How Many Eagle Scouts Does It Take ...?

The question often comes up about how many scouts reach Eagle or what percentage of scouts make it. I just got an email asking about that so I checked around a bit and found the most recent, most official info I could at Facts About Scouting page.

Through the end of 2005, 1,835,410 young men had been awarded the Eagle Scout Award, achieved by only approximately 5 percent of Scouts.
In 2005, 49,895 scouts earned Eagle. So, I would expect the total for the end of 2006 to be about 1,885,000 Eagles.

The interesting thing to me is that googling for 'percent eagle scout' returns results citing less than 2%, 2%, 3%, 4%, 5% depending on the point being made on that page. :-)
Earlier pages from the mid-1990s on scouting.org say 'about 4%' so it appears the percentage of scouts earning Eagle is going up. One could argue that that statistic shows 'paper eagles' are being made - or it means more scouts are focusing on completing that high goal.

Either way, I'm expecting more than 2 of the 40 scouts in our troop to reach Eagle. And, I do understand that I need to count the Eagles against all the scouts that joined, not just current members. I have a page where I track every scout that joins, what rank he reaches before dropping, and the reason given for dropping. There's lots of room for improvement!

Scout On