Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Recommended Resources Curious..are any of you MENSA members?

When talking to friends about DS5 one of them suggested looking at MENSA for testing. I just looked at their website and it does say that they can do the testing for you if you don't already have it done.

Have any of you dealt with MENSA? What is your opinion of it? Is it worth the membership cost?

Mensa only does testing for ages 14 and up and they are prohibited from giving out anything that says, "this is your IQ." The test is similar to an IQ test, but since it isn't individually administered by a psychologist, it cannot be used as an IQ number for admission to other programs usually.

I am a Mensa member and one of the gifted youth coordinators for my local group. I've met some people who I really enjoy through Mensa, but I'd say that the experience varies depending on the demographics of your local group and the population density of the area covered by your group. We've never been able to get a good regular kids program going with my local group nor have we had any regular local meetings in my area in quite a while. My local group covers a region that is hundreds of miles and includes some rather rural areas, so we're all a bit spread out.

If I could afford it, I'd go to the Annual Gathering every year, though. I loved the two I was able to attend in years past. One of them was the "world gathering" so it had some pretty diverse representation. The thing I've liked the best about Mensa, and I know that this is going to sound weird given that is an exclusive group by nature, is that is is very inclusive. Every member is welcome regardless of whether you are a cranky old guy or a transvestite belly dancer.

Cricket, did your children go to the Mensa Annual Gatherings? Do you think they are worthwhile for young children and/or teens?

polarbear

Do the Triple Nine society or any of those other non-Mensa organizations even exist anymore?

Triple Nine does still exist, my husband signed up a few years ago for the heck of it and there was some kind of huge drama going on with the leadership. He didn't bother renewing.

I contemplated Intertel a few years back, but it seemed like it would have even fewer social opportunities than Mensa locally.

My kids did go with me to the WG and AG that I attended. They tried the kids trek programming at the WG and didn't enjoy it too much. I think that it was too busy and somewhat of sensory overload for my older one, who was probably seven or so at the time. We didn't even try kids trek at the Denver AG. I just brought them to various programs with me and chose to go to ones that were kid friendly like past life regression (not sure I believe in that, but it was fun), a presentation on parrots, etc.

Oh, and they had a blast at a "street fair" that was held one night and playing Werewolf most nights with a group that got together to do that (it's a role playing game where you try to ferret out the killer werewolves among you).

Cricket, thank you so much for your reply. It sounds like it will probably not work for us right now. I'd already sent an email so I'll wait for their response but I will continue to look for other opportunities. The WG does sound very interesting!

I'm a MENSA member plus my two kids. We get the magazine every month. Aside from that, not all the useful.

I got the feeling that most of those groups had leadership squabbles at some point for whatever reason.

Nothing better to do than create drama?

I've always been too much of a snob to join a club purely based on cognitive ability. A true snob says, "I qualify, but I'm not going to bother." Besides, there's not a chapter in my county.