[ilamont]

> It takes very little effort to be an Eagle Scout. I completed all requirements including the community project aside from the board review before I turned 13.

It really varies from troop to troop. Ours is old-school, by the book, multiple leadership positions required for half-year terms. No one got an Eagle who was under 15 and the projects are very involved with construction or logistics. Tearing down and rebuilding a long wooden fence at a women's shelter, constructing display cabinets at a nature center, working with a local charity to collect hundreds of food boxes. Someone built a real footbridge over a stream, which not only required decent carpentry skills but also driving rebar through 8x8 posts into the stony bank with sledgehammers. I got poison ivy twice while clearing brush to make a nature trail and rebuild a garden at a local temple.

These projects are often the first time many youths have ever picked up a power tool or project managed anything.

The bureaucracy associated with the service project and application was stunning.

[omegaham]

This was also our troop. You couldn't make Life Scout before you were 15 thanks to the leadership requirements, and that meant that the earliest you could get Eagle was sometime at age 16. The vast majority of them got it just before they turned 18. The projects were intended to be ambitious and demanded that the Scout do the bulk of the planning and dealing with the bureaucracy.

Imagine my surprise when our troop went to SeaBase and ran into a bunch of other troops where everyone got Eagle at age 14.

[ilamont]

That's the way it is for our troop. Most of the kids aren't able to get Eagle before they are HS juniors and are 16 or 17. A few just made it in before turning 18.

The bureaucracy is a mistake. I know why Scouting does it - BSA organizational culture, abuses in the past, trying to apply standards across local troops - but a lot of it falls on troop volunteers to and parents to nag scouts to death and fix the inevitable problems that crop up. It's not right.

[wespiser_2018]

that's me and my friend: we both made eagle scout at 17, and the ceremony for me was after I turned 18.

My first troop was very by the book, and the last eagle scout in the troop was the scoutmasters son, maybe 5 years before I joined. That troop disbanded, and I finished my award at another troop were it was a bit easier, but still a lot of work.

For me, earning Eagle scout required me to stay active in scouting through age 17, and do one (or maybe 2) extra weeks at summer camp to earn enough merit badges. Once I was older (16/17) and in my second troop, I already had the leadership requirements, so I just went to meetings and help out with the kids that were much younger than me while I planned my project.

[jghn]

I am an Eagle Scout. I would never put it on my resume, and I roll my eyes when I see a resume with it on there. Ignoring the always present "it was harder back then" (fwiw, in my day average ages started to plunge from 15/16/17 to 13/14/15), my point still stands.

I can see it being okay as a first job out of college or similar. I got my Eagle at 17, and I could imagine someone with no real work experience thinking that's something to help pad the books. But once one hits 30, 40, 50, beyond there's no reason having done an Eagle project should be cited as a major accomplishment in their life. At least not from the perspective of seeking employment. I'm 100% in favor of people feeling proud about what they did, the whole point of that project was to have done right by people.

[MisterBastahrd]

Probably. I think I lucked out because my service project was clearing and installing seating and paths in a new, small park from land donated by a family who inherited it and didn't want to deal with the taxes because there were technically about 30 owners.

[freedomben]

Likewise. I was 15 when I finished and it was a monumental amount of work. The troop you're in matters a great deal.