percentage of eagles

[asm206]

When I was a scout I was always told only 1% of the boys who join scouting make it to Eagle scout.

 

But at the last Eagle court of honor they were saying that 5% of boys make it now.

 

Why has there been such an increase? In case you are interested I'm in my late thirties.

[epalmer84]

We had a long discussion on this here some time back.

 

A total of 1,835,410 Scouts have earned Eagle Scout as of the end of 2005; out of 83,486,083 Scouts since 1911, this is about 2 percent of the BSA membership. In 2005, 49,895 Eagle Scout awards were presented, about 5 percent of the 2005 membership.

 

One problem is in how you count the total number of Scouts. Does the total include those ineligible for Eagle like Cub Scouts, female Venturers and Venturers over 21? We just don't have all of the numbers from National to figure this out.

 

You also have to understand that Eagle Scout was part of the merit badge program until 1927, and adults could earn Eagle until 1952.

 

Ed

[NeilLup]

There's another interesting question. How is the 83 million figure arrived at. Is it unique members or is it just the sum of membership for every year since 1911. In the latter case, if a boy had been a member for four years, was he counted four times in the 83 million? I wouldn't take as a given that the 83 million is unique members, Determining unique emembers would take a lot of work and I would be surprised if that work had been done.

 

But then I get surprised easily.

[Oak Tree]

Here's one of the threads where we dealt with this subject in (painful) detail.

http://www.scouter.com/forums/viewThread.asp?threadID=146678&p=1

 

[Beavah]

Yah, and just to recap a few major ideas from the thread....

 

The 5% is what percent of the total membership earn Eagle Scout each year.

 

So if you're really trying to be honest about reporting what percent of the boys who join Boy Scouting eventually earn Eagle, the real number is substantially higher... probably around 20%. Which I expect is what most of our real experiences are... 1 boy out of 5. For established/active troops, it's probably a fair bit better than that, eh?

 

Beavah

 

[epalmer84]

Yes when you try to calculate the total through the history of the badge, you get a lot of bumps that skew the numbers.

 

You get a better number if you do it by year. In 2006, there were 51,728 Eagle Scouts awarded. There were 922,836 Boy Scout age members. The makes it 5.6% for 2006.

 

But, this is still wrong. We are counting the total Boy Scout pool, but only those who have earned Life are actually eligible for Eagle. And we are not counting male Venturers who have earned Life in that pool, because we don't have a number.

 

http://www.scouting.org/media/review/2006.html

 

 

Ed

[Hunt]

I think an interesting question would be what percentage of boys who are still registered Scouts at age 18 are Eagles. I'll bet that would be a high percentage--and always has been. A higher percentage of Eagles now may just mean that boys who become Scouts are more likely to stay in for the longer term than before.

[allangr1024]

Oak Tree,

 

Could you repost that web address. I don't think it all got in here.

 

Thanks

[SSScout]

Thak you, Oak Tree, for trying to head'm off at the thread. I copied and reset and reknewed my acquaintance to the subject.

All depends on who one counts and from when. 20%? 5%? 2%? 1.8%? Take your pick and the reasoning will follow.

 

http://www.scouter.com/forums/viewThread.asp?threadID=146678&p=1

 

Is a 1930 Eagle "worth" the same as a 1960 Eagle or a 1980 Eagle or a 2003 Eagle? It is to the boy it is awarded to...

[allangr1024]

I am not too interested in the statistics.

 

I believe that there may be more eagles now than when I was a scout in the seventies, just because of the changes in the program. The biggest change I attribute this to is the adoption of the two deep leadership policy to the BSA.

 

In the seventies the BSA looked forward in time and saw a ton of lawsuits coming due to child predators getting into the ranks of adults. In order to no be sued out of existence by the victims, the BSA required two, or preferably more, adults on every outing. As a scout our troop had 20 to 25 boys, one SM and sometimes, one ASM. This was before two deep leadership.

 

In my troop we regularly have five to eight adults on a campout. Due to a few good recruiting years a while back we got the numbers up to 55 registered boys. This number of adults could now handle that number of boys. Some troops in our council have over 100 boys because they have 20 registered adults.

 

These adults, looking for something to do, volunteer to teach a merit badge. About half the troops in town have merit badges taught during the troop meeting (for good or ill). A scout can therefore take 10 to 12 merit badges per year. My observation shows that the average scout will finish eight of these. If he takes the water sports badges at summer camp, he can get 12 merit badges in a year. He only has to be in the troop for two years after he gets first class to get the 21 he needs for eagle. In our council the troop is encouraged to get the boy to first class in a year.

 

I am saying that is is much easier to do the requirements for eagle now than it was when I was a scout. I was told, go find a merit badge councilor, get him to teach you the stuff, bring back the signed blue card, get a badge. There are few 12 to 14 year olds who will do this on their own. I got most of my merit badges at summer camp. I do not recall the existence of merit badge fairs then. In the troop I got first aid, taught by the SM because he wanted everyone to learn it, and hiking, taught by an ASM who was a marine straight back from 'Nam and who really liked going hiking.

 

The reason the count is not higher for boys reaching eagle is that the competition is so much more intense for the boys time, between sports, band, school clubs, theater, and this is before the age of cars, jobs, and the feminine mystique.

 

 

[Oak Tree]

Hmmm, the address looks complete to me. It's not a live link, but when I cut and paste it into the address line, it works.

 

But let me play with html and see if I can do better:

http://www.scouter.com/forums/viewThread.asp?threadID=146678&p=1

 

And here's the thread before that:

http://www.scouter.com/forums/viewThread.asp?threadID=145781#id_146663

 

To summarize my position: we get about 300,000 new Boy Scouts each year, and we average about 50,000 Eagles per year. Therefore, on average, a boy joining now has about a 17% chance of earning Eagle.

 

The question of why is an interesting one. I like allangr1024's hypothesis that an increased number of adults leads to more "Eagle mills". I'm not sure it's because of two-deep leadership - I'd also attribute it to smaller family size and a general societal shift that dads should spend more effort on their kids.

 

It is also the case that some of the merit badges are objectively easier, with some examples in one of the above threads.

[Hunt]

Here's a radical suggestion for why more boys might make Eagle now than previously: perhaps boys (or at least a substantial subset of boys) work harder now and are more goal-oriented than boys did in the past. My kids certainly work much harder in school than I did, with tougher subjects sooner, and I see lots of kids in highly competitive settings, like travel sports teams, musical competitions, etc. BSA's advancement program is very attractive to a certain type of boy who likes to focus on goals.

[John-in-KC]

I've said this before and I will say it again:

 

The program has also been restructured so the trail to Eagle, while still having all the requirements, has them in a more measured way.

 

When I was a youth member (1968-73 or so)...

1 Eagle Required MB to Star, 5 total

5 Eagle Required MBs to Life, 10 total.

11 Eagle Required MBs to Eagle, 21 total.

 

A Scout becoming Life was looking at an uphill trail to Eagle.

 

Now, if a Scout doesn't double dip the "Pick a badge" categories...

4 Eagle Required MB to Star, 6 total

7 Eagle Required MB to Life, 11 total

12 Eagle Required MB to Eagle, 21 total

... a Scout is "over the hump" on both his Eagle Required MBs and his total count when he arrives at Life.

 

That, to me, is a good thing.