<p>I was wondering if one can put being part of both Mensa and CTY on their college application, and whether it looks good one your application or not.</p>
<p>Thanks in advance!</p>
<p>My daughter put the CTY program on there because she had attended two or three of the programs. I think she put it under academic honors. She did not apply to Harvard if you are specifically asking about that app.</p>
<p>So if you participate then you can put it on your application. Thanks!</p>
<p>Lots of kids qualify for it. When you participate, it shows an interest in learning. That is just my opinion.</p>
<p>I don’t know much about CTY but unless you regularly participate in MENSA activities in a meaningful way, I wouldn’t just indicate that you’re a member. Having a high IQ is not a criterion for college admissions.</p>
<p>I think putting it on the app is worthwhile regardless of participation. It’s mostly a designation more than an active organization. What if you were selected for CTY but didn’t have the $$ to do the activities?</p>
<p>I was selected to do CTY but did not have the financial resources to attend or participated. I noted in my app that I was selected only. I got in ( but I HIGHLY doubt that that was what got me accepted).</p>
<p>Do you mean CTY or SET? CTY is not something I would add, unless you are taking classes through CTY in your spare time. SET is something I would be more likely to add, although if you qualified for SET you probably have other, more interesting things to add to your application.</p>
<p>^^ Would absolutely agree. CTY not that hard to qualify for. On the other hand, CTY-SET has a very small membership.</p>
<p>One qualifies for the SET by scoring 700+ on CR or M by age 13. Does Harvard care about SAT scores at age 13? (Actually I think they should, because the SAT has a relatively low ceiling for the applicant pool for schools like Harvard.)</p>
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<p>I can’t speak for Harvard but I am almost entirely certain that it does not.</p>
<p>If you participate in CTY residential summer programs, it should go under classes taken in a college setting, on the Education tab of the common app. D was selected for the CTY Scholars program and Center Scholars, both advised how to list the classes:</p>
<p>Education tab, under colleges. Select the college campus where you attended, the dates you attended, and check the box for “course taught on college campus.” </p>
<p>Any classes you took through CTY online would not be listed this way</p>
<p>Thank you!</p>
<p>DwightEisenhower:</p>
<p>You are probably correct given that the typical admissions officer probably doesn’t even know what SET is. However, a huge percentage of SET members end up at Harvard, MIT, and Stanford. It is not easy to score a 700 or above in math or verbal as a 12 year old. A ten-year study done of SET members estimated the mean IQ to be 186 with SD of 11. So, probably Harvard should care…</p>
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<p>Do you have a source? For SET members I would believe a mean IQ number of 145, 3 standard deviations above the mean, but 186 seems high. I think some of the commonly-used IQ tests have no ability to measure such high IQs.</p>
<p>Modern IQ tests mostly ceiling at 160, with minimal ability to meaningfully distinguish scores above 145. So any studies referencing an IQ of 186 are either using outdated (so not really appropriate for scientific use) tests, or are attempting to extrapolate an IQ score on the basis of population frequency (which isn’t consistent with providing a mean or standard deviation).</p>
<p>Someone eligible for SET membership either has done interesting things since then, or hasn’t. I see no benefit to anyone in giving the second group a boost, and the first doesn’t need it.</p>
<p>As stated in other posts, if you participated in a CTY program or one similar such as Duke TIP, then by all means incorporate that information into your application. Mensa membership, on the other hand, while it may convey some personal satisfaction, is not a qualification that would be likely to impress admissions committees. In fact, it might adversely affect an applicant’s chances, as it may suggest an element of braggadocio. They are interested in a record of achievement as demonstrating the ability and effort to put innate talents to work.</p>
<p>i was able to find the SET study which I hastily read quite a while ago. After re-readiing, I would tend to agree with allyphoe. Not sure how you post links so you might have to copy and paste the link below:</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.vanderbilt.edu/peabody/smpy/Top1in10000.pdf[/url]”>http://www.vanderbilt.edu/peabody/smpy/Top1in10000.pdf</a></p>
<p>There have been quite a few other studies done on SET members. Many have become dated however.</p>
<p>That’s a kind of cool way to try and spread out the top end of the range. By their math, a kid with a perfect 1600 on the old SAT would be about 1 in 142 million (which IMHO is a more useful way to look at it), and a median talent-search kid would have a modern IQ equivalent of about 135.</p>
<p>Interestingly, the DYS cut for 7th graders (likely 12yos) is 1220/1600, which is intended to represent 3 standard deviations out for achievement, as their 145 cut on the WISC / SB represents 3 standard deviations out for IQ. A 1220 plugged into the model in the study comes out to right on 3 standard deviations out. (Caveat that the talent search crowd is a small one, and it’s entirely possible that that agreement is not at all coincidental.)</p>
<p>^^ I defer to your obvious expertise in this area. As you indirectly point out, this study was done before the test was re-centered so achieving the 700+ scores was much harder back then. Anyway, whatever the IQ’s of the kids, many went on to high academic achievement and they still do. </p>
<p>To answer the OP’s original question, just being in JHU or Mensa is probably not additive to mention. Being in SET is also probably not worth mentioning but it does have positive implications for future achievement. Taking JHU-CTY courses online or in a college setting in HS should probably be included in your app but is not likely to move the needle much unless it helped you to either skip classes and/or serve as a springboard that allowed you to go very deeply into a particular subject area.</p>