The maximum mark
The reports agree on the central facts. Jiya Vaducha, then eleven and a pupil at Pinnerwood school in Pinner, took the Cattell III B paper used in Mensa's supervised testing in Britain and returned 162, described in every account as the highest score a candidate under eighteen can achieve. Harrow Online reported it locally on 3 June 2019; Gulf News and the Press Trust of India, whose copy ran in Business Standard on 16 June, carried it outward.
A ceiling score is a particular kind of result. It records that a candidate reached the top of the paper. It does not record how far beyond the paper they might have gone, because the instrument stops there. That distinction is missing from most of the coverage, and it is the single most useful thing to understand about the number 162.
The Einstein comparison
Harrow Online's headline had her "beating Albert Einstein and Stephen Hawking". The claim recurs whenever a British child reaches the ceiling of this test, and it rests on nothing the reports themselves supply: none of them states that either man ever sat an intelligence test, and neither result appears anywhere in the coverage. The comparison is the press's, not Mensa's and not the family's.
What can be said is narrower and more interesting. A very small number of children each year reach the top mark on a supervised Mensa paper, and Jiya was one of them at an age when most candidates are several years away from trying. That is the achievement the sources support.
Why the story travelled to India
The Indian-origin framing is explicit in the headlines — Gulf News and PTI both led on it — and the family's own ties explain the appetite: the reports note relatives in Mumbai and a celebration that reached beyond Pinner. Her parents are named in the coverage as Bijal and Jignesh Vaducha.
Diaspora achievement stories move fast through this pipeline: a local British report is picked up by a wire service serving Indian newsrooms, then republished by titles in the Gulf whose readership is largely South Asian. The result is wide reach from a single reporting effort, which is worth remembering when three bylines appear to corroborate one another.
What is documented — and what is not
Documented: a score of 162 on the Cattell III B at eleven, in 2019; the top-of-paper status of that mark for under-18s; her school and home town; her parents' names; and the publication dates in June 2019.
Not documented: her exact date of birth; whether she joined Mensa as a member and remains one; any subsequent examination results, school moves or public appearances. No source used here reports anything about her after the summer of 2019, and this page makes no claim about where she is now.
What a Mensa test does and does not settle
Mensa's supervised papers are entrance tests. They sort candidates against a population and admit those above a threshold; they are not designed to rank the people who clear it, and a ceiling score simply marks the point where sorting stops. A child who reaches it has demonstrated something real about pattern recognition and verbal reasoning under timed conditions.
What the test does not measure is the part that determines outcomes: persistence, teaching, opportunity, and what a person chooses to do for the next twenty years. The 1,000 or so children who become national news for a high score each decade diverge wildly afterwards, and the honest position on an eleven-year-old is that the score is a fact about one morning, not a forecast.
| Person | Country | Milestone | Age / Stat |
|---|
What is documented — and what is not
✓ Documented
- Scored 162 on the Cattell III B in 2019, aged eleven (Gulf News; PTI via Business Standard; Harrow Online).
- 162 is reported as the highest mark available to under-18s on that paper.
- Pupil at Pinnerwood school, Pinner, at the time.
- Parents named as Bijal and Jignesh Vaducha.
? Unverified, disputed or wrong
- The Einstein and Hawking comparison in the headlines is not supported by anything in the reports.
- Her exact date of birth is not published.
- Whether she took up Mensa membership is not stated.
- No source used here covers her after June 2019.
Questions people ask about Jiya Vaducha
What was Jiya Vaducha's Mensa score?
162 on the Cattell III B paper, reported as the highest mark available to a candidate under eighteen.
How old was Jiya Vaducha when she took the test?
Eleven. The reports ran in June 2019 and describe her as an eleven-year-old.
Did she really score higher than Einstein?
No source establishes that. The comparison appears in headlines only; none of the reports states that Albert Einstein or Stephen Hawking ever sat such a test.
Which school did Jiya Vaducha attend?
Pinnerwood school in Pinner, according to the 2019 coverage.
Who are Jiya Vaducha's parents?
Bijal and Jignesh Vaducha, named in the reports, which also mention extended family in Mumbai.
Is Jiya Vaducha on Wikipedia?
No. There is no Wikipedia article about her; the record rests on news reporting from June 2019.
Where is Jiya Vaducha now?
No source used here reports on her after 2019, and this page makes no claim about her current situation.
Quick quiz: how well do you know Jiya’s story?
What score did Jiya Vaducha achieve?
Which paper did she sit?
What do the sources say about Einstein's own test score?
Sources
- 11-year-old Indian-origin girl celebrates top Mensa score in UK — Gulf News, 2019-06
- 11-year-old Indian-origin girl celebrates top Mensa score in UK — Business Standard (PTI), 2019-06-16
- 11-Year-Old From Pinner Achieves Top Score on Mensa Test — Harrow Online, 2019-06-03
Checked by the Geniuses.club editorial team. Ages are given as of September 2026.
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