Cub Scout Rank Progress Reports

Jessica / March 20, 2025 / Cub Scouts

It is hard to believe another year of scouting has come and nearly gone. Hopefully your den and pack have had multiple opportunities to get outside, camp overnight, develop new skills, and push the limits of what your cubs thought they were capable of doing. And your cubs are hopefully well on their way to wrapping up the minimum requirements to complete their current rank. If they aren’t, a rank progress report may help get them back on track.

Just here for the resource? You got it! Click here to download the Cub Scout Rank Progress Report PDF.

With the overhaul to the Cub Scout program that was rolled out this past spring and summer, there were a lot of changes. For my unit, it had a pretty minimal impact. Our den leaders roll up with their den each year, so the content has always been entirely new to them as they navigate the rank requirements with their new den. Unfortunately, the den leaders who would have previously been able to provide guidance how they led engaging meetings for each adventure were no longer familiar with the new requirements. This meant one less resource for our leaders. But we got through it together.

Is Your Cub Ready for Rank Advancement?

Now, as AOL Crossover season has ended for us, we switch our focus to Advancement for our Lion, Tiger, Wolf, Bear, and Webelos dens. The new program has, in many ways, simplified the process of tracking progress towards rank completion. But no matter how simplified the program gets, scouts and parents still end up with questions like “So what are we missing to finish rank?” and “What did we miss when we were out sick for that meeting?”

I know, I know, most of this information is in Scoutbook. But some parents have issues accessing their account. Others just do better when you spell it out for them. To help support all of our cubs and families, I started using Rank Progress Reports. I initially did this just for my AOLs to help them be more aware of their progress towards rank. After parents expressed how helpful it was and other leaders wanted a version for their den, I revisited the document and added a version for each den rank requirements. And, to help minimize paper waste, each page fits two progress reports. If your cubs are mostly on track and you don’t need to add many notes, you can even fit four reports per page.

Filling in Your Rank Progress Report

For each requirement on the rank progress report, I put a ✓ under status if the requirement was fully completed and earned by the cub. If they had started the requirement but not completed it, I generally put the corresponding numbers for the missing requirements under the missing requirement column. If they were partially done with a requirement, I put a note instead.

For example, AOLs needed to complete 2 service hours for Citizenship. I had one AOL scout who had only completed 30 minutes. Instead of showing he was missing Requirement 2, I noted he was missing 1.5hrs of time for service projects.

You can choose to put a percentage complete under status or just leave it blanks. In some cases, I also noted “Not started” under missing requirements. You know your parents and cubs best and what level of notation and clarity they will need.

In most cases, I didn’t really need much of the Notes section, but it is there just in case. It was also useful for meeting with the cubs and parents.

Presenting Your Rank Progress Report

The cub scout rank progress reports are useful because you can just pass them out and tell parents to let you know if you have any questions. Or you can meet with each parent/cub and use them to guide your conversation and set expectations. This can be especially useful if you have a cub joining the program very late in the year and need to help set expectations for the parents on whether or not their cub can realistically complete the rank requirements. But that is a different rabbit hole.

This is when the Notes section proved to be most useful. I could give them the rank progress report and then they could jot down notes as needed. For my AOLs, I met with each AOL individually while the rest of the den continued working on their project. It was not anything bit, we just sat at a table off to the side in the room where everyone else was working. I called the parents over to listen in so they were also informed. The reason I met with the scout was to help my AOL scouts to get in the mindset of meeting with their scout leader and being accountable for their progress. Since AOL is all about preparing for the Troop, this made the most sense for the AOL den.

For all the other younger ranks, it probably makes more sense to just talk with the parents while the cubs play a game or work on an activity. Webelos may be a toss up. If you think your Webelos scouts are ready, I’d meet with them while a parent listens in. They will be moving towards the Patrol method in a few months, so this might be a good, small step to start working towards the mindset of a self accountability for progress. Others might not be there yet, and that is okay too.