Louisiana Boy, 8, Accepted Into High-IQ Mensa Society

A Louisiana eight-year-old has made headlines for being accepted into Mensa, the largest high-IQ society, which requires members to test in the 98th percentile or higher on an intelligence test.

Kamden Nicholas, a third-grader in a Lake Charles gifted program, has certainly made his parents proud. 

“I would say from the time he started talking, just because you know people would often say, you know how they joke — say a kid has been on the earth before — and he was kind of one of those kids that people would say that about just just because [there were] certain things that he picked up on just naturally without being instructed,” his father, Kedrick Nicholas, told KPLC. 

“So when we got his test scores, he tested going into second grade for the gifted program with CPSB, and his scores were really high and they were above the 99th percentile,” his mother, Tabitha Nicholas, added. 

Mensa, founded in Oxford, England, in 1946, is also the oldest high-IQ society in the world. It has about 150,000 members in over 90 countries. 

“Mensa takes no stand on politics, religion or social issues, and it has members from so many different countries and cultures, each with differing points of view; so, for Mensa to espouse a particular point of view would go against its role as a forum for ALL points of view,” the group’s website states. 

Kamden told the local station that his favorite subject in school is math.

“We learn about liters, millimeters, grams, and kilograms,” the young student said. 

When asked about his learning method, he said, “I sometimes write things down and remember them on a paper, and then I can remember them, so then I remember the stuff so I can get a good grade.”

Kedrick said his son comes from a “gifted” household. 

“I was in gifted growing up, I think I started in first or second grade in gifted all the way through school, but I think equally both of us excelled in school, so I think he has the benefit of having two intelligent parents and it‘s rubbing off on him, as well as his brother,” the proud father said.

Kamden said he wants to play football and become an educator for other gifted students when he grows up. 

“Very proud of my son. God has blessed my wife and I with two amazing kids. They’re still boys if you know what I mean, but they’re extremely bright,” Kedrick wrote in a Facebook post commemorating Kamden’s Mensa acceptance: