<p>DS is a junior and has had his Eagle project approved. Due to time constraints and travel, it's been 5 months since approval! DH feels that the Eagle rank is not that important and wants to give DS the option of quitting Scouts to focus on junior year. I think he needs to finish what he's started.
Sport commitments eat up most of the fall weekends when the project could be worked on, so it will probably not get started until November. At this point, DS seems to have lost interest in Scouting and has for the last two years been much more passionate about film-making and being involved in film club at school. He hasn't made any moves to get his project going, and we haven't interfered - it is his project, not ours. Our Scoutmaster is a firm believer in the "hands off" approach until things get rolling. We are ready and willing to assist once (or if) it gets going however. </p>
<p>We haven't discussed our on-going debate with DS.</p>
<p>So, I guess what I want to know is whether you think Eagle is helpful on an application, or if it's better to let DS pursue his passion for film and focus on academics in junior year. Any comments are much appreciated.
Thanks.</p>
<p>I can tell you that it helped in at least one local scholarship but I don’t think it played a factor at all in the admissions process.</p>
<p>Our Scoutmaster tells parents from the start to gently prod the Scout to get his Eagle before the “fumes” get to him. That’s gas fumes and perfumes. So, I’m very glad that our son had his Eagle board of review one week before his 16th birthday during his sophomore year.</p>
<p>If Boy Scouts were his primary EC and he had lots of leadership positions, etc., the Eagle would be important. But with sports and film club and other ECs, it won’t make a difference. Junior year grades are way more important, IMO.</p>
<p>I understand your dillemma, as my daughter just now finished her girl scout Gold Award, the girl scout equilvalent to the Eagle Scout. She has just started as a freshman at Tulane. She also delayed starting her project several months after getting approval.</p>
<p>The Eagle Scout can open a lot of doors for your son, including much scholarship money. Google it and you will find colleges that give automatic scholarships for anyone with an Eagle or Gold Award. My daughter got her project done to late to get in on the scholarship money.</p>
<p>There are many employers that will start an Eagle Scout out at a higher pay rate. The military automatically gives a new recruit with an Eagle Scout or Gold Award one step higher on the rank and pay scale.</p>
<p>There are many benefits to having it. But, you are right, it has to be your sons motivation, not yours. Research things, get the information as to why he should do it, either talk with him or lay the printed material on his pillow to read, then back off and let him decide for himself. (maybe telling him he needs to make up the missed scholarships in a different way and see what happens)</p>
<p>I think that at least some types of colleges, the Eagle Scout award is very well respected.</p>
<p>For example, the military academies. At liberal schools, perhaps not so much. </p>
<p>Don’t let your kid quit. My son did karate for 7 years, and was just 4 months away from getting his adult black belt, and he quit, because he wanted to concentrate on school.</p>
<p>As you know, schools don’t just look at gpa and test scores, and saying you are an Eagle Scout is certainly a good achievement. Saying you “almost” became an Eagle Scout but quit is deadly.</p>
<p>I do not believe in the hands off approach. Unlike many, I don’t feel allowing a 17 year old kid who last week was asking you to borrow money to go to Starbucks shouldn’t be making important lifetime decisions. When Gerald Ford was President, they would often comment that he was an Eagle Scout. The Eagle Scout designation is something he can point to the rest of his life. </p>
<p>I have a friend whose son quit the high school baseball team to be with his girlfriend. Then, he passed up admission to a top college to go to a community college near his girlfriend’s college. Such can be the decisions of 17 year old boys.</p>
<p>“So, I guess what I want to know is whether you think Eagle is helpful on an application…”</p>
<p>Yes,</p>
<p>“it’s better to let DS pursue his passion for film and focus on academics in junior year.”</p>
<p>and yes. ;)</p>
<p>Let your son decide by his actions. If he isn’t interested in pursuing the project on his own, I definitely would not pester him to get going. Let his own passions guide him at this point, and I also believe that academics are much more important in his junior year than any EC, including sports.
Why should a high school student have to continue an activity for the entire four years of high school if he no longer is getting much from it? Scouting is an activity, it’s not a job and it’s not school. There should not be an obligation to finish, as if he’s some kind of failure if he no longer finds it fulfilling.
Nothing is sadder than seeing a Scout “go through the motions” because a parent is pushing them when they no longer care. Let it go.</p>
<p>Btw, I have an Eagle Scout and a Gold Award “drop out.” I really do not see any real world advantage to being an Eagle Scout beyond the satisfaction and the learning experiences he gained from it. But it would not have been such a great learning experience had the motivation come from one of his parents instead of himself.
And my Gold Award drop-out daughter managed just fine without that achievement. She used the time she would have spent with Girl Scouts pursuing other interests-mostly sports and writing- and received scholarships for her academic achievements.
They do their best by doing what they love when it comes to their “free” time.</p>
<p>I 100% agree with moonchild, that the driving force to get Eagle should come from the child, but I can say that my rising Senior S has benefited immensely from scouting. It has been his #1 EC and he has LOVED it every step of the way… with no parental pushing at all. The jury is still out, as he is applying to 12-15 colleges at all levels of selectivity, so it may or may not play a part in his acceptances. Here is what I do know… He is an Eagle and is actively involved in Order of the Arrow. He has recieved the Vigil medal of Honor, and is the Regional Lodge Chief, The Chairman of the National Leadership Committe and Regional Chairman of all Lodge activities. He has worked with OA Trail Crew most if his summers and this past summer, got a pretty tough internship with the National Parks working on trials all over the country. As a true Scout he believes in giving back and has over 1200 hrs of community service… Scouting has made him a leader in every sense of the word… and that is what colleges like. The Eagle is something he and his parents are VERY proud of, but he didn’t do it to look good to colleges.</p>
<p>My 14yo son is Life scout with an approved Eagle project, so I know first hand much of it is self-motivated, however the troop support cannot be discounted. His troop is seen as an Eagle troop - they don’t let kids drop out that are that close. They devote an ASM to the boy once they hit Jr year and are close enough rank-wise to get it completed. Sounds like you don’t get this external support. </p>
<p>D1 got her Gold and she found it opened doors in addition to earning her a large local scholarship. </p>
<p>He should speak with a few guys that stopped at Life and didn’t finish the project. I think he will find they regret it, as Eagle is a special claim you have your entire life. Can he scale down his project? For Eagle & Gold, I often advocate an easy, but worthwhile project is a a book drive for homeless shelters or after-school programs, that includes building bookcases. Or can he work his film passion into his Eagle project? One boy in our troop is competitive biker and rebuilt bikes for deserving kids. Another was a varsity baseball player and collected equipment for inner-city teams.</p>
<p>It definitely can open doors to some scholarships just due to all the community service time and public benefit generally involved in achieving it. </p>
<p>fwiw - I asked a UCB adcom directly if the GS Gold award (and BS Eagle award) is something that would be helpful when it comes to admissions decisions and she said “yes, it would - definitely indicate it”. This doesn’t mean it makes it a slam dunk by any means but could be a tipping point.</p>
<p>5boys, wow, you should be very proud of your son! I’m sure his dedication to Scouting will mean a lot to admissions, because it’s obvious he wasn’t just checking off another accomplishment on his resume. Very cool.</p>
<p>My son’s Eagle Scout project really helped him mature. He built a 300-foot long boardwalk in a local park. He had to come up with plans, get town approval and funding, order materials, schedule work days, etc. It turned out to be a much bigger project than he realized!</p>
<p>He’s been surprised by the men who come up to him and shake his hand when they hear he’s an Eagle. The rank does mean a lot to people. I think it was helpful in the college admissions process, but I would have been glad he got the rank in any case.</p>
<p>After high school, the advantage of being an Eagle Scout pops up in places where you may not expect it. In fact, you may never know it popped up at all, and yet your son may benefit in big and small ways. </p>
<p>What does that mean? It means your son will encounter men in his professional life who happen to be Eagle Scouts. If they know he is an Eagle Scout, sometimes it makes a difference. I am convinced it played a role in my son getting selected over others for a prestigious internship, although that was never explicitly stated. </p>
<p>I also believe that just washing your hands and letting your teenage child decide which projects he is going to finish is a version of slacker parenthood. There’s a reason not many boys reach Eagle. The situation your son is in right now is a common juncture where many boys quit.</p>
<p>No, if he doesn’t finish, it doesn’t mean doom and failure. But he’s awfully close to success. I think you are right to think about what it means for his future.</p>
<p>My S (UC Berkeley '15 Engineering) is an Eagle Scout. It looked good on his college application resumes in that it showed longevity toward an extra curricular (EC) activity and he was able to log many community service hours. Is it the most important component of the application? Definitely not. Is it a really good EC? Absolutely.</p>
<p>I would think long and hard about having him quit. He could plan on completing the project next summer when school is out. Had I given my S the option to quit, he probably would have done so. In retrospect, he’s glad he didn’t.</p>
<p>I have two sons who are both Eagle Scouts, and I can tell you that it took a lot of pushing to get the projects & write-ups done. But both sons are glad that they stuck it out. After all was said & done, S2 even wrote college essays about his Eagle project, which involved collecting soccer cleats that were shipped to a youth soccer league in Africa. Like your son, my S2 was an athlete. He played on two soccer teams in the fall/spring and wrestled in the winter. Finding time to do his project was a challenge. Both S1 & S2 did their projects in spring-early summer.</p>
<p>Not all schools give the same weight to Eagle Scout (or Gold Award). A friend who was a Georgetown adcom told me that G’town viewed it very highly. I also know that West Point and other military academies consider Eagle Scout to fulfill their leadership requirement. But some selective LACs & big state universities give less weight to the award. It is worth asking a college’s admissions office how they view the award.</p>
<p>To your original point: finish the project or drop Scouting & focus on other ECs? I tend to be of the “finish what you start” school. It’s not always fun being a parent: sometimes you have to push them to do the right thing. Eagle Scout is not just an award that “looks good” on a college application, but it is something your son can be proud of for a lifetime. Stick to your guns!</p>
<p>As a father and a former Scoutmaster, I have frequently used the phrase “that behind every Eagle Scout is a Mom; PUSHING!” A lot of boys get near their Eagle rank and they get involved in the 3G’s; Girls, Gas, and Games. I believe that there is still time for that Eagle project.</p>
<p>My son finished his Eagle project at 17 1/2. He learned so much from it. He had to deal with the local school district and the local park district for permissions and approvals. IMHO there can be no better EC for a college app than the Eagle Badge or the Girl Scout Gold Award. It shows a tremendous amount of leadership and stick-to-it-ness. </p>
<p>As a hiring manager for a large aerospace company, I would note those employment apps that noted they had earned the Eagle/Gold ranks. Always good to get a leg up on the competition, whether it is for college admissions or a job.</p>
<p>As a scoutmaster, I had several boys that “almost” made Eagle. They were usually OK with it at the time but later they would always feel that they let themselves down. “If only” seemed to be the phase used most often.</p>
<p>I wouldn’t push soo hard as to cause a rift between you and your son, but I would “gently” push him. To have put all that work into scouting and quit when the finish line is in sight is disappointing.</p>
<p>Also, remember that an Eagle project should demonstrate leadership and is not necessarily a slave labor project. I’ve seen very successful projects in which the scout did all the planning and then recruited a big bunch of boys to do the labor while they stepped back and continued to manage the project.</p>
<p>I also am a mother of a soon to be Eagle Scout. My son is at the point of no return on his project. He is going to be a junior in a week and has so much else going on that it is hard to carve out the time. But we gently coach him along in the process because we have seen so much evidence of the Eagle rank’s lifelong advantages. And I am not just speaking of how others react to the rank. I speak of the lifelong lessons and skills that a young man will attain when from overseeing, from idea to reality, a worthy project. My husband, who is also an Eagle, still runs across business associates to this day who treat him differently once they find that he is an Eagle Scout. That is something that is special about this EC, it is respected for the rest of your life.</p>
<p>I guess I’m a slacker parent, as I do believe that a junior in high school should have some say- the biggest say, actually- in what he does for extracurricular activities. Since the OP’s son has “lost interest in Scouting and has for the last two years been much more passionate about film-making and being involved in film club at school,” I don’t agree that insisting that he continue with an activity he clearly isn’t interested in any longer is good for him, or for Scouting, for that matter. It appears that it has been some time since this boy has really enjoyed Scouting. Is it possible that he’s only still involved because Mom wants him to be? Only the OP can answer that, and maybe that’s not the case at all. But it sounds like Dad has a different idea than Mom here, and that the “option” of quitting Scouts is a fairly new concept, even though the son has not been that engaged for a couple of years. Kids know when something is just being done to look good for college, and I think that the primary motivation for NOT quitting for this family is how it would look for colleges. This is not a reason to become an Eagle Scout.<br>
Sorry, but I’ve seen too much of this, and it really cheapens the experience, and the rank.</p>
<p>In addition to the comments here, there are several older threads on the subject, which if recollection serves represent a diversity of opinion. You might want to search for them.</p>
<p>I’m of two minds: Yes, every kid needs a push once in a while, but if the basic desire isn’t there, no amount of pleading and cajoling is going to make it happen.</p>
<p>Ds1 is an Eagle. Our come-to-Jesus talk came in the summer before ninth grade. I was tired of Scouts taking a back seat to everything else. When given a choice between his sport and Scouts, he chose his sport. When given a choice between work and Scouts, he chose work. I finally said that he either needs to recommit to Scouts or quit. I truly was hoping he’d quit (his dad was hoping he’d stay). In the end, he stayed and, in fact, did recommit. He began to make Scouts a priority again, and no one was prouder than I when he made Eagle. I’m really glad he stuck it out. More importantly, HE was really glad he’d stuck it out. The pride at his Eagle ceremony was obvious. This sounds sappy, but it was a gift he gave himself. And then to see him work hard to help others achieve their Eagle – just totally cool. I’m really thrilled he made the decision he did.</p>
<p>I am a mere college student, but am an Eagle Scout and the son of another Eagle and the nephew of an almost-Eagle.</p>
<p>My father frequently has told me that being an Eagle Scout has opened doors for him. My uncle had only to fill out the Eagle Scout application and would have earned his rank. </p>
<p>The Eagle Scout rank is meaningless unless the Scout has worked toward it on his own initiative. If Scouting is a horrible experience for him, there is no reason to continue the misery.</p>
<p>However, the Eagle Scout has a time limit and an infinitely long shelf life. If your son is really not interested in prioritizing Scouts when he is close to the finish line and instead pursues something that can be pursued at any time (and, if he committed to Scouts, would get postponed by a matter of months at the most), then that is his loss and his decision. Everyone is free to make their own mistakes, of which I would consider this a big one regardless of specific circumstances. I would talk to him and make sure he is aware of the nature of Scouting v. film club. Although it is his decision, there is no reason that you cannot provide your input.</p>
<p>I’d say that being able to list Eagle Scout can be hugely beneficial in college applications and beyond. My son who is now in graduate school, recently received favorable comments from his summer employer on this accomplishment. You’d be surprised: those who achieved the Eagle themselves view young Eagles as brethern. Those who never made it often express regret and admiration.</p>
<p>I do agree, however, that the impact on admissions can vary from school to school. At the University of Michigan, the information session speaker, a member of the admissions committee, used the Eagle rank as an example of the kind of EC that admissions loves: it shows commitment, advancement, character, team work and all those good things that ECs are meant to develop.</p>
<p>At my son’s undergraduate college – Williams – rugged outdoorsy activities are valued and having the Eagle was an indication of a good fit in the school’s culture.</p>
<p>At another more left leaning school, the Eagle on his resume was a prompt for interview questions about his tolerance toward diversity. In other words, not a plus. (Be Prepared!)</p>
<p>I don’t like the idea of prodding and nagging recalcitrant highschoolers either, but since your son is so close I’d strongly encourage him to go for the Eagle. It’s an accomplishment he’ll have forever.</p>
But both sons are glad that they stuck it out. After all was said & done, S2 even wrote college essays about his Eagle project, which involved collecting soccer cleats that were shipped to a youth soccer league in Africa. Like your son, my S2 was an athlete. He played on two soccer teams in the fall/spring and wrestled in the winter. Finding time to do his project was a challenge. Both S1 & S2 did their projects in spring-early summer.</p>