Eagle Scout Rank

What this page is

The Eagle Scout rank is seven requirements. Written down as a list they look independent, and they are not: four of them can only be counted from the date of your Life Scout board of review, two of them take six months of elapsed time whatever else you do, and one of them cannot be started until four different people have approved a proposal.

The graph below is that structure. It is not a copy of the requirements — for the wording that governs, read the Eagle Scout Rank Application and Guide to Advancement section 9, both cited on every item.

The three things people get wrong

The two six-month clocks run at the same time. Being active as a Life Scout and serving in a position of responsibility are separate requirements, and both count from the Life Scout board of review. Started together they cost six months; started one after the other they cost twelve. Nothing in the requirements asks you to do them in sequence.

The service project proposal is approved before the work, not after. The beneficiary, the unit leader, the unit committee and the council or district all have to approve the proposal first. A project carried out before that approval has not met the requirement, however good it was.

The deadline is the 18th birthday, and only the board of review is outside it. Everything else — including the unit leader conference, which is not required to be last — has to be finished before then.

How to read the graph

An arrow points from the thing that has to happen first to the thing it unlocks. Dashed lines without arrowheads mean "either one of these", which is how the choose-one merit badges are drawn. Nothing here is hidden because you have not answered something: this page shows the whole rank whether you tick anything or not.