How much does Eagle Scouts help in college application?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s not woke enough for young AO’s that prefer to see social justice activities. The exception is female Eagle Scouts.

Love that young women can earn Eagle now! I know two impressive young women who did so: one at Penn, one at Brown now. Regardless of gender I do think it's a strong EC, including leadership, service, and a long commitment. Still, you can never know with holistic admissions what's valued in a given year.

Every girl mom on here should have her daughter join Scouts. It really looks impressive to dominate an organization traditionally for males.

Ridiculous.

Make girl scouts better.

Stop incading boy scouts.

[Anonymous]

The PP who said scouting can be as challenging as you want it to be is correct. My kid's troop produces a good number of Eagle Scouts. They all meet the minimum requirements, but some of their projects are much more impressive than others. The Eagle project requires a business plan and a sponsor, and a lot of iteration. You have to budget, you have to manage labor, you have to contingency plan. It's great project management preparation for real life. Some kids do invasive plant management, some build outdoor obstacle enrichment systems for dog rescues, some rebuild entire shelving systems for food banks, and some organize several tons of food and supplies for disaster relief. The project is individual to the kid and their interests. But no matter what it is, they have to plan it, execute it and defend it in front of a review board. Again, great practice for real life.

On the camping, the campouts offer variety for kids of all levels, and for those who want more, there's high adventure treks. My kid has canoed over 100 miles in the Canadian wilderness with rough camping for over a week, sailed the Bahamas and hiked his way across the New Mexico desert with nothing but what was in his backpack. Again, it's what the kids make of it. All I know if when a disaster strikes, I'd bet on my kid and his scout friends.

[Anonymous]

It demonstrates long-term commitment and some level of leadership, which can be a point in their favor just like being captain of a varsity team. But it's not going to be a major difference.

If the kid really takes advantage of the opportunities that Scouts offers, and is able to work this experiences into essays, that can also help. Life lessons from a particularly challenging leadership role, pushing oneself on high adventure trips, that sort of thing.

It does make a difference for service academies, if that is if interest to the kid.

--Scoutmaster who has watched many kids, both Eagle and not, apply to various levels of colleges.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Eagle Scout is not a great extracurricular. It’s an assortment of achievements of dubious value and impact. They are not difficult, for the athletic ones, the level of physical preparedness is average so in that sense is less demanding than a sport. Many are just reading up things and discuss with the counselor, and require no mastery or skills.

The badges that may be useful like First Aid, are much better done through other organizations like Red Cross, which take about the same amount of time, but you’re getting a certification that legitimately verifies the learned skills.

Same with swimming or lifeguarding, take it through Red Cross to actually mean something if the student is looking for a summer job. Nobody is taking scout badges seriously.

A part time job is way more impactful for college applications, just check the common data set, it’s listed as a criteria for many colleges.

False. Please read from Ivy Scholars. My own Eagle got into 2 Ivies, UVA and is now at Oxford heading for Yale Law. And if you don't believe that, I receive a class profile from Harvard Law every year, which tells me, amongst many other statistics, how many Eagles are in the next incoming class. https://www.ivyscholars.com/eagle-scout-scholarships-college-admissions/#:~:text=Colleges%20often%20ask%20about%20how,material%20for%20this%20in%20spades.

Are you sure your Eagle Scout didn’t also win the Nobel prize?

Scouting is a busy work extracurricular, what’s the most challenging part of becoming an Eagle
Scout? Nothing that on its own is worthy of mentioning in a college app.

All you do is reference websites and “experts” that say it’s good. Can you articulate why being an Eagle Scout is impressive for college applications? The amount of time it takes, how many kids get it is not relevant information. It’s a collection of meaningless badges that don’t count for anything.

The only area I’m aware of where scouting is relevant is Sea Scouts because it provides a path to be part of Coast Guard Auxiliary while in high school. That may matter to someone that is interested in a service academy, and you learn about boat safety, navigation, inspections, skills that are actually useful. The real benefit comes from the partnership with a professional organization like coast guard, not from the useless scouting activities.

Both of my children are Eagle Scouts. It is much more than just earning a handful of merit badges. Yes, earning merit badges is part of the process, but in order to advance in rank, they must hold leadership positions and accomplish certain things and complete service hours. Lastly, there is the Eagle Scout project.
To successfully complete the project, they must demonstrate leadership.

For the fifth or sixth time, what was the most challenging part of becoming an Eagle Scout? What did he lead, what did he accomplish? “Certain things” is not a good answer. Leading a handful of boys on a camping hike and telling them where to set up the tent is not something that will help much with college applications.

How is this controversial, is pretty much common sense.

DP..

I would say one of the most challenging things he did was when they had to build themselves a shelter outdoors, and spend the night in it, alone. Not many kids can say that they know how to build a shelter for the cold outdoors and sleep in it alone. This is supposed to be a time of reflection for them, and then afterwards, they are supposed to participate in a service project in silence.

The Eagle Scout project requires project management, budgeting and leadership. DS missed something in his service project and so had to course correct. He learned a lesson about planning. He had to plan his project within a certain budget. He had to lead the team, which isn't that easy, as a Scout master will tell you. Trying to round up a group of boys to do something not that fun is no easy task, especially the boys under 15. DS had to deal with all kinds of personalities, and try to get them to cooperate and listen.

DS is a dual STEM major in college, straight As, has amazing internships, and he thinks the Scouts taught him some lessons.

As an additional plus, if there's a disaster, I know that DS can handle himself better than most kids.