I knew four people who were members of Mensa — a paralegal who worked for the company lawyer (was bored in college and quit), a middle-management guy in HR, the secretary of the president of the company (her boss couldn’t pass the Mensa exam), and a man who was dating a friend of mine — he found himself a job as a manager in a warehouse.
You’re right about the boring part. Why do so many of them seem to be underachievers?
That is a really good question. My husband struggled in college to get an AA. He is an EE tech however became a non degreed engineer. He works along side PhDs. He really is brilliant but if his work doesn't involve extremely challenging tasks he does get boarded. Maybe for the others the work they do really doesn't challenge them.
It’s not that intelligent people tend to be underachievers, it is that socially awkward intelligent people tend to be underachievers—who then seek each other out via Mensa.
There are also some high achievers in Mensa, but there is an over-representation of certain types. My experience was that there was an over-representation of morbidly obese people, as well as of flaming libertines.
Underachievers have mental capabilities but lack emotional hardiness. They can't stand the hurly-burly of competitive achievement. So they don't quite get the degree, or if they do, get a lesser job. All in all, they don't get the objective status of their emotionally-hardier mental peers. Different things attract different people to Mensa, but for many the big attraction is that it provides a public badge of their mental abilities, a badge they can get just by passing a test, something they do easily without anxiety.