High IQ society
A high IQ society is an organization that limits its membership to people who have attained a specified score on an IQ test. The largest and oldest such society is Mensa International, which was founded by Roland Berrill and Lancelot Ware in 1946.
Entry requirements
High IQ societies typically accept a variety of IQ tests for membership eligibility; these include WAIS, Stanford-Binet, and Raven's Advanced Progressive Matrices, amongst many others deemed to sufficiently measure or correlate with intelligence. Tests deemed to insufficiently correlate with intelligence are not accepted for admission. As IQ significantly above 146 SD15 cannot be reliably measured with accuracy due to sub-test limitations and insufficient norming, IQ societies with cutoffs significantly higher than four-sigma should be considered dubious.Societies
Some societies accept the results of standardized tests taken elsewhere. Those are listed below by selectivity percentile. Notable high IQ societies include:Name | Established | No. of members | Approx. no. of countries | Fees | Eligibility | Approx. IQ |
Intertel | 1966 | 1,300–1,400 | 31 | Annual dues are $39 | Top 1 percent | 135 |
Mega Society | 1982 | 26 | Unknown | Annual dues are $39 | Top 0.0001 percent | 171.3 |
Mensa International | 1946 | ~134,000 | 100 | Annual dues as of November 2017 for American Mensa are $79 ; life membership cost varies by age | Top 2 percent of population | 131 |
Prometheus Society | 1982 | ~120 | 13 | Annual dues are $10 | Top 0.003 percent | 160 |
Triple Nine Society | 1978 | 1,800+ | 46 | Annual dues are $10; life membership is $183 | Top 0.1 percent | 146 |