Is the "International High IQ Society" a legitimate society for people with high IQ's?

What changes should be made in society in order to allow the intellectually gifted to reach their full potential?

• On Quora, there is simply an amazing number of unpleasant personal experience reports of how it feels to be an intellectual outlier. For some examples, see the answers to: , and . There are also some well-documented historical examples, like  http://prometheussociety.org/cms/articles/the-outsiders one. There are also reports of problems the gifted experience when exposed to standard school curriculum or standard expectations from the society. I have realized that this is a problem, but had never thought of it much or understood its scope. This evidence, although anecdotal, pretty much demolishes the old popular myth that "IQ doesn't matter". The school system appears to be especially ill suited for exceptionally gifted children; it fails them both intellectually and socially. While many of the high-IQ crowd become successes later in life (in particular those who choose to pursue research in mathematics and hard sciences) that seems an exception rather than rule. Research shows that higher IQ scores only contribute to success in life only up to some threshold (140 points?). Beyond this level, there is no further correlation. Most people view this as a matter of fact; I view this as a problem. Hillary Clinton once said that "women are the great untapped resource that can help the global economy recover and expand". Isn't this even more true regarding those with exceptional IQ? We all would benefit if they could fulfil their capacity.

• Answer:

  I agree that there may be differences in IQ and that doesn't have to be ignored. But I disagree that they are some sort of untapped resource. If something had to change, yes we should improve schools to better handle gifted-ness. But at the same time, they should learn to handle everyone as gifted. Intellectually gifted? That would be everyone! Everyone is an untapped resource. We all struggle to fulfill our full intellectual potential. And many schools suck at teaching average students, let alone gifted students, regardless of whether their gift is in IQ or sports or music or writing... But when we see a "gifted" child, they stand out and their struggles are more prominent. Yet, maybe that school is bad with everyone? And how about below average students? Einstein was a slow starter. Who is to say what potential anyone has?! Seriously. Let's say if a student makes it to an Ivy League school, the education system did them well. For that is the goal for most schools and for most parents, and is one measure of "fulfilled potential" with regards to our youth. What you will find when you visit schools like Harvard or MIT is that though you will see high IQ individuals with unfair advantages, almost everyone there is still average. Most advantages that got these people to these schools are not physical. They are social, circumstantial, and personal. They went to better schools, have more intellectually focused parents, had better teachers, and hung with better (in an academic sense) friends. Finances cannot be ignored either. But here is the thing. Taylor Wilson (iconic young "genius" with a TED talk) was rejected from MIT: http://mitadmissions.org/blogs/entry/applying_sideways MIT is unique in its admissions process, so it's easy to argue this was a mistake. But they have their metrics, and apparently IQ isn't one of them.