importance of eagle scout adn math SAT

supreme1

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Whatis the most important aspect of admission tothe USNA. I hear it is Eagle scout and math SAT (700+), any thoughts on importance of eagle and is 690 in the hunt?

Also, my son is going to attend USNA SS. He is an Eagle scout (scout NHS, order of the arrow) has good grades (3.7 UW, 4.0 W, top national high school), good SATS (M690, CR 670: 1st time), senior class president, NHS, 2 varsity sports (4 letter) ,team captain, VP Mock trial, president chemistry club, 25-ft sailboat racing team, and is very motivated towards Service Academies.

I know there is whol person assessment for admittance, but just wondered how much eagle scout matters.

Any info or insight would be helpful.

Also, any thoughts on his resume so far, he is a junior.
 
Eagle Scout is weighed heavily in the whole person assessment because it addresses every point that they are looking for i.e. leadership, academics, athletics, morals, service... I am an Eagle Scout as well and have received by appointment to the Class of 2013, and I'm pretty sure that just that accomplishment alone helped me a lot even though I did play 3 varsity sports for 3 years, 4.0 UW GPA, and was the ASB Pres among a bunch of other things. But there are a lot of kids who did the exact same thing as I did, but you have to remember only 2% of boyscouts have ever attained the rank of Eagle. And this is what sets us apart. As for 690 math, that should be fine. I had 660 math, 600 crit and that was fine for them. You're son's resume sounds great and he will be a prime candidate.
 
Thanks for the response. congratulatons on your appointment. Best of the best. My son is confident and very one minded, but, as a parent I am pushing him to consider his options. Did you look into ROTC during your planning? Intereseted in your take on ROTC.
 
Eagle Scout is important but not significantly more so than other things that a candidate can do, such as team captain, doing well at NASS or on the CFA, etc. I understand that a LOT of work goes into becoming an Eagle Scout, but it will not make or break an application. Sorry, but it's true.

A 690 math is almost as good as a 700. IOW, there's nothing magical about a 700. IMO, if the verbal is above 600 and the math is a 690, there is no need to retake the SAT. You may want to, but should be OK with those scores assuming the record is otherwise good.
 
I understand that a LOT of work goes into becoming an Eagle Scout, but it will not make or break an application. Sorry, but it's true.

I concur.

It's been posted here before, Eagle Scout counts about the same as a Varsity team captain.

A non-Eagle scout with a math SAT of 740 has a higher chance than an Eagle scout with a 540 math SAT.

supreme1's son has a great resume even without the Eagle scout, it probably won't be the determining factor.
 
When my son went through the process, it was explained to him that Eagle Scout shows the academies that you can begin something at a young age and see it through until completion. I imagine many if not most Eagles are also OA and took a turn at SPL...all leadership indicators. Best of luck to your son!
Mom of USMA Yuk
 
My son had a fantastic Eagle Court of Honor last Sunday. We linked the academy appointment as part of the celebration/ceremony. After the scouts presented him with a handmade fleece blanket (Eagles on one side and Navy Emblem w/eagles on the other) the ceremony transitioned. Blue and Gold officers were present, along with the keynote speaker who is a retired officer/flight internship instructor from the high school. This party was bigger than our wedding. We had a quintet sing a medley of the Navy Hymn and Anchor's Aweigh. USNA knew my son was working on completing his Eagle during the admission process. The USNA truly looks at the "whole person".
 
The rank of Eagle Scout helps some, but I believe it is the process that really helps. My son is sure that his scouting experience helped him with the process of admissions and his appointment. Each time you advance in scouts, you are required to go through a board of review. Then you are expected to perform more community service hours and take on more leadership. At his Eagle Board of Revue, they talked about his goals and spent most of the hour long interview discussing his future Navy career. At his MOC interview, they spent most of the 20 min interview talking about his Eagle project and scouting experience. He said that the Eagle board, with the retired Master Chief was harder than his MOC interview with retired flag officers.
 
^^^^

I have no doubt that the effort it takes to attain Eagle Scout helps men (and women who do the GS equivalent) in many ways in terms of applying to USNA. However, the fact of attaining Eagle Scout alone does not give you a huge boost with USNA admissions. We can all debate whether or not it should, but it doesn't. It's like doing very well on the CFA or being team captain or having a parent who was career military or the myriad of other ways you can earn "bonus" points in the application process.

As I often "preach" on these boards, you should do activities that you enjoy not b/c they will help you get into USNA. One of the reasons for this advice is that activities you enjoy bring many other benefits to your life. Earning Eagle Scout clearly does this and that's why you should go for it. If you're "only" trying to earn Eagle Scout to impress USNA, you are mostly wasting your time as there are a lot of things you can do that take less time that are equally valuable for USNA purposes. However, I'm not sure that many of those do as much for you as a person as earning Eagle Scout.
 
A friend of mine who is an Eagle Scout who has decent grades and his dad and brother both went to USNA didn't get appointed this year.
That being said I also have my Eagle w/ a 690 math and 680 verbal score and I got accepted.
 
From page 39 of the June 2009 Boys' Life magazine (official publication of the boys scouts) in an article about the annual West Point Camporee
:
"Of all the statistics we've documented, having been a Boy Scout is the best predictor you'll complete the academy," says Lt. Col. John Graham, a West Point professor who also works with the camporee.
 
To supreme, I did look at ROTC. I got both AF and Navy Scholarships. This was kind of challenging for me as well. I sought a lot of counsel, prayed, and fasted through this decision and to tell you the complete truth, God really made the answer quite clear. I asked Him to just shut doors and leave only one open for me so that I knew what to choose. Through a bunch of medical difficulties, USNA was the only one to give me a medical waiver and it made the decision that easy. Although I did struggle with this decision for a long time. I sort of wanted the normal college life, but at the same time, I wanted to the rigor, prestige, and challenge of USNA.ROTC is a great way to become an officer. One of my buddies is actually a senior at the University of San Diego in the NROTC unit. He's going to be a marine. And I also have a cousin who will be a senior this next year at USNA. So I had a kind of connection to both pathways. Neither are bad choices. However, sometimes ROTC may leave a minimal cost not covered by the scholarship such as room and board.
As for the Eagle Scout, the reason I knew it was weighed so heavily was that the head of my Eagle Board of Review who is also a CA superior courts judge, was a USNA grad and also sat on the USNA admissions board. During my Board we actually had a discussion about my future, and I brought up the Naval Academy. He said he still had some of his friends who were on the admissions board still as well. He told me about how they do weigh Eagle pretty heavily because of what it all entails. There is also some kind of stat, that like at West Point, it gives you more than half of the required "points" for consideration of appointment, that my scoutmaster boasted about at Eagle Court of Honors.... but anyways, I know personally of no Eagle Scout who has attained just to get into USNA or any service academy for that matter. Any true Eagle would know that attaining it for that reason alone would be pretty worthless because there are lessons to be learned and followers to be led. Because it's more than just an achievement, its a brotherhood. My statement was linked directly to a USNA grad who sat on admission boards, and that's all I can say to back mine up as I don't know or have never seen the actual point scale.
 
Not a single on of my friends at the Academy are either Gold Star's or Eagle Scouts. There seems to be two camps - those who believe it is the best thing ever and those who do not see it any differently than any other EC. I personally did not do scouts, however many including my best friend in HS did and earned their eagles. I have seen kids that have done nothing more than collect can goods for a food bank get their Eagle and others who worked extremely hard on theirs. I have seen those who really only did it because their parents made them. As with many things there is a disparity when it comes to the "requirements" to get an eagle. I have heard that over and over from friends in scouting.

I had heard much of the same before applying to USNA and thought I would be at a disadvantage. That was a question I asked my BGO. He indicated, from what he knew and had seen, it was not weighted any differently than many of the other EC activities. One thing he stated that I remember talking to my parents about was that in his opinion, Eagle Scouts did show that the person had a dedication to see a goal through but seeing a goal through did not necessarily make a great leader and the Academy was looking for leadership. In his words: Building a bench in a park was a good deed but did it show leadership? Now, maybe for what ever reason he was cynical about scouting, I do think that he had a valid point as to leadership being more important.

If you look at the profiles for some of the Academy Classes - one was posted for the class of 2010 - here are the types of activities my class came to the Academy having participated in:
Student Body council 8.2%
Class President or VP 10%
Club president of VP 34.4%
School Publication staff 23.9%
National Honors Society 59.4%
Varsity Athletics 91.5%
Varsity Letter winner 85.2%
Drama, public speaking debate 87.7%
Leader of a musical group 10.3%
Eagle Scout or Gold Award 11.3%
Boys/Girls State 13.7%
ROTC 14%
Sea Cadets 2.3%

Given that we started with 1215 kids, there were only 137 kids who were either Eagle Scouts or Gold Star's. Wouldn't their be more if it was weighted more than other EC's?
 
To begin, not all Eagle Scouts apply to service academies. Only 2% of all Boy scouts become Eagle scouts. While you can argue the case that not all Eagle Scouts are leaders and they could have "skated" past requirements, it is not likely that these are the same who are applying to service academies. Just showing a class profile would not show weight. Since there are so many Varsity athletes, would that mean Varsity athletics are given the most weight? Or is it the easiest to become a part of? Only 10% class presidents or VP's? Does this mean they are not given much weight either or any of the low percentage achievements? I beg to differ. I believe they are lower because of the difficulty of attaining the achievement like being elected to ASB(Stuco) for President. And I believe it is a trend that you will see in any achievement. The harder it is, the lower the percentage of success; the easier the achievement would denote a higher percentage of success.Therefore a low percentage of class profile.
I do agree that some have done projects that do not demonstrate any leadership and some are pushed by parents, but these are not the ones who attend and/or complete the full length of the service academies. Because it is all self-will once you start. Eagle Scout projects are meant to show leadership in that you are to be the project director and manager. Arranging work schedules, manpower, drawing up the blueprints, raising the funds, following through with the project not in that order of course, but all those along with numerous other tasks. For example, my project, we built a 150 foot block retaining wall to reduce hillside erosion and create usable space for seating for the baseball field. I had to recruit the manpower, get donations for all the material, arrange tasks, food, schedules, among many other things. This project in all totaled around 5k along with close to 500 man hours of work and get this done in about 4 weekends. Project could have easily cost 10k because a lot of what I got was donations like a backhoe rental, dumptrucks, and numerous other things not to include labor. I am not trying to place myself on any kind of pedestal, but I want to show why becoming an Eagle Scout would show leadership.
As stated earlier, I'm a 3 sport varsity athlete(and represented Team USA in a football game in Japan), the school ASB president, an Eagle Scout, part of the NHS, did drama and plenty of public speaking. Its not that I'm against any of the other activities, or not for them at all because I did all of them as well, but Eagle Scout was much more difficult than other of those EC's and I believe much more rewarding as well. And btw, I didn't complete my Eagle when I was 12 or 14 like some of those kids you hear about who learn very little and alot of whom have very poor projects often led by their parents, I completed my Eagle when I was 17 after 6 years of work and fun.
 
It seems that Admissions would look favorably on an award--like Eagle Scout--that recognized consistent effort, the ability to set goals, and the persistence to reach those goals. There are many ways to do that.

It's not a disrespectful remark against Eagle Scouts in any way. If you have it, that's terrific, and will probably be an asset to your application.

My midshipman never did scouting, wasn't an Eagle scout. Neither were his mid friends.

In my brief experience, the SAT--particularly the math--has a far bigger impant that this one particular EC.
 
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