Quote:
Originally Posted by trichobezoar
That's cool, Bilbo1967!
I'm sorry, I just saw this question... No, no connection with MENSA International at all, except I could've been in MENSA at 16 after I took an IQ test. I scored so high... The teacher kept congratulating me, following me around and congratulating me.
One other person at university wants to be in the group--the President of Student Veterans of UNM. She's very smart. She doesn't know her IQ score, but she has a semi-photographic memory. She strikes me as a very intelligent person. *nods*
There are many people in the Lower Working Class/Poor and Lower Middle Class socio-economic stratums who could've been in MENSA. But they were never given the tools necessary to succeed scholastically. They often don't have the cultural capital (i.e., knowledge of middle class norms and folkways) and/or practical intelligence (i.e., social skills, common sense, good judgement) needed to succeed in academia or the scientific community. We, as human beings, are creatures of habit and creatures of our environments after all. Environment and habits shape us--shape our minds, hearts and bodies to a large degree.
Location, location, location. Location, access to gatekeepers and habits are... almost everything.
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We have great similarities. I was raised in the 2nd poorest school district in Texas (K thru 12. Actually 11, as I went to night school on crutches to get out a year early. Nobody followed me around, I and my high school interacted under the MAD doctrine. . . )
My 1978 MCAT put me in the top 16% percentile of the population that took the test (The MCAT (Medical College Admissions Test) was already a highly skewed bell curve to start with. More than enough for MENSA, if I had bothered.
After the
Bakke decision, I became a computer programmer. I refused to "grovel for grants". (And I studied the stock market, which I still do today. There is always a way out, with enough smarts and dedication.)
Just an old blonde-hair, blue-eyed,
pachucho. . .