The next Proctor Certification Webinar will be September 15^th, 2011 from 6:00 p.m. - 7:00 p.m. CT/ 5:00 p.m. - 6:00 p.m. MT. The Webinar will count for BOTH Proctor in Training test session viewings; you will only have to be observed to finish your certification.

Members are the life blood of Mensa, and proctors are the hearts that pump that blood. So don't just have a heart, be one.

If you still aren't planning to attend, please keep reading.

Volunteering as a Mensa proctor is an opportunity to give back to an organization whose existence we all presumably appreciate, and which will cease to exist without a regular flow of new members. I don’t believe we can lament the paucity of new members unless we provide an ample opportunity for people to be tested. I completed the steps for proctor certification on January 22, 2011 and thought I’d share a little about the process, which I found to be entirely reasonable.

The requirements for certification are:

1. A four-year degree from a college or university
2. Recommendation by the LocSec or Proctor Coordinator and approval by the national office and AML psychologist
3. Experience or training administering timed, standardized tests
4. Observed administration of one or two Mensa tests

If you meet the experience requirement of #3 then you only have to be observed administering one Mensa test. If you don’t have experience you must be trained, and then observed administering two Mensa tests. The training consists of watching two tests being administered.

This is where the new online training such as I received comes in. The next webinar is September 15^th as mentioned above. The training begins with a web conference. Broadband is required, web conferencing software is provided and the live trainer(s) go through a PowerPoint proctoring tutorial. If you don't have broadband, you are welcome to go through the training in my office at UNM, just call or email me. Next they provide a link to a video of a test being administered. The trick here is that students watch the entire test except for those fascinating silent periods during which candidates fill in bubbles and the proctor watches the paint dry.   Those times are replaced by a graphic that appears for a few seconds that says, for example, “Seven Minutes Pass.” The time savings that result are significant, and welcome. After the video the web conference resumes to answer any students’ questions, and then ends.

 Then administer two tests observed by a currently certified Mensa proctor, and you’re emulating a swashbuckling movie actor.

I will be happy to schedule a time to observe you administering a test. But you don’t have to wait click here to download and fill out your proctor application. Some genius out there is counting on you.

The only qualification for Mensa membership is a score in the top 2% of the general population on a supervised standardized test of intelligence. Certain older SAT test scores can also be used as these have been correlated with intelligence tests. You can either submit prior evidence or take two tests that we hold periodically; the testing takes about two hours to complete including a break of 15 minutes. If you are not mathematically inclined, we recommend that you take the Miller Analogy test usually available through a psychologist or University. To be placed on a waiting list of people to be tested, please call our testing coordinator Keith Smith at 505-363-2788 or you may This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

The American Mensa website has quite a few resources that you may wish to check:

Go to Us.mensa.org and click (at top) on Join Mensa. Then click on a link to your left such as Already Qualified, Submit Test Scores, Membership Application, or perhaps Home Test. Have fun browsing.

Take a practice test for fun. Go to the FUN STUFF link, select DIFFICULT IQ TESTS, and find the Chimera Analogy Test. This one's fast, fun and rather accurate.