Anonymous
Post 01/03/2026 01:11     Subject: How much does Eagle Scouts help in college application?
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.


It is really unfair that boy scouts went coed.

Why can't the girls make girl scouts better instead of intruding on boy scouts? It is really no different than the boys and men joining women's sports.
Anonymous
Post 01/03/2026 01:09     Subject: How much does Eagle Scouts help in college application?
Anonymous wrote:If DS is 15 then can he still join the Eagle Scout?


He can still join, but he won't likely be able to achieve Eagle.

It must be completed by their 18th birthday, and there are a lot of steps.
Anonymous
Post 01/02/2026 21:45     Subject: Re:How much does Eagle Scouts help in college application?
It has to tell a story. If your kid wants to be a geology major, and talks about his first hike, finding a rock that intrigued him, collected rocks on each hike, led to a community project referencing local geology in the rec center for elementary school kids, then that led to his ISEF science project, that kid is golden. Not another male tough guy football or lax player (boring) but a sensitive, thoughtful, dedicated , spiky kid, who wouldn't want that!?? It really is ok to be a bit different than the baseball, football, lax bros.
Anonymous
Post 01/02/2026 21:27     Subject: How much does Eagle Scouts help in college application?
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.


Disagree. It’s a fantastic EC and for those that are applying to Ivys, it’s more on the unique side. It takes many years and a lot of dedication. AOs get tired of the math competition and CS awards and piano/violin awards


Come on, don’t be delusional. It’s an ok EC, in no way it will make a difference at Ivies. Math and CS competition at least test some real knowledge.
Anonymous
Post 01/02/2026 21:22     Subject: How much does Eagle Scouts help in college application?
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.


Disagree. It’s a fantastic EC and for those that are applying to Ivys, it’s more on the unique side. It takes many years and a lot of dedication. AOs get tired of the math competition and CS awards and piano/violin awards


Source?
Anonymous
Post 01/02/2026 20:17     Subject: How much does Eagle Scouts help in college application?
Anonymous wrote:It’s not woke enough for young AO’s that prefer to see social justice activities. The exception is female Eagle Scouts.


Disagree. It’s a fantastic EC and for those that are applying to Ivys, it’s more on the unique side. It takes many years and a lot of dedication. AOs get tired of the math competition and CS awards and piano/violin awards
Anonymous
Post 01/02/2026 19:15     Subject: How much does Eagle Scouts help in college application?
Scouting can be as challenging or not as you make it (but you still have to meet all the requirements to get Eagle). Please stop the Eagle bashing.

Some campouts are easy (and they're supposed to be... like car camping) others can be very challenging. Like hiking up half dome at Yosemite. Some week long (or longer) backpacking trips require months of training beforehand. Eagle projects can also be less or more impressive depending on what you do.
Anonymous
Post 01/02/2026 19:03     Subject: How much does Eagle Scouts help in college application?
Anonymous wrote:All the Eagle bashing.
If the kid enjoys scouting is it really any worse than any other neighborhood activity?


Seriously, this one poster has to get a grip. Hopefully her kid wasn't the star quarterback on the football team, picking on Eagle Scouts. Terrible.
Anonymous
Post 01/02/2026 18:58     Subject: How much does Eagle Scouts help in college application?
All the Eagle bashing.
If the kid enjoys scouting is it really any worse than any other neighborhood activity?
Anonymous
Post 01/02/2026 18:36     Subject: How much does Eagle Scouts help in college application?
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.
Anonymous
Post 01/02/2026 16:06     Subject: How much does Eagle Scouts help in college application?
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.
Anonymous
Post 01/02/2026 15:40     Subject: Re:How much does Eagle Scouts help in college application?
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:What about non-competitive kids that aren't into sports? Boy Scouts is a great outlet for them. In today's day and age, for a kid to be camping out under the stars without cellphones is priceless. I think colleges appreciate this aspect of it. The non-future lax playing finance bro who loves nature/environment, what a refreshing change!


Camping and hiking are leisure activities, not accomplishments.


Says someone who clearly has never experienced any challenging ones. Why do people who know nothing about the experience bother chiming in with their baseless assertions?


The most "challenging" camping we did in scouting was hiking a day into the woods, set up camp with latrine and everything, camp a few days, work on a few merit badges, do some fun activities, break camp, and then hike back out.

Eagle scout is not trivial but it's not much more impressive than a black belt or a varsity sport.
Anonymous
Post 01/02/2026 15:34     Subject: How much does Eagle Scouts help in college application?
Eagle scout is a solid extra-curricular but it's not impressive and doesn't really move the needle for selective colleges. As a PP said, there are over 50k newly minted eagle scouts every year. It's not rare.
Anonymous
Post 01/02/2026 14:33     Subject: Re:How much does Eagle Scouts help in college application?
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:What about non-competitive kids that aren't into sports? Boy Scouts is a great outlet for them. In today's day and age, for a kid to be camping out under the stars without cellphones is priceless. I think colleges appreciate this aspect of it. The non-future lax playing finance bro who loves nature/environment, what a refreshing change!


Camping and hiking are leisure activities, not accomplishments.


Says someone who clearly has never experienced any challenging ones. Why do people who know nothing about the experience bother chiming in with their baseless assertions?
Anonymous
Post 01/02/2026 14:33     Subject: Re:How much does Eagle Scouts help in college application?
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:What about non-competitive kids that aren't into sports? Boy Scouts is a great outlet for them. In today's day and age, for a kid to be camping out under the stars without cellphones is priceless. I think colleges appreciate this aspect of it. The non-future lax playing finance bro who loves nature/environment, what a refreshing change!


Camping and hiking are leisure activities, not accomplishments.


So are running, catching/throwing a ball, roughhousing lol