I am just wondering if any of you are members or if your children are members of mensa. If so, are there any tangible benefits to being a part of this organization or is it simply another label?

C~

There are some Mensa members here. Some groups are VERY active, others less so. It depends on the area.

It seems like it might be something good to check out. We haven't tried it, but I think it's worth a look. It might be a good place to find other GT kids for friendships.

Bringing this back up to see if anyone has any opinions on the tangible benefits of joining this or is it just a "look how smart I am" label.

I was wondering the same thing actually.

I was in Mensa when I was a kid. I don't know if it was just because I lived in a fairly rural area, or whether it is like this everywhere, but I was the only kid who ever attended events, and since they were at least an hour away they were always sort of a PITA. My dad, on the other hand, loved going to events because he could "pretend" to be "smart" and then shock everyone by revealing that he wasn't gifted at all. (He isn't gifted, but he is probably the most well-read and wildly informed person I have ever met, so it is easy for him to fool people.)

In addition to being the only kid, I may have been the only PG member in my area. I can remember that I always seemed like the smartest person at the events (but, of course, I could have been wrong).

So, in short, my advice would be to check out the group in your area thoroughly before spending the money. JMHO.

We have been looking into the local MENSA group that is about 30 minutes from us - they seem to be very active and plan lots of get togethers. I just haven't found anyone else locally that is a member.

You must have been reading my mind Marieg, I was planning to post about MENSA this evening. Sounds like I will need to look into the local chapter before making a decision.

By the way the MENSA annual event started today in Pittsburgh and runs through the weekend. Was hoping to attend but the wife had other plans, would love to hear from anyone that attended.

I'm in the Pittsburgh area, and saw this, but all the members I have met from Mensa in my life turned me off to the group. I guess I would love to hear any good impressions people have had.

I'm a member and have had fun at the two annual gathering I've attended, but it really isn't in our budget to go yearly. My local group is 1+ hrs away, so I don't really ever get to events. The few I tried to pull together in my area drew much older people and one college student, who probably got even less out of the crowd than I did.

At the AGs, I did meet a fair share of "look how smart I [or my kids] am [are]" types, but also some really fun and interesting people. My kids really enjoyed playing Werewolf with some other members at the Denver AG last summer. I think that the thing at the AGs is that there are a lot of people, so there are bound to be some you like even if some of them are unappealing. Local groups are smaller, so you have fewer people to choose from. I understand that our local group has a gifted children's program now but, again, it is so far that I just haven't been able to make events.

I signed myself and my dd up (this year) but haven't done anything except read the magazines. I mainly did it because I was curious and thought it might be a good place to find activities and expose DD to new people. They had a special on membership fees/evaluation fees and figured she may want it later on and I might lose the paperwork. If I do it now she can always "renew" without the paperwork. I don't know if I'll keep it up or not. I'm in a city but the kids side doesn't seem to be that active maybe because they find peers at school? So for now it seems to have been a lark but who knows what the future holds......

I have no idea if they have any interesting activities, but if you want to associate yourself with the most select, I think you have to go for the Prometheus Society. They claim to go for the top 1/30,000th of the general population. See <http://www.prometheussociety.org/links/index.html> for their list of high IQ groups.

Mensa is, by comparison, wide open to almost anybody.

Regards,
Jon

You're right -- Mensa is one out of 50 people, so not exceedingly select. The one benefit of it over the more rigorously selective groups is that it is large enough that you may find someone you like. It does distinguish down to at least some degree of intelligence (not the entire population qualifies), but not to such an extreme extent that you will find yourself as the only local member which doesn't make for much of a social network if one is seeking to build a social network through the organization.

eta: Well, your link had me interested, so I looked around a bit at some of the other high IQ societies. I knew that I didn't have scores to qualify me for ones like the 99.9th percentiles societies, but did see that I can get into some of the 99th percentile ones and ones a bit higher than that. Have any of you ever joined anything like Intertel or any of the other more selective societies? I don't at the moment see the point for me in that Mensa alone has so few members in my area that I doubt that there would be more members of an even more selective society. I'd be curious to see what others thought if they had ever belonged, though. I'm not looking for an arrogant bunch of braggarts to hang out with and I am slowly developing a group of close friends in my area, but it has taken time since moving here a few years back. My initial thought in joining Mensa was that it was going to provide good resources re my dd, but it didn't turn out that way. There are other aspects of it that I do enjoy like the monthly magazine, though. I don't want to pay dues to something that provides little social networking, no assistance with parenting a gifted kid, and nothing beyond the minimal stuff I already get from Mensa, though.

I joined Intertel once, yet found that most of the members in my local area were people I already knew from Mensa. Mensa is far superior in terms of activities, numbers, and publications. There are many people in Mensa who might qualify for these other organizations, but as far as I know, none have enough numbers to compete with Mensa regional,national, and international gatherings and local events.

As far as kids go, most Mensa activities are open to all family once a single person joins. It doesn't matter if the Mensa member is a parent or child. Therefore, most kids at Mensa events are the offspring of members, as there is no real advantage to paying multiple dues.

That has been our experience as well. We haven't bothered having dds join b/c they can come with me if we go to anything that would interest them. Thanks for the info on Intertel.