Is evidence of high IQ worth mentioning?

Graduate School
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<p>Just to show how good I am at keeping my promises, I decided to post again.</p>

<p>I was interested, so I did some calculations based on the survey I mentioned. It’s very recent, done in 2000s. I would love to share the actual report with you, but there are some issues.
a) it is in a language most of you do not understand at all
b) it is in a member-only section of the Mensa website, so I would have to mirror it somewhere, in which case you could not know if I wrote the whole thing myself
c) it would require me disclosing my nationality, which I dislike</p>

<p>I understand this makes the data and the following analysis very suspicious. However, I ask that if you wish to disagree with the results, please indicate if you only disagree with the calculations, only believe the data is not real, or both. Were there enough interest (which I doubt), I could try to make the data available in a credible manner (and with, for example, a Google translation), which would hopefully help with the data skeptics.</p>

<p>Please note that this has absolutely nothing to do with me thinking about putting the IQ into application anymore. I merely wish to share this piece of information with you. </p>

<p>Now the actual numbers:
The two tables I was concerned about were the highest degree obtained, and the field in which any degree was obtained. </p>

<p>The highest degree obtained provides very simple analysis. 8% of Mensans who answered the survey had a doctoral degree. Because of our education system, in addition to PhD’s and other academic doctorates, “doctoral degree” includes medical, dental and veterinary science doctors, but not law or other professional degrees. This was compared to total population, of which 0.6% have doctoral degrees, defined of course in the same way. </p>

<p>Some simple derivation:
Probability of an IQ>=130 person to have a doctorate is denoted by dm. Probability of an IQ<130 person to have it is denoted by dg. Probability of a random person to belong to groups m and g are pm=0.02 and pg=0.98, respectively.</p>

<p>dm is got from the survey, but dg has to be calculated. dt, the probability of a random person from the total population to have a doctorate, is known. dg is ((pm + pg) * dt - pm * dm) / pg.</p>

<p>The probability of a person having a doctorate to have IQ>=130 is dm * pm / (dm * pm + dg * pg). We insert dg above to the equation and, after some quick manipulation, get pm * dm / ( (pm + pg) * dt), which further simplifies to pm * dm / dt. This is quite intuitive, meaning basically “The probability of a doctorate holder to have IQ>=130 is the probability of a person to have IQ>=130 times the ratio of the probability of an IQ>=130 person to have a doctorate and the probability of an IQ<130 person to have a doctorate”. The analysis works equally well if the ratio dm / dt is replaced by a ratio of some other probabilities, as we’ll do below.</p>

<p>Some strong assumptions about linearity are made above, but it should be okay for the first approximation.</p>

<p>So, continuing from above, it is approximately 8%/0.6%=13.3 times as likely for a person with >=130 IQ to get a doctoral degree than a person of total population. Inserting the ratio to equation above, the statistical probability of a doctoral degree holder to have an IQ of at least 130 would be 2%*13.3=26.7%, so IQ 130 would be approximately 73th percentile.</p>

<p>The analysis above is not completely accurate, because the age distribution obviously affects the education distribution greatly. The general population percentage was calculated with all the people, whereas no one under 16 answered the survey. Thus, the real probabilities compared should be survey probability and probability of general population member of over 16 years old to have a doctoral degree. Approximately 19% of our population is less than 16 years old, which results in 0.7% to be the probability of a person at least 16 old having a doctoral degree. The statistical probability of a doctoral degree holder to have IQ of >= 130 would therefore be 2%*(8%/0.7%)=23%, eg IQ 130 would be 77th percentile.</p>

<p>However, this is a very crude measure, because the field one gets the education in greatly affects the chances of getting a doctoral degree. I will not bore you by explaining our educational system in a detail, but virtually everyone in any job will have specific education for some job, though not necessarily the one he/she does for living. Everyone probably understand that in the field of welding it is much rarer to get a doctoral degree than in sciences, for example. </p>

<p>The Mensa survey report did not include a table of the levels of degree in different fields, only the distribution of the degrees and the distribution of the fields separately. However, a government data bank had the table I wanted, and with it I calculated an approximate probability of getting a doctoral degree in every field, e.g. the amount of doctors in a field divided by the number of all of the people in the field. Then I calculated how many doctors should Mensa have if the probabilities were the same, and got ~0.43x, where x is the actual number based on the survey. Therefore, I deducted that it is about 2.3 times as likely for an IQ>=130 person to get a doctoral degree, compared to everyone on the same field. Very linear approximation again, very unlikely to be completely true, but qualitatively correct, I hope.</p>

<p>Combining this with the fact that survey showed Mensa members had a natural science degree 4.5 as often as the general population, I had the result that it is 4.5*2.3=10.4 times as likely for a IQ>=130 person to have a doctoral degree in a natural sciences than a member of general population. The probability of a natural science doctoral degree holder to have IQ of at least 130 is therefore, according to the simple formula above, 21%, resulting in IQ 130 being 79th percentile.</p>

<p>Finally, there are a couple of things to consider. </p>

<p>One is that members of Mensa may not accurately describe the actual 98th IQ percentile. However, because it is often assumed that they do, and due to lack of any contradicting evidence, I see no reason to believe otherwise.</p>

<p>Another is that the population of my country can not be completely identical to the population of US. However, I see no reason why we would be significantly different. Literacy rate is very close, education is valued in the both countries and IQ is not explicitly selected either way in the education of either country. I don’t believe the data for US should be much different, though I would love to see another study. </p>

<p>And of course, physics does not equal all the natural sciences, but I would be very surprised if there was a big difference between the individual fields.</p>

<p>In addition, a short reply to wis75:
4 million divided by 100 is actually 40,000, not 400,000. The survey data indicates that about 9% of Mensans have a natural sciences degree. Let’s for a moment assume that one fifth of natural degree holders have specifically a physics degree. I don’t know how accurate that is, but probably it is of correct magnitude, at least. This makes the amount of American Mensa-qualified people of any age studying physics or having a degree in it 40000<em>0.09</em>0.2=720. If we use the population estimate of 2010 (310 million), the amount rises to 1116. Approximately 42% or 53% of Mensa survey answerers had at least a degree that would be comparable to US college degree, depending on what is thought to be comparable. Let’s use the generous figure, which gives 591 people as the number of Mensa-qualified college students of any class year with a major (or future major) of physics. It’s not easy to say how they will be distributed to the colleges with respect to the tier of the college, so I will not make any guesses.</p>

<p>I’m also not sure if I made this clear enough, but the IQ I’m talking about has nothing to do with verbal talent or skills. It measures only logical reasoning abilityand therefore probably is approximately same as the math IQ you mentioned.</p>

<p>Also, now that I calculate them myself, I’m not sure if the probabilities you provided corresponding to each IQ level are completely accurate. I believe for IQ 150 the statistical probability should be 1/2330, and for IQ 180 it should be 1/(2*10^7).</p>

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<p>Look at it this way: If you have very good standardized test scores, then the IQ score is superfluous. If you have mediocre test scores, but a high IQ score, that suggests something negative about you. So leave off the IQ score.</p>

<p>It’s a little different for the second person who asked, because there really is a reason that the standardized test scores are lower that might (possibly) be refuted by the IQ score. Even in that case, I think an explanation in a letter or essay would be better.</p>

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<p>

I agree with your math up through here, but would like to point out a major problem - you are starting from a ridiculously shaky starting point. A MENSA survey? How many respondents were there, and was it a scientific survey or a voluntary poll of their members? What proof do you have that MENSA accurately represents the population of IQ130+ people, given that even in the US MENSAns represent less than 1% of those believed to have such an IQ and are all united by a particular characteristic - membership in MENSA?</p>

<p>Any calculation based on such a foundation is at best a guess.</p>

<p>

Yes, but why 16? How many 16 year olds have doctorates?</p>

<p>

Not having the data in front of me, it is hard to do anything at all with this section.</p>

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<p>I apologize for not providing enough data about the survey itself. </p>

<p>It was a 20-page paper survey conducted by two members, one of which is a psychology PhD and another is, I think, using the data for his dissertation. The form was sent to every member, and was to be returned free of charge and anonymously.</p>

<p>Sample size was bit over 900, which is bit less than 1% of the amount of Mensa members internationally, and is a very significant portion of our national group.</p>

<p>I have no proof that Mensa members represent the whole 98th percentile population. That’s an assumption that almost certainly is not completely true, because of the fact that the Mensa members all chose to go to the test voluntarily, so perhaps they are more insecure or value an objective assessment more than the rest of 98th percentile. However, I think many members go to the test by pure chance (case example: I noticed an announcement of the test on a library bulletin board a week before the test, and since I had nothing else planned then, decided to go see what it was like and how I would do), so I would not say it is completely implausible that members could be just random picks from the total 98th percentile population. The test and the membership are not free, but I do not believe they are expensive enough to really cause anyone not become a member. The price of one year’s membership is approximately equal to six beers in a bar, which is manageable even for students.</p>

<p>I chose 16 because that was the lowest age of a person that had answered the survey and I was lazy. People less than 25 years old were a minority, only 8% of survey answerers were less than 25 years old. Thus, Mensa probability for doctorate is again rounded to 8% (7.6% percent previously, now 8.2%), total population probability becomes 1.1%. The huge increase is due to my mistake I noticed only now. The survey report also provides part of the general population data, and my original separate distribution numbers (e.g. all but the joint level-field-distribution) were taken from it. However, it seems that level of education table of the general population included all ages, that is, caused all the percentages to be lower than when using similar age distribution to the survey answerers. Of my analysis this changes only the first part, which compared general doctorate degree probabilities. The separate field table includes only people at least 16, as does the joint table.</p>

<p>New numbers based on Mensa people over 24 years and general population over 24 years is, thus 8% for Mensa and 1.1% for general population, making IQ 130 approximately 85th percentile for doctorates of all fields.</p>

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<p>IMO, Don’t post IQ scores.</p>

<p>Your application for colleges will be measured by standardized parameters. Although IQ may be a standardized measure, the IQ score is a percentile of the whole. Your IQ and other parameters will be measured in a new population. Clear?</p>

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<p>Gifted & LD:</p>

<p>To the poster who asked about LDs. My Dd has an LD, her processing speed is about 2 std deviations below her IQ and it makes reading a chore. As they said in elementary school, the train of thoughts derails often, she can read the same page over and over and not really process it, especially where time is a factor.</p>

<p>She had extra time on timed tests in HS and on the SAT, but the standard in HS does not apply in university. In K-12 the standard is working to ones potential, post grade 12, it is working below the norm, I think some significant level below the norm.</p>

<p>Dd is now in medical school and her MCAT without extra time was definitely below her actual intellectual potential, her GPA in university was also brough down by some A-/B+ marks predominantly caused by timed tests. She always got solid As in labs.</p>

<p>She never said a word about her LD in her apps, nor did she talk about her IQ, she talked about what she did well and hoped her LORs would show that she has a spark that is not well represented by standardized tests. It worked for her, but i also feel she was lucky.</p>

<p>The best news is that she is doing extremely well in classes, often scoring higher than her good friend who had an MCAT score 25% higher than DDs score. Scores & GPAs are merely somewhat predictive, not a certainty. Show in your grad school app & ECs (research etc) & LORs all the ways you are amazing that are not shown by just the numbers. You don’t need to seem to make an excuse because that ends up sounding like an excuse and is not appealing. Talking about what you do well is appealing</p>

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<p>Somemom, your post is important for two reasons. First, it’s informative for those with specific learning issues, showing that achievement can overcome (to some degree) shortcomings in standardized test results. Second, it shows that people tend to land in situations best suited for their skills. Every year, there’s a lot of hand-wringing over not getting an interview at Program X and worrying about GRE scores and GPA, but, in the end, students tend to find the program where they will reach their potential.</p>

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<p>I believe what people are trying to say, is that posting your IQ on an application can be perceived as arrogant in the U.S. which may in turn, harm your chances. In other words, your IQ should translate into achievements that an admissions committee will care about, and perhaps those are the things you should focus on. Imagine how insulting it may be to read that an applicant is smarter than 98% of the population. That means there is a high probability that the applicant is not only smarter than you, but they also have the audacity to say this! This may be something you’re unfamiliar with if you do not live in the United States, but outright boasting is not looked on favorably. It makes people uncomfortable if you assert things like this. If you appear too pompous, or too full of yourself, this may be off putting to a committee. In my opinion, I believe that people are trying to warn you in order to help you.</p>

<p>I should also mention that in terms of generalizations or social mores of the U.S., innate giftedness is not as meaningful as hard work or success resulting from giftedness. Not that this is unimportant, but results, success, and ambition are highly valued over talent that is unrealized.</p>

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<p>Wow. Awesome post. Thanks neurotexasgal.</p>

<p>Although I probably have done just that, I did not want to appear like I didn’t appreciate the input. I do. It was very helpful, and in case I get admitted, I know part of my success is because of the many helpful people who said not to mention the fact.</p>

<p>Although I’d like to blame culture, I know most of this is because of my personal opinions on how facts should be approached. And I have actually always thought that American culture encourages self-promotion. However, now I have realized that maybe it’s okay only when it’s based on concrete achievements. </p>

<p>I know too many extremely intelligent young people who have dropped out of various levels of school and do nothing but play games all day to think that pure potential is enough for anything but becoming bitter. Although this might sound very stupid, I actually think that I owe something to someone because I have been very lucky with my genes and childhood. I believe the best way to repay this to Karma or Darwin or RNG of the universe or whoever is responsible is to make full use of my potential by contributing to research in a meaningful way. This, I believe, will to some extent require getting a PhD from a good enough department. That’s why I would have been ready to reveal my so far very secretly kept club membership, had it been helpful.</p>

<p>I’m not saying I’m not also selfish and want a good career. Because I am and I do. However, I’m also dead serious about my second objective.</p>

<p>I believe this post is already embarrassing and stupid enough, so I’ll just end it here.</p>

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<p>I’m glad that I was able to offer some insight. I agree with your impression that Americans (I hate to use generalizations…ugh) promote themselves, but it is my belief that this is done more subtly through status symbols (SUVs, excessively large homes, extravagance) or achievements. Therefore, highlighting your achievements may garner more respect.</p>

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<p>^^^exactly my thoughts</p>

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<p>Skip the wasted time dealt with MENSA. I once read how anyone who was a NMS-National Merit Finalist- was automatically eligible for it. That’s 15,000 HS seniors each year. The vast majority of high IQ people have no interest in MENSA, we/they have better things to do in life. I suspect a lot of people without better credentials join to give themselves something to be proud of- look, I can get into this exclusive group… I vaguely remember an aunt who never went to college perhaps being in it.</p>

<p>As someone else said, reporting a high IQ will make other less than stellar credentials look worse- as in, if you are so intelligent, why didn’t you do better on test x or get better grades? If your credentials are great there is no need to point out that your high intelligence is the reason, it is presumed you have high intelligence to have done so well.</p>

<p>Others also pointed out the work aspect is more important than the potential. Think of physics- the end result, after all additions and subtractions in the equation. All of the garbage posted does not yield anything useful- net work zero. One erroneous item used to prove a point makes the whole proof useless. You can go on and on about something, spinning a lot of impressive looking data manipulation without accomplishing anything.</p>

<p>Short and sweet- succinct- trumps wordy. Show, don’t tell.</p>

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<p>Gifted plus learning disabled. I was on a school district parent GT committee for several years- I learned those children are sometimes called “doubly blessed”. The past ten years has seen a lot published in both areas. Today’s college students went through their childhood schooling at a time they may or may not have received the benefits of the research, depending on whether their school system was ahead of or behind GT and LD knowledge as it hit the general public.</p>

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<p>Thank you wis75 for yet another pleasant reply. </p>

<p>I’m truly sorry if I have offended or hurt you in some way, because it does seem to me like you are waging a personal war here.</p>

<p>First, could you exactly tell how being a member of a club wastes any time? It takes me a couple of minutes to pay my membership fee a year. Rant about waste of money if you wish, I think the magazine is worth it. A part, although I don’t know how big, also goes to a program designed to help gifted children to have better school experience. I’m happy to pay that.</p>

<p>I believe the paragraph with the physics analog is directed at the post with statistics of education. You very cleverly dodged my trap, so I’ll set it again: Do you agree with the calculations? That is, if I prove the data to be real, are you ready to acknowledge that you might actually be wrong? If you do not agree with the mathematical basis of the analysis, please tell me where the error is.</p>

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<p>Grad schools care about accomplishments, not IQ, which is a flawed test anyway.</p>

<p>While 98th percentile is, of course, impressive among the general population, if you’re looking at PhD programs at top schools, that’s going to be an average score at best. You’ve probably already proven that your intelligence is at least average among people at these programs, so what would be the point?</p>

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<p>I’m doing a similar study about IQ-</p>

<p>Turning monkeys into chimpanzees.</p>

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<p>

</p>

<p>There’s no point commenting the second point, because it’s based on an assumption that is not true. I’ll just refer you to <a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/1065721646-post41.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/1065721646-post41.html&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;

<p>First part, however, interests me. Why do you think it is flawed? And what precisely do you think is flawed? The idea that there exists a quality, often called the IQ, that can be predicted to a good degree of accuracy by IQ tests?</p>

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<p>Re: your calculations… You are extrapolating on a survey with a sample size of 900. The results are only from Mensa members who chose to take the survey (not randomly selected), so you have selection bias. Mensa members themselves are a very particular and very small subset of eligible people, so you have a second selection bias. These problems alone make any projections about the general population worthless, not to mention a host of other problems, some of which you’ve mentioned.</p>

<p>If you had good data, you might see that high IQ is a contributing factor to PhD success. However, it is but one factor, and the correlation is probably a lot lower than you think— low enough that putting it on an application is worthless, because your willingness to work and put in long hours is 100X more important, providing you have some baseline intelligence. How does a prof see you’re willing to work a lot? The only way is to show that you’ve worked a lot and been productive at it: Achievements. Publications. Recommendations that attest to your work ethic.</p>

<p>Re: IQ tests in general… </p>

<p>First of all, nobody has a succinct description of what ‘intelligence’ is… it would probably be more aptly described with many dimensions (many sub-IQ’s), rather than a single number. </p>

<p>Second, nobody has come up with a good argument that ‘intelligence’ is accurately measured by an IQ test. An IQ is a piece of paper with boxes and analogies on it that some group of people came up with. “IQ” simply measures a person’s position on the normal distribution of scores compared with other people’s results based on what they write on that piece of paper.</p>

<p>“IQ” is defined by that piece of paper, not defined by some innate “intelligence.” So this “metric” is affected by the assumptions and bias of the people who came up with that piece of paper. If the people who write the questions or the methodology are upper-middle class, they may write questions in such a way that poor people have a tendency to underperform. </p>

<p>Don’t get me wrong, “IQ” certainly correlates with problem-solving ability and the ability to recognize patterns. However, the “problem-solving ability” only refers to ability to solve the particular type of problem and the type of pattern given on the IQ test.</p>

<p>So to sum up the problem:
A. “Intelligence” is very one-dimensional, only vaguely defined, and its definition is highly affected by shortsighted contemporary opinions.
B. We try to measure “intelligence” by a test whose methodology itself is questionable.
C. It’s questionable whether or not what we think of as “intelligence” is accurately measured by what we’ve come up with as an “IQ test”.
D. The contribution of IQ to PhD success probably pales in comparison to other factors.
E. If you put an IQ of 130 (which is not special at all) on your graduate app the committee will giggle and wonder why you didn’t focus your effort on publishing instead of taking silly IQ tests.</p>

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<p>i read some nonsense about physics and other natural sciences fields and how PhDs were “more intelligent”.</p>

<p>if you actually did a PhD, you’d know what a PhD really is. guess experience beats intelligence every time. a 5 year old genius will never design a better drug than a low IQ but 20 years experience chemist.</p>

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<p>There is validity to IQ tests. There is also more than one facet to any testing- people have peaks and valleys, spikes, in their intelligence in different areas. Talk to 6 year olds. There will be some that you know have to be gifted and subsequent testing will prove it. Others you can guess are average and yet others slow. No test is perfect. </p>

<p>william- I don’t bother to read/analyze your long posts. Get a life. Years later you may read them and groan at your attempts at sophisticated reasoning. This is the grad page so I expect more than from HS students…</p>

<p>trout- thanks for taking the time I didn’t bother with to rebut comments.</p>

<p>low IQ will never get to college, much less be a chemist. It is interesting to sometimes talk to students (the advantage of being a parent volunteer over the years) and see how “the other half” lives when you are used to family and friends being of high intelligence. Or talk to the floor sweeper at your workplace. IQ shows potential, not accomplishment. It takes a combination of ability to think (IQ) and willingness to use that ability to succeed.</p>