If You're So Smart, How Come You're Not in Mensa?

Hard for the rest of us to believe, perhaps, but a gathering of Mensa members—Mensans is the correct term—does not typically involve a clot of pointy-headed intellectuals comparing IQ scores and one-upping each other on the fine points of Proust, Wittgenstein, or the Born–Oppenheimer Approximation. “You get Mensans together and you hear a lot of laughter,” says Jane Gmur, a St. Paul computer programmer who’s president of Mensa’s roughly 1,200-member Minnesota and western Wisconsin chapter. “If there’s one thing we tend to have in common, it’s a sense of humor.”

Mensa Mind Games: 1. Out on the golf course, Therese met her husband's mother-in-law's only son's wife. What relation was she to Therese? 2. If six bakers can bake six holiday cakes in six ovens in three hours, how long will it take twelve bakers with twelve ovens to bake seventy-two cakes? Scroll to bottom of page for answers

Well, that and an IQ significantly higher than the average Jane’s or Joe’s—which, along with a modest $52 annual fee, is the sole requirement for Mensa membership. More precisely, to be a Mensan, you must score in the top 2 percent of the population on an “accepted, standardized intelligence test” or nail the exam provided and proctored by the national organization. On familiar IQ tests such as the Stanford Binet and the Wechsler, a passing score would be in the neighborhood of 130. (The average adult’s IQ is 100.) Mensa, by the way, is not a snarky acronym meaning “way smarter than you, pal,” but rather the Latin term for table, around which everybody is equal, at least within their brainy cohort.

When Mensans get together, Gmur says, it’s usually in small groups to discuss specific individual interests (e.g., Proust, Wittgenstein—or mass transit). But some Mensans join the organization mainly for social reasons, to hang out with supersmart, like-minded, and, yes, often witty contemporaries. “That’s why I joined,” Gmur, a ten-year member, concedes, adding, “I’m drawn to kindness, honorability, and confidence. Intelligence is a plus.”

Gmur also says many members don’t gather or attend any meetings at all. So why do they join? Maybe, she says, for the organization’s publications. Or maybe just to know they’re smart enough to belong. —W. S.

 

Answers to Mensa Mind Games: 1. Out on the golf course, Therese met her husband's mother-in-law's only son's wife. What relation was she to Therese?  Her sister-in-law. 2. If six bakers can bake six holiday cakes in six ovens in three hours, how long will it take twelve bakers with twelve ovens to bake seventy-two cakes? Eighteen hours.