By Ruth Busbee
At seven years old, Jared Seibert received an invitation from Mensa to be on their review board for a company that provided puzzles. It was at that point the 25-year-old from Columbia, Mo. majoring in chemical engineering, knew he was a genius.
Since coming to BYU, Seibert decided to start a highly selective Genius Society to serve geniuses at the university.
'We are genius in its concentrated form,' said Seibert. 'Our club is aimed at making you feel better than others, you could say that''s our mission statement.'
The society, which meets bi-annually, accepts members based on scores achieved on the Society''s specialized tests.
The questions from this round of testing are open-ended but have specific answers. Such as 'A tree is....' and 'My name is....'
The society was started because it gives Seibert a heightened sense of superiority and he felt the need to help others who aren''t geniuses.
'We reserve spots for underrepresented majors such as MFHD and Elementary Education,' said Seibert. 'They scored lower as a group in our initial testing.'
Klas Clawson, 24, from Austin, Texas majoring in music took the genius society test.
'I never thought of myself as a genius,' said Clawson, 'When you think genius, you think of Albert Einstein. If I was a genius I think I''d know it.'
After finding out that he did not score high enough to be invited to be a member of the society, Clawson was not disappointed.
'It''s nothing I didn''t already know,' said Clawson.
McKay Salisbury, 21, from Orem, Utah majoring in computer science took the test for fun.
'I might be a genius. I was voted most likely to be the next Bill Gates because I did computer science through high school,' said Salisbury.
But is being a genius essential?
'Maybe there are more important things in life than being a genius,' said Seibert. 'There is some importance in being nice to each other. You can''t be too nice or they''ll take advantage of you.'
The Society tends to have problems finding things to talk about when they meet because they are all geniuses and know everything, Seibert said.
'At meetings we stare at each other,' he noted.
For information about the Genius Society students can contact Ryan Gee at rtg6@email.byu.edu.