High-IQ society explained

A high-IQ society is an organization that limits its membership to people who have attained a specified score on an IQ test, usually in the top two percent of the population (98th percentile) or above.^{[1] [2]} These may also be referred to as genius societies.^[3] The largest and oldest such society is Mensa International, which was founded by Roland Berrill and Lancelot Ware in 1946.^{[4] [5]}

Entry requirements

High-IQ societies typically accept a variety of IQ tests for membership eligibility; these include WAIS, Stanford-Binet, and Raven's Advanced Progressive Matrices, amongst many others deemed to sufficiently measure or correlate with intelligence. Tests deemed to insufficiently correlate with intelligence (e.g. post-1994 SAT, in the case of Mensa and Intertel) are not accepted for admission.^{[6] [7] [8]} As IQ significantly above 146 SD15 (approximately three-sigma) cannot be reliably measured with accuracy due to sub-test limitations and insufficient norming, IQ societies with cutoffs significantly higher than four-sigma should be considered dubious.^{[9] [10] [11]}

Societies

Some societies accept the results of standardized tests taken elsewhere. Those are listed below by selectivity percentile (assuming the now-standard definition of IQ as a standard score with a median of 100 and a standard deviation of 15 IQ points). Since the 1960s, Mensa has experienced increasing competition in attracting high-IQ individuals, as various new groups have emerged with even stricter and more exclusive admissions requirements.^[12] Notable high-IQ societies include:

Name	Established	No. of members	Approx. no. of countries	Eligibility / Rarity	Approx. IQ
	1946	≈ 145,000 ^[13]	100	Top 2 percent of population (98th percentile; 1 person out of 50)	130
	1966	≥ 1,700 ^[14]	40	Top 1 percent (99th percentile; 1 out of 100)	135
	1978	≈ 1,900 ^[15]	46	Top 0.1 percent (99.9th percentile; 1 out of 1,000)	146
	1982	< 36 ^[16]	13	Top 0.003 percent (99.997th percentile; 1 out of 30,000; not reliably measurable with current tests)	160
	1982	26 (as of January 2014)	Unknown	Top 0.0001 percent (99.9999th percentile; 1 out of 1,000,000; not reliably measurable with current tests)	171.3

See also

• IQ classification

Further reading

• Book: Kaufman, Alan S. . IQ Testing 101 . Alan S. Kaufman . 2009 . Springer Publishing . New York . 978-0-8261-0629-2.
• Book: Shurkin, Joel . Terman's Kids: The Groundbreaking Study of How the Gifted Grow Up . 1992 . Little, Brown . Boston (MA) . 978-0-316-78890-8 . registration .
  • News: Frederic Golden . May 31, 1992 . Tracking the IQ Elite : TERMAN'S KIDS: The Groundbreaking Study of How the Gifted Grow Up, By Joel N. Shurkin . https://web.archive.org/web/20121108031753/http://articles.latimes.com/1992-05-31/books/bk-1247_1_lewis-terman . 2012-11-08 . live . Los Angeles Times.
• Book: Measuring intelligence: A guide to the administration of the new revised Stanford-Binet tests of intelligence . Terman . Lewis Madison . Merrill . Maude A. . Lewis Terman . 1937 . Houghton Mifflin . Boston (MA) . Riverside textbooks in education .

Notes and References

1. Groeger . Lena . January 1, 2015 . When High IQs Hang Out . . en . 2021-01-29.
2. News: 2019-11-26. The rise of children joining high-IQ society Mensa. en-GB. BBC News. 2021-01-29.
3. Web site: American Mensa Celebrates Its Diamond Jubilee. 2021-01-29. American Mensa. en.
4. News: Percival . Matt . The Quest for Genius. 26 June 2015 . 8 September 2008.
5. Web site: American Mensa Celebrates Its Diamond Jubilee. 2021-01-29. American Mensa. en.
6. Web site: Qualifying test scores. American Mensa. 2019-01-24.
7. Web site: Intertel - Join us . www.intertel-iq.org . 2019-01-24.
8. Web site: Test Scores . www.triplenine.org . 2019-01-24.
9. Web site: IQ values explained . www.triplenine.org . 2019-01-24.
10. Book: Perleth . Christoph . Schatz . Tanja . Mönks . Franz J. . International Handbook of Giftedness and Talent . Heller . Kurt A. . Mönks . Franz J. . Sternberg . Robert J. . Robert Sternberg . Subotnik . Rena F. . 3 . 2nd . 2000 . Pergamon . Amsterdam . 978-0-08-043796-5 . 301 . Early Identification of High Ability . norm tables that provide you with such extreme values are constructed on the basis of random extrapolation and smoothing but not on the basis of empirical data of representative samples. .
11. Book: Urbina, Susana . The Cambridge Handbook of Intelligence . Sternberg . Robert J. . Robert Sternberg . Kaufman . Scott Barry . 2011 . Chapter 2: Tests of Intelligence . 20–38 . Cambridge University Press . Cambridge . 9780521739115 . [Curve-fitting] is just one of the reasons to be suspicious of reported IQ scores much higher than 160.
12. Schregel. Susanne. 2020-12-01. 'The intelligent and the rest': British Mensa and the contested status of high intelligence. History of the Human Sciences. en. 33. 5. 12–36. 10.1177/0952695120970029. 227187677. 0952-6951.
13. Web site: About Us . . 2022 . Mensa International. September 9, 2022.
14. Web site: Intertel - Home . 2023-07-06 . www.intertel-iq.org.
15. Web site: What is TNS? . . 2022 . Triple Nine Society . September 8, 2022.
16. Web site: The Prometheus Society . . 2022 . Prometheus Society . September 13, 2022.