According to the U.K.'s Daily Gazette, 12-year-old Lydia Sebastian not only aced the Mensa test, she scored a rare 162 – two points higher than Steven Hawking and Albert Einstein.
When Sebastian prompted her parents to let her take the test, they had no idea they'd find their daughter was smarter than some of the world's most famous geniuses. They told the Daily Gazette they knew Lydia was smart – she even talked at just 6 months old, when most babies are just starting to make intelligible sounds instead of just babbling.
The tween stated the test wasn't as hard as she thought. She even relaxed after realizing this and was able to speed through, finishing just moments before the time ran out. When taking the IQ test, Sebastian was surrounded by adults but she didn't let that make her nervous.
She is enrolled in high school in Essex at Colchester County High School for Girls, and took the Mensa test during the summer holiday after asking her mom for the opportunity for a year straight. She has now joined the ranks of two other children, a 10-year-old and a 12-year-old who have achieved the nearly impossible perfect score earlier this year.
According to the U.K.'s Guardian, less than 1,500 of the 120,000-strong Mensa society are individuals under age 18. In order to join the exclusive group you must score in the top 2 percentile on an IQ test. Sebastian's 162 score on the Cattell III B paper earned her access into the society.
The questions she faced included word and math problems, seemingly complex ideas that Sebastian stated she was unable to prepare for. Unlike a high school science test, there are no clear things to study ahead of time.
Vocabulary and math skills are strong suits for Mensa members, enabling them to achieve such high scores. The tween started playing violin at age 4, much earlier than most kids would be interested in learning an instrument, nonetheless start a serious pursuit to master one.
Sebastian's mother Erika told the Daily Gazette she couldn't believe her daughter scored higher than Einstein and Hawking. She states she and her husband were overwhelmed at the perfect score, even though they knew Lydia was ahead of her classmates starting at a young age.
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