Jump to content

Eagle Scout Application Filing Fee


hikeoholic

Recommended Posts

Wow ... I have never heard of an Eagle application fee before. Our council actually sends every new Eagle Scout a packet with his new patch, a few congratulatory letters, and information for an Eagle Scout photo opp - all completely free (including cost of photos). To charge boys for all of that sounds crazy to me.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, Eagle94-A1 said:

I am already having challenges with national's new fee. Charge my son for his Eagle application, and you can kiss not only FOS, but all participation in district/council level activities, except for free ones, goodbye.

Some of us are already on that train and well down the tracks.

 

  • Upvote 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I know the staffer at my council has to spend a lot of time on processing the Eagle documentation (I don't know why). A lot of the actual work is done by volunteers. In our Troop we buy the kit for the boy to avoid embarrassment. 

But BSA has just gotten more and more expensive than it needs to be..."a Scout is Thrifty" LOL..

If I was council I'd bury the cost in something else.

I wonder if there will be a special review fee when asking for Eagle credit from unofficial scouting or equivalent youth activities.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

So $50 gets you an application to most colleges in the US, where your application usually goes through a more thorough review process and (for possible "accepted" applications) gets reviewed by more than one person. But this council needs $90 for review of an application that one person can handle in about 15-minutes. Thrifty indeed. 

:rolleyes:

Even if it took an hour to review 1 Eagle application. Council gets $90 per hour for this??

Edited by EmberMike
Link to comment
Share on other sites

It is clearly a method to generate revenue, but one that seems to be poorly designed.

There were something like 56,000 Eagles in 2016. There are currently 272 councils (per wiki). If we assume all councils create Eagles equally, then there are roughly 206 Eagles per council. @ $120 per Eagle, that is $24,720 in new revenue.

Compared to the roughly 2.4 million in total scouts, or 8824 average per council, they could increase the per scout recharter fee by $2.80 and raise the same amount of new revenue.

I know what option I would select if I was on the committee to make this decision. Even if my math turns out to be slightly off, the point should still remain.

  • Upvote 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

 

18 hours ago, Eagle94-A1 said:

I am already having challenges with national's new fee. Charge my son for his Eagle application, and you can kiss not only FOS, but all participation in district/council level activities, except for free ones, goodbye.

Exactly. FOS would be non-existent. I'd encourage everyone to take that money and donate it to the troop or our CO instead.

$120 to process the Eagle application is ridiculous. Our unit has a series of checks with the applicant to confirm all the data on their application and associated paperwork is 100% correct. It takes council less than 5 mins to check this.

If they are going to charge money, charge based on incompleteness or readability of the application. :)

  • Upvote 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

IF  this is actually the case, I suspect we might soon hear that it went away.  No matter how strapped a council might be, they have clerical people to deal with advancement details, and Eagle boards do most of the preliminary verifications of dates and such in most councils.  If they do not in this "council", then maybe they should.  Total nonsense.  By the way, there is a legitimate fee for processing in an expedited manner that is available, though even that may be covered by most units.

 

Edited by skeptic
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I've seen this on the BSA sub reddit. They mentioned Orange County's BSA council. 

I have doubts that this is true, because it's such an idiotic policy. It really doesn't take much manpower or time to review Eagle applications, and $120 is a ridiculous and arbitrary increase over free.

Edited by Sentinel947
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...