<p>So recently, I found out that I was eligible to become a Mensa member. I've always regarded IQ as rather frivolous, and always scoffed at people who brag about theirs, but I'm having a tough time making up my mind about joining. Since this is CC, I'll stick to the issues relevant to the application... If I do join, is it something noteworthy enough to put on my application? Will it at all improve my chances of admission? Will it be seen as really pompous by the adcoms to put membership of a high IQ society on the app?</p>
<p>I don't know. Should I join? The fees are quite steep (yes, I have to pay out of my own pocket... parents think it's useless and refuse to pay for it...), and I'm not sure membership will really impress the adcoms that much anyways (they probably get tons of them each year :(). Advice?</p>
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<p>... I've always regarded IQ as rather frivolous, and always scoffed at people who brag about theirs....<<</p>
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<p>Well joining Mensa is merely an institutionalized way of bragging about your IQ. And Harvard will care far more about your achievements than your IQ.</p>
<p>Personally, I've never seen any value in organizations whose sole purpose is to decide who is allowed to join the organization.</p>
<p>Being a member of MENSA means you're quite smart. Yet, I don't think it's smart that you have to pay MENSA to tell you how smart you are (membership dues).</p>
<p>Ok, I have another question: Almost anyone can get into Mensa (1 in 50 ppl can get in), right? But what about the truly exclusive (and also truly annoying) groups such as the Triple Nine Society (1 in 1,000) or the Prometheus Society (1 in 30,000)? Or even the Mega Society (1 in a million)? <= this is a purely hypothetical question, I cannot actually make it for the Mega Society.</p>
<p>Even then IQ is still frivolous, but being one-in-a-million, no matter in how trivial a field, still counts for something right? Just like the SATs - even though they seriously do not measure anything except how well you do on the test itself), having a perfect score still counts for something. It makes you unique (unless there are multiple one-in-a-million applicants of the same field applying, which, in a self-selecting pool of applicants such as Harvard's is quite likely).</p>
<p>Well, I was and am a member of mensa and would like to defend it. I joined when I was 10. (Everyone took an IQ test to figure out who would go to the gifted program.) </p>
<p>Anyway, as a result of joining MENSA and meeting other people in it, my parents learned about the CTD/CTY program. As you probably know, that program is where you can take college-level or high school honors classes as a kid during the summer. I spent 5 summers doing this and loved it. (It is only 3 weeks long, so there was plenty of time to do other stuff.) Anyway, before I joined I had no idea that it would benefit me in that way, but I can say that it indirectly had a huge effect on my life.</p>
<p>To answer the follow-up question, the societies that purport to be more exclusive than Mensa mentioned in that question have no credibility at all (because their tests have never been subjected to a validation study). To the defender of Mensa, yes, Mensa can be a worthwhile organization. I have never joined, but a local friend who organizes most of the youth activities for Mensa in our state is a long-time Mensa member who really appreciates the organization. This thread is in the Harvard Forum, so the key idea to point out is that Mensa is much less selective of the general population than Harvard is of the overall college-applying population.</p>
<p>Most of the people who have such strong views about Mensa don't know anything about it. You write it off as a bunch of people who just talk about how smart they are, but somehow I doubt you have ever been to a meeting. As a member, I can tell you that Mensa members don't just brag all day, if anything meeting other people with "high Iqs" is a humbling experience.</p>
<p>IQ itself is useless and such a waste of time.
But i'm pretty sure that highly success people are smart.
I think to be success at normal level ( 100k>/year) , you don't have to be smart. But if you want to be like Bill Gates, Warren Buffet,( many more) , you have to be a genius. Because you have to be smarter and faster than your competitor.
IQ isn't for self congratulation but a useful tool in order to find suitable employee.</p>
<p>To qualify for membership in Mensa, one has to score at or above the 98th percentile on one of a number of standardized tests (including the SAT). The 98th percentile on the SAT is 750 for CR and 740 for M - a total of 1490. That's right on the Harvard average, so roughly half of the Harvard student body would qualify for Mensa.</p>
<p>The 98th percentile of the self-selected group of college-bound high school students who take the SAT is higher than the 98th percentile of the general population, which is why I claim without fear of contradiction that Harvard is MORE selective than Mensa, and thus Mensa membership would not be impressive to the Harvard admission office.</p>