Life Rank

Three of the six service hours must be conservation

Six hours of service through one or more projects approved by your Scoutmaster. At least three hours of this service must be conservation-related.

This is the only rank that says so, and it is the one sentence on the sheet most often read as though it were not there. Six hours of the same kind of service leaves the requirement half done, and the hours cannot be reinterpreted afterwards. The conservation half has to be conservation when it is given.

The hours may be split across several projects, and each needs your Scoutmaster's approval, which comes before the work rather than after it.

Requirement 6 is the second and last time the ladder asks you to teach

Teaching EDGE appears exactly twice in the Scouts BSA rank requirements: Tenderfoot requirement 8, where a Scout teaches somebody the square knot, and here. Nothing between them mentions it.

The eight choices are all requirements from ranks you have already earned: first aid, cooking, tools and navigation from Tenderfoot, Second Class and First Class, plus the option of three requirements from any Eagle-required merit badge with your Scoutmaster's approval. You already know all of them. What is being tested is whether the Scout you taught is prepared to pass those requirements to the Scoutmaster's satisfaction, which is a different thing from whether you can do them yourself.

The two six-month clocks run together

Requirement 1 is six months active. Requirement 5 is six months in a position of responsibility. Both are measured as a Star Scout, and nothing on the sheet says one follows the other, so a Scout who takes a position the week Star is approved runs both clocks at once and reaches Life in six months rather than twelve.

Guide to Advancement 4.2.3.4 adds two things worth knowing: any number of positions may be held as long as the total service time adds up, and holding two positions at the same time does not shorten the months required.

Requirement 3 does not carry the Star qualifier

Earn five more merit badges (so that you have 11 in all), including any three additional badges from the required list for Eagle.

No "while a Star Scout", on a sheet where five other requirements say it. Badges earned earlier still count. Taken with Star requirement 3, a Life Scout holds 11 badges of which 7 are from the Eagle-required list: leaving 10 more badges and 6 more of the 13 required slots for Eagle.

The sheet says there are 18 merit badges on the Eagle-required list and points at Eagle rank requirement 3 for it. That count was printed before Scouting America discontinued Citizenship in Society on 27 February 2026, so the list you can still earn from now has 17, and Eagle requires 13 of them rather than 14. If you earned Citizenship in Society before then, ask your unit leader whether it counts as one of your three.

Assistant patrol leader does not count for Life

It is in a footnote, and it is the single most expensive thing on this page to find out late. Bugler does count for Life, but it does not count for Eagle, so a Scout who serves as bugler for Life needs a different position next.

What this page is

The Life rank, drawn so the clocks are visible as clocks. It is not a copy of the requirements: each step is a short label with the requirement number beside it, and the official requirements are what actually governs and are republished every year.