Is this a thing now?

[Anonymous]

This isn’t new at all. This was Girl Scouts, but my troop stayed together for high school for the purpose of facilitating and providing some infrastructure for those of us who wanted to do Gold Awards. Even if we weren’t especially altruistic in our motivations, we still enjoyed ourselves and the projects did some good.

[Anonymous]

Eagle Scout and Gold Awards are not special for college admissions. They are just another activity (building a planter or a bench are not impressive accomplishments). If your kid enjoys it, they should do it. If not, they shouldn’t. Not to mention, who knew what college admissions will look like by the time 9 yo kids are applying!

[Anonymous]

mormons have a scouting system that made getting to eagle pretty easy tbh. (they've since broken off from BSA, but for the last 30 years, not all Eagles were equal)

[Anonymous]

This is so untrue. I know several Eagle Scouts denied at an ivy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:About 70,000 kids are named Eagle Scouts each year in the US.

It's not exactly an extraordinary accomplishment.

It represents only about 6% of the total membership of Scouting. I'd call that pretty extraordinary. Do you have a Scout in your family that you're trying to support towards something like this? It calls for an immense amount of work and growth.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here- so Eagle Scouts is a big boost?

In many situations yes. But do you realize how much time and commitment it takes over many years to achieve this?

Isn’t that true for everything? Which activity doesn’t require time and commitment? If anything, scouts seems easier than say travel sports and swim teams, ice hockey and other sports.

One thing that makes Scouting _different_ from sports is that a great deal of the achievement in sports is done in teams, or at least in directed environments. Achievement in Scouting often requires a lot of work from the Scout independently of their unit. Neither way is better or harder or nobler, just different.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Ivy and Eagle Scout shouldn’t be in the same sentence. You’re applying to college, not the Salvation Army. Get creative and pursue something you actually care about. Make your own opportunities outside of an organization with cookie-cutter achievement ranks. Do you really think Harvard cares if you know how to tie a slip knot? Or if you’ve tied it a hundred or a thousand times? How obnoxiously trite and boring.

Wow, I don't think you know much about Scouting.

[Anonymous]

Most kids do not stay with scouts. It is work and time- consuming so if they have other interests it typically falls away.

One ds did all the way through Eagle but it was his only thing! Started just for fun in 1 st grade but it became his group. I guess for college it demonstrated he had something he was committed to.

Other ds started it because family was already involved but he had another interest that soon became all consuming and dropped scouts about 6 th grade.

So I would say, I think if it their thing it will come though. If it is just to pad an application with a ton of other recs likely not.

And, I’ll say again. The kid has to want to do it!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Colleges don’t care if you are an Eagle Scout.

Not to mention that I’ve known five or six Eagle Scouts - and every single one of them has been a weirdo.

[Anonymous]

But I know some who were accepted to an Ivy, otherwise unhooked.

[Anonymous]

My son is an athlete and an Eagle Scout. I don’t know if Eagle helped him w college admissions or not (I would often wonder what the individual reading his applications thought of Boy Scouts and viewed it positively or negatively). But I think it may help in the long run w job applications, interviews, etc when he’s out of college.

I remember in kindergarten when my son played lacrosse (stopped after a few yrs) and another dad said lacrosse was going to be his kid’s ticket to a college scholarship. Jeez. I felt bad for that kid.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Colleges don’t care if you are an Eagle Scout.

Not to mention that I’ve known five or six Eagle Scouts - and every single one of them has been a weirdo.

I would rather my child be a "weirdo" than be an adult insulting children.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Colleges don’t care if you are an Eagle Scout.

Not to mention that I’ve known five or six Eagle Scouts - and every single one of them has been a weirdo.

I would rather my child be a "weirdo" than be an adult insulting children.

Ok, but my point still stands.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There are 1900 freshmen at Harvard and this includes all the athletes, minorities, VIPs, etc.
There are 70,000 Eagle Scouts.

Do the math. The admission rate for these Eagle Scouts is no better than the average admission rate to Harvard.

But there are other Ivys right? Not just Harvard. There are also other top schools besides the Ivy League.

Big if true

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Maybe I am late to the game but I met a parent who told me to sign up for cub scouts with her kid so the boys can ear badges and become Eagle Scouts and put that on their college applications.. I was a bit shocked that a parent of a 4th grader is planning to do this.. is this a thing? Kids do scouts for college applications? Cub scouts gets you into an Ivy ?
Do kids do anything just for their own interest or love/passion? Or is it only because of what would look good on their applications?

Yup. Cub scouts guarantees you an Ivy.

100%

+1

Many people are saying this.

ok, people, stop teasing OP.

No, OP, it's not a guarantee. It might help later in life for an internship, but not in college admissions.

DS is an Eagle Scout, now in college. It didn't help DS get into his top 2 choices, but then again, he is a CS major. But, being an Eagle Scout can be like being in a fraternity in that when another Eagle Scout sees your resume with Eagle Scout on it, they may put that resume in the "follow up" pile, rather than the discard pile.

It’s an incredible character building endeavor and it takes a tremendous amount of work. Despite the horror stories in the press, scouting was a wonderful activity for my sons. They loved scouting. They had a Boy Scout led troop and did lots of camping and hiking and planned everything themselves. Their troop was not a merit badge factory so they did a lot of work to earn those badges and learned a lot in the process. I would not assume scouts get the eagle just for their resumes. Most of the young men I know who have them are passionate about the scouting values and love the outdoors.