Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion High IQ Societies?

Hi, everyone,

Are you a member of any membership organization for high-IQ people? (For purposes of this discussion, in this place, I am NOT asking who has children in the Davidson Young Scholars program, but rather which of you adults are members of, say, Mensa or one of the other voluntary membership groups like that.) I have never joined any such group. I am active in my state's NAGC-affiliated gifted education association (I'm on the board of directors) and consider its Homeschooling Chapter my primary parental support group. I have been to one Mensa AG once as a speaker.

What high-IQ organizations are fun to join? What do they do? What are some of the activities of members as members that more people should know about? How do we join?

Do many State affiliates of NAGC have a Homeschooling Chapter? Ours does not. Rather our State affiliate is operated primarily as a tool to involve parents to advocate for the public school teachers and their unions legislatively; the focus is on parental push for more money to be allocated.

"Voluntary membership" groups vary considerably from year to year. In general individuals make a few friends, acquaintances, or contacts and socialize/associate with them apart from the group, having less interest in newcomers as time goes by.

Because groups compete fiercely for grants then create services of benefit to "all", a focus on the needs of the gifted may be lost.

DH and I are not.

We're not really "joiner" types in general, though.

No, I am not a member.

indigo, alas, I think our state is exceptional in having an organized group for homeschooling parents of gifted children that is part of an NAGC-affiliated statewide gifted education organization.

I recently joined Mensa in Minnesota. My youngest (PG) kid is leaving for college in California in six weeks and I realized I was going to miss having that really smart kid around. I have only been to one event so far (new member dinner), but enjoyed it a lot and plan to do more with them once the kid launches at the end of August.

To join Mensa you can go to their website. They accept a variety of types of tests you may have already taken -- I was able to use my old SAT scores and didn't have to sit for the test they have available if you don't have any of the variety of test results they already accept. There is a fee to join, and I think an annual fee as well. It took maybe a month for them to get back to me with membership confirmation after I sent in my information.

They send out a monthly newsletter/pamphlet with all the activities in it. So far I am interested in a couple of the "SIG" (special interest groups). There is a "games" SIG and a "science fiction" SIG that I am interested in, but I haven't been yet. There are more SIGs, those are just the ones that caught my eye to try first. There is a monthly get together (haven't tried it) as well, and then there are some national weekend events that sound fun. There is one where they try out new games (hundreds of them) in the course of a weekend and provide feedback to the manufacturers.

My first event had about the mix of people you might expect -- some really fun, interesting people. And a few so annoying that you really needed leave to freshen your soda pretty quickly. But enough of the former to make it worth continuing to attend, for sure.

I recently came across this link regarding high IQ societies and found it both humorous and informative... thought some of you might enjoy it also: http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/High_IQ_society

Our group of friends is heavily skewed toward terminal and professional degrees, so we have a de facto Mensa meeting every time we host a dinner party. Birds of a feather.

I'm also not much of a joiner. I like cause- and idea-driven gatherings and find I can meet a lot of like-minded people by focusing on events centered on shared interests.

Lovely!

Very funny link! As an update, since it has been four months since I posted that I joined Mensa, I have been attending the Games special interest group regularly for a few months. A fun and entertaining group, mostly adults in their 50s. We play a lot of cards (a really complicated version of Canasta is a favorite), but also occasionally branch out into trivia or card games. Anyone can bring a game and will likely find someone to play it. Sometimes we go pretty late (a meeting can last 5 hours if we have a good game going). I enjoy it a lot, it has been a good way to meet some new, smart people.