Each year the American Mensa Education and Research Foundation (Mensa Foundation or the Foundation) makes available more than $60,000 in scholarship funds for students who will be enrolled in an accredited institution of post-secondary education the following academic year.

The Foundation public scholarship program is an essay contest that is open to all students who reside within a participating local group of American Mensa, such as Orange County Mensa. Each applicant writes an essay of 550 words or less which describes their educational and/or career goals. Winners are selected based upon these essays. Awards from $300 to $1,000 include 2 general and 10 specific national awards, 3 general regional awards for each region, 2 specific awards limited to region #5, 2 other specific regional, one general local award for each participating local group, and 12 other local group awards administered by the Foundation; one of those is a $500 scholarship awarded to an entrant from Orange County. The specific awards are mainly within academic fields of study.

The 2006-2007 Orange County scholarship recipients were Kristin Hinkley of Mission Viejo, Simone Jensen of Laguna Niguel, and Kayla Chapman of Anaheim and Chelsea Maxwell of Mission Viejo. (Click on their names to read their essays.)

American Mensa members and their IRS dependents are also eligible to apply for four $1000 Mensa member awards. Local and regional groups are no longer involved in judging Mensa member entries so that all American Mensa members and dependents are eligible to apply whether their local group participates or not. However, for the applicant, the application process is the same as for the public program. These applications are sent directly to National Scholarship for judging.

[Click here for entry forms] for all public Foundation scholarships as well as the American Mensa member program each of which becomes available annually in September for downloading until mid-January when the competition for that year ends.

American Mensa members (and IRS dependents) are eligible to apply to both the public scholarship program and the American Mensa member scholarship program but a separate application and essay for each program is required.  In the event that a member or dependent wins in both programs, only the scholarship of higher value will be awarded following the Foundation’s rule of one award per applicant.

That’s really all you might care to know; however, for those with inquiring minds, the following describes, in detail, the judging process.

At the heart of the national public scholarship program are some 400 or more volunteers, most of whom are members of American Mensa.  These volunteers receive and judge the essays on three levels: local, regional and national.

Local judges, such as those in Orange County Mensa, begin the judging. Winning essays then are sent to the regional scholarship level. Orange County Mensa is in Region Nine.

Each local group that participates is guaranteed a minimum of one $300 Foundation scholarship for one of the entrants from their local group competition. This winner is determined by the next higher, regional, level of judging. 

At the regional level, the judging process begins all over again, with all the entries submitted from each participating local group in the region. All essays are once again considered eligible for all special national awards as well as local and regional awards and are judged again.  The regional judging committee selects the best of the region in all special categories, and the best remaining 4 to be sent on to national judging as possible winners of regional and special national awards.

About 16 national level judges conduct two rounds of national judging.  The first round ranks the scholarships for regional awards, and selects the finalists from each region for the special national awards.  Then, a second round of judging determines the top award winner and the winners of the restricted, or specific, national awards.  After that, the regional winners are identified from the rankings from national judging.  Last, the local award winners are identified from the rankings done at the regional level for each participating local group. The over-riding rules for selection are twofold. First, the highest scoring qualifying applicant wins the award. Second, there is exactly one award for each applicant. 

There are also a few special regional and local awards that are awarded in this process: Again, just one award for each applicant.

After final judging, the winners’ list is approved by the Board of Trustees and all winning awards are announced by the end of June of the competition year.