other Eagles in my troop agree with this, albeit in secret. And we don’t have a terribly crappy troop either. We have like 30-40 boys in it, about 30 when I was active. We would go camping, once, maybe twice a month and we had somewhat strict, but good leaders. When I was SPL it was a good amount of work, but nothing an 8th grader/freshman couldn’t handle. </p>
<p>The only relatively hard part is balancing your time in high school. In my troop, kids who were doing good seemed to hit a wall once they entered H.S. and scouts moved down the priority list. I finished most of my requirements before high school, and did my project as a freshman. </p>
<p>Merit Badges were a breeze, I had like 30 and put minimal effort into a majority of them. Most of the information that you need is in the Merit Badge books, what a joke. Of course I didn’t realize this until I had most of my required ones done. For me, the worst one was the Family Life one, you had to have “the talk” with your parents. </p>
<p>The community service requirement is a joke. The most needed for advancement is like 12 hours, and for some of the lower ranks it is like 4 or 5. But the Eagle Project is usually pretty big. Mine was a lot of work and took up most of my summer that year. </p>
<p>It is a pretty big accomplishment, but not as big as some make it out to be. If you are somewhat motivated you should have no problem getting Eagle.</p>
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<p>This is true, and I would say that it’s worth it to explicate on your experience if it was especially valuable to you for this reason. I personally wrote about my Troop’s opposition to the discrimination policies of the national organization as additional information because I didn’t want to passively associate with them by listing myself as a Boy Scout.</p>
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<p>My experience with Scouting must be unusually good. I personally don’t know a single Eagle Scout who stopped being involved after they turned 18. You could say, if you are cynical enough, that all volunteering and community service indicated on applications or resumes was done to garner a title or respect of some kind, and it would be ridiculous to say that all college applicants who do service simply stop once they graduate high school. I only listed my hours to make a point that becoming an Eagle Scout can take a significant amount of effort, and I only knew how many hours I spent because I was required to keep track. I’ve been involved with the organization I helped with my project since I was literally seven years old. For my project I built a wheelchair accessible nature trail there, adding a completely new facility to an organization that has given me and my family so much throughout our lives. That is what I’ll remember long after I forget how many hours I spent on it.</p>
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<p>I’m sorry that your experience was so terrible, but you can’t generalize about an organization as large as BSA based on that.</p>
<p>^ Yeah, I think you were one of the luckier ones lol. According to most Scouts I know, they only joined because their friends are in it and the trips are fun. I’ve helped a couple of friends on their Eagle Projects, and from what they told me, those were the only legitimate volunteering activities they ever did with regards to the organization.</p>