My DD is in scouts and she loves it.
To recap my story in one short sentence: my kids used to go to the most elite elementary school in town and now they are both at charter that serves very mixed population (lots of minority kids, some blue colar families, but also some doctors and investmenet bankers).
She goes to scouts back at her old "elite" school. She loves it, because while she likes her new school, she left some really good friends back at the "private". For my daughter it is all about socializing. Her previous troop was very,very blue collar and the girls were , how to put it, very uncomplicated, but my daughter managed to find a couple that she liked and she has formed her own , small circle of friends. My daughter is quite mature emotionaly, she probably has high emotional IQ :-)
What I am trying to say is that scouting has worked for her in two very different situations.
From what I understand about girl scouting, it is very closely related to age and grade level, you do not have to progress in rank (ex. you do not have to be a brownie to become a junior),while boy scouts are totally unrelated to age, they progress in ranking.
