<p>Ryan, I can understand your feelings. I think those of us who are in Scouting understand that most people involved in Scouting do not support the policies of the national organization but aren’t willing to throw the baby out with the bath water. Each person has to ask him/herself to what extent is the natl organization going to affect what we do in our homes. Each year, when the fund-raising campaign started we would write a nice letter to district council about how we wouldn’t be supporting the greater infrastructure with a donation until natl changed its policies. I was always kind of afraid my ds would get kicked out. I mean, we could have just not donated, but we thought it was important for district/national to know not all of its membership supports those policies (in fact, where I live I don’t know many Scouts who support that policy).</p>
<p>My state doesn’t support gay marriage. Should I move? Maybe, but I’d rather stay and work within to affect change. That’s how we felt about Scouts, too.</p>
<p>CrystalJ, I am fairly certain it is a myth. I know precisely one Eagle Scout. He applied to MIT, and was what one would consider “qualified”–800 on the math SAT, for example. He was rejected.</p>
<p>Hunt, I think you are right. As a person whose family has had no involvement with scouting at all, I haven’t the faintest idea what the difference is between a Life Scout and an Eagle Scout. (Actually, a Life Scout sounds more impressive. ) As I said upthread, I think it is important for kids to specify what they did to earn the honor, and not just assume that people know what it means. Even people to whom the “eagle” label means nothing will be interested in the details of the kid’s activities.</p>
<p>Consolation, Life Scout is the last rank a kid achieves before attaining Eagle, if he chooses to. You have to be in Scouting a long time and do a lot of work to be a Life Scout. It would be like someone completing graduate school but never turning in the thesis. ;)</p>
<p>I think Consolation’s point (among many excellent points she has made) is that the admiration for the amount of hard work it takes to become an Eagle Scout is well known within those families and subcultures who are already into Scouting – but for those of us who aren’t, it’s pretty much a general awareness of “Oh, Eagle Scout - I hear that’s a big deal to get,” with very little knowledge of what exactly it entails, how rigorous it is, what the steps are, and to what extent the student has to buy into (or at least fake buying into) some of the aspects of Boy Scouts that some of us find objectionable. IOW, it impresses people who are familiar with Scouting far more than it impresses the masses. It’s kind of like a small liberal arts college :-)</p>
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<p>Yep, you’re right. And honestly, there’s little reason for that to change. People don’t typically spend a lot of time understanding the requirements for honors in activities that aren’t directly relevant to them. Should an adcom, who is routinely evaluating the accomplishments of high school seniors, know? Sure. Would the general population? I would expect that to vary very widely depending on region of the country and general circles.</p>
<p>I have a close friend who is an eagle scout. I was thinking that if all eagle scouts put in the work and involvement this young man did then being an eagle scout was quite the accomplishment. Then I wen to his eagle court, which he shared with another eagle scout and mentioned how much above the requirements each of them achieved. Let’s just say there are much less rigorous ways to become an eagle scout.</p>
<p>Around here the eagle project itself is much more an exercise in herding cats than leadership. They need to pull a project from a list, contact the non-profit organization that needs the project, write up what they are going to do, get the boyscout hierarchy to sign off, get the non-profit to sign off, and then recruit volunteers to do the work. The sign-offs are the time consuming part that usually bounces back and forth. Often all the communication is done by parents, and the scout themselves does just the project design and recruiting other scouts to help. Usually the project is built in a weekend.</p>
<p>I can tell you from experience that many of these Eagle projects are a lot more work than they may sound like. I certainly agree that there are some cheesy projects out there, and there may be some projects where adults do too much of the leadership. But I think those are the minority. In our area, Scouts are told that, as a rule of thumb, a project should take around 100 man-hours in order to be substantial enough. All the projects I’ve seen took way, way more man-hours than that. And in general, the prospective Eagle has really been in charge of the work.</p>
<p>I think adcoms will understand what being an Eagle Scout entails, but certainly a lot of other people don’t.</p>
<p>For people who know what the rank means, the Eagle Scout credential will give one an enormous leg up in admissions. Completing the rank takes basicly three full years out a young man’s life and the required leadership development, service and skills development is very impressive. Institutions from the service academies to Yale Law school proudly report the number of Eagles in their class cohorts. Eagles demonstrate skill in everything from life saving to orienteering to morse code to resource conservation. They demonstrate, a tremendous capacity to keep focused on a goal ever an extended period of time which is rare in an adolescent.</p>
<p>I do evaluative alumni interviews for Georgetown and am an Eagle Scout myself, and when I interview a senior who has the credential I give that person a deserved leg up.</p>
<p>Im curious. Those who are giving a “deserved leg up” to eagle scouts, what other awards do you give the “deserve leg up” to. GS Gold award I presume? I’m sure there must be other equal honors that can be bestowed on women, gay men, and atheists?</p>
<p>… which says that the impact of Eagle Scout on college admissions is likely variable, as those adcoms / interviewers who themselves were invested in scouting / were Eagle Scouts may be more likely to think of it as an impressive achievement and “boost” other recipients, than those adcoms / interviewers who understand that it’s an achievement but don’t have that same level of loyalty or warm fuzzies towards the organization. </p>
<p>In other words, like anything, beauty is in the eye of the beholder.</p>
<p>How does being an Eagle Scout necessarily demonstrate <em>more</em> commitment than some other extended commitment a student might have to any number of significant activities / EC’s? Not challenging, just asking. I guess I’m asking, I’m sure it’s a lot of hard work to get there, but it’s a lot of hard work to get to a lot of things (high proficiency in a sport, high proficiency in music, winning Intel, etc.). What makes Eagle Scout more praiseworthy than other things?</p>
<p>I don’t think being an Eagle Scout is necessarily more praiseworthy than other things at all. I think sometimes what you may find is that the kind of kid who makes Eagle is also doing other things that require skills and leadership. My kids were also varsity athletes ,both at regional and one at all state level, captains of their teams, one 1st chair in orchestra section,etc. Certainly not all but most will go on to be productive citizens.</p>
<p>How does being an Eagle Scout necessarily demonstrate <em>more</em> commitment than some other extended commitment a student might have to any number of significant activities / EC’s? Not challenging, just asking.</p>
<p>the OP’s question was</p>
<p>Is an Eagle Scout rank helpful to the application process?</p>
<p>no one is suggesting that Eagle Scout is <em>more</em> commitment than some other EC. There are many other EC’s discussed at length on CC. This happens to be about scouting, Eagle Scout Rank in particular.</p>
<p>the admissions counselor at Tulane said that the Eagle Scout award demonstrated determination and persistence.
She understood that there were built in time requirements with each rank that challenged the scout to stay involved over a long period of time.</p>
I am pretty certain it isn’t considered above many other things. It is another activity, and one which requires time commitment over several years. Awards which are competiotive in nature may carry more clout.</p>
<p>It is included in UCBs comprehensive review along with other activities - such as yearbook editor, etc (You have to search the document if you are interested in reading that section) -</p>
<p>I was an Eagle and I’m not sure whether it helped me or not. I didn’t get into my first choice. But that’s not why I did it. Scouting was actually an EC I enjoyed, after torturing myself as a substandard football player and math teamer.</p>
<p>We had an incredible leader, who later went on to lead both a Sea Explorer and Air Explorer post. We did some pretty remarkable things I would likely have never been able to do otherwise. To the extent I was helped by Scouting in any application it was likely the things I did as a scout more than the Eagle. But the Eagle may have helped some.</p>
I don’t think it shows more commitment than other ECs. But I think that it does (or should) represent more leadership than a lot of other ECs, because a lot of leadership obligations must be fulfilled before a boy becomes an Eagle Scout. I would say that the majority, if not the vast majority, of Eagle Scouts have been the Senior Patrol Leader of their troops, as well as having had a lot of other leadership roles. In a well-run troop, the Senior Patrol Leader actually does most of the leading, while the adult leaders function more as back-seat drivers.</p>
<p>Of course, not all troops are well-run, and not all Eagle Scouts were good leaders, and some people don’t deserve the rank in the first place but get it anyway–but if you’re looking at a big stack of applications, this is probably what Eagle Scout rank means, just as if a kid is the captain of the football team or the chief editor of the yearbook, you know what that probably means.</p>
<p>So I guess one piece of advice for Eagle Scouts is to make sure that your application shows what you’ve actually done–if you were SPL, say so, and if you have room, say something about your projects and leadership activities. This is good advice for any EC, really–don’t assume that the application reader will fully understand what your EC involves.</p>
<p>I agree it is important to applications. My daughter just completed her Gold Award & there were times she wanted to give up, but we encouraged her to stick with it. Now that it is finished, she looks back on it as one of the greatest accomplishments of her life. (She sent vital medical equipment to a clinic in Africa and helped raise awareness about fair trade). She completed it over the summer just before college started. On her applications she said she was in the process of earning her Gold Award, and that was fine.My daughter had a friend who was working on his Eagle & waited too long, he finalized things a few days before his 18th birthday and was rejected because of the timeline. Why not tie in his passion for film with the Eagle project? If it is something he truly loves, he will enjoy doing the project and it will not just be a chore. A girl in my Girl Scout troop is a year younger, a senior now in High School. She plans on going for the Gold, but reregistering as an independent, since the rest of her troop is now in college. Do the Boy Scouts have a similar option? Maybe this would be a good compromise. I hate to see people quit scouting when they are so close to finishing. My daughter is glad that she stuck with her project, and she learned a valuable lesson–you don’t quit something just because it is inconvenient or time consuming. You find a way to get it done one way or another and overcoming obstacles is something they need to learn in life.</p>
<p>“rejected because of the timeline” doesn’t make sense to me. As long as the completed application for Eagle is in to the council office prior to his 18th birthday your OK. Now, if there is anything wrong with the application, you have no recourse if you waited until your 18th birthday. So, it is best to get it in well before then.</p>
<p>You have to submit your Eagle application as a member of a troop or be a “lone scout”. Troop organizations in Boy Scouts are quite different from Girl Scouts. Girl Scout troops are formed by a group of girls of a particular age and as the members leave the troop disappears. Boy Scout troops are more static organizations in that they exist for the long run. New (ie. younger boys typically) are constantly entering the troop and the older boys either leave or “age out”. The troop continues to exist. Therefore, there is no reason to become a “lone scout”. You may even be prevented from becoming a lone scout if a troop is available nearby.</p>
) As I said upthread, I think it is important for kids to specify what they did to earn the honor, and not just assume that people know what it means. Even people to whom the “eagle” label means nothing will be interested in the details of the kid’s activities.</p>