Triple Nine Society

Last updated
Triple Nine Society
Formation1978
FounderRichard Canty, Ronald Hoeflin, Kevin Langdon, Ronald Penner, Edgar Van Vleck
Type High IQ society
27-5473103 [1]
Membership≈ 1,900 [2]
Official language
English
Regent
Steve Condie
Website triplenine.org

The Triple Nine Society (TNS) is an international high-IQ society for adults whose score on a standardized test demonstrates an IQ at or above the 99.9th percentile of the human population. [3] [4] [5] The society recognizes scores from over 20 intelligence and academic aptitude tests. [6] TNS was founded in 1978, and, as of 2025, reports a member base of over 1,900 people in 53 US jurisdictions and 39 countries. [2] Since 2010, the organization has been a non-profit 501(c)(7) organization incorporated in Virginia, USA. [7]

Contents

Organization

The society was founded by Richard Canty, Ronald Hoeflin, Kevin Langdon, Ronald Penner, and Edgar Van Vleck. [8] All five were members of a similarly selective high-IQ society, with whose governance structure they were dissatisfied. [9]

TNS is a deliberately non-hierarchical society in which the membership is both the main source of authority and the main driver of activity. It is served by an Executive Committee of nine officers; six are elected for two-year terms, and three are appointed. [10]

In 2015, TNS established a 501(c)(3) subsidiary charitable organization, the Triple Nine Society Foundation, to provide scholarships to intellectually gifted students pursuing higher-education goals and for other charitable work. [11]

Communication

TNS publishes a bimonthly journal, Vidya, which contains articles, poetry, puzzles, and other creative content contributed by members conversant with a variety of subjects, as well as officer reports and other official business of the Society. [12]

TNS members mostly communicate online on the official TNS Discourse forum, official TNS Facebook group, and a variety of unofficial venues ranging from Discord to Telegram and special groups like TNS Youth and TNS LGBTQ+.

Every autumn, the society organizes an annual meeting in the United States called ggg999, [13] with "ggg" referring to "Global General Gathering". A privately organized European gathering, egg, usually takes place in late spring.

Qualifying test scores

To qualify for membership, an applicant must submit a qualifying score earned on any of the standardized tests recognized by the society; these include IQ tests as well as various college admission exams and military classification tests.

For IQ tests, a qualifying score corresponds to an IQ of at least 146 for tests with standard deviation of 15 (e.g., WAIS, Stanford–Binet 5), at least 149 for tests with a standard deviation of 16 (e.g., Stanford–Binet IV and CTMM), or at least 173 for tests with a standard deviation of 24 (e.g., Cattell III-B). [14]

TNS also accepts standardized test scores that have a well-established psychometric correlation with IQ, including SAT, GRE, LSAT, ACT, and the Miller Analogies Test. [6] Required score will differ depending on the year those tests were taken.

TNS also accepts a GMAT score of 750 (for tests taken between 2000 and 2023) or a GMAT Focus Edition score of 705 (available since 2023), both of which correspond only to a percentile score of 98.2%. [15]

Notable members

See also

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References

  1. ↑ "Triple Nine Society". Tax Exempt Organization Search. Internal Revenue Service. Retrieved July 7, 2024.
  2. 1 2 "What is TNS?". Triple Nine Society. 2023. Retrieved February 18, 2024.
  3. ↑ Groeger, Lena (January 2015). "When High IQs Hang Out". Scientific American . Retrieved September 8, 2022.
  4. ↑ Cox, Jack (June 20, 2005). "Smarter than 99.9% of the rest of us". The Denver Post. Retrieved September 8, 2022.
  5. ↑ Collins, Terry (December 12, 2014). "Luke Millanta has become a member of the world's IQ elite after joining Mensa". The Daily Telegraph (Sydney) . Retrieved September 8, 2022.
  6. 1 2 "Test Scores". Triple Nine Society. 2017. Retrieved September 8, 2022.
  7. ↑ "Triple Nine Society". Clerk's Information System. Virginia State Corporation Commission. Retrieved July 7, 2024.
  8. ↑ "Noesis - Number 134 - August 1997". megasociety.org. Retrieved 2025-01-10.
  9. 1 2 "A Letter from Kevin Langdon (including letters by May, O'Brien, & Van Vleck)". megasociety.org. Retrieved 2025-01-10.
  10. ↑ "Constitution of the Triple Nine Society". Triple Nine Society. February 18, 2024. Retrieved February 18, 2024.
  11. ↑ "Triple Nine Society Foundation". Triple Nine Society. February 18, 2024. Retrieved February 18, 2024.
  12. ↑ "Vidya". Triple Nine Society. 2024. Retrieved February 18, 2024.
  13. ↑ "ggg999 – The annual gathering of the Triple Nine Society". Triple Nine Society. Retrieved February 18, 2024.
  14. ↑ Hunt, Earl (2011). Human Intelligence. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p. 8. ISBN   978-0-521-70781-7. OCLC   900268273.
  15. ↑ gmat-total-score-concordance-table_august2024.pdf (mba.com)
  16. ↑ Haring, Bruce (12 October 2019). "Robert Forster Dies". Deadline Hollywood . Archived from the original on October 12, 2019. Retrieved February 18, 2024.
  17. ↑ Cavna, Michael (April 18, 2011). "THE PULITZERS: Denver's Mike Keefe wins for Editorial Cartooning". The Washington Post Company. Retrieved February 2, 2013.
  18. ↑ Nair, R B (2013) 'ANDREW R KOENIG | LBS kuttipedia'. https://lbsitbytes2010.wordpress.com/2013/04/07/andrew-r-koenig/
  19. ↑ Sutter, Herb (March 1998). "What's In a Class? — The Interface Principle". C++ Report. Retrieved 21 February 2010.
  20. ↑ "11 Famous Mensa Members". iq-tests.org. n.d. Retrieved February 18, 2024. Better known as Hammerin' Hank, Henry Milligan was a professional boxer.…You'd never suspect that he was a member of both Mensa and the Triple Nine Society.
  21. ↑ York, Andrew (December 2016). "Bowling Balls and Binary Switches" (PDF). Vidya. Triple Nine Society. Retrieved February 18, 2024.
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