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Seven Ingenious RulesHow to become a MacArthur genius.

By David Plotz
Posted Tuesday, Sept. 25, 2007, at 3:06 PM ET

The MacArthur Foundation anointed 24 new geniuses Tuesday. They granted $500,000 fellowships to artists, engineers, and a host of other creative types. The foundation dispenses no-strings-attached awards every year to people who display "creativity, originality, and potential to make important contributions in the future." In 2000, David Plotz told aspiring geniuses the seven rules to live by to win the hearts and minds of the MacArthur Foundation. The article is reprinted below.

When Peter Hayes learned that he had won a $500,000 MacArthur genius grant last month, he was stunned: It's "like being hit by a Mack truck. … It's a little disorienting," he told the San Francisco Chronicle. Hayes shouldn't have been too disoriented. It would have been surprising if he hadn't collected a MacArthur. He helps North Korea develop windmills as an alternative to nuclear power. He takes underprivileged kids sailing in San Francisco Bay during his free time. And he lives in Berkeley, Calif., where you can't buy a latte without meeting a MacArthur-stamped brainiac.

Since 1981, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation has awarded 588 "fellowships" worth nearly $200 million to Americans "who show exceptional merit and promise for continued and enhanced creative work." (The foundation detests the word "genius" "because it connotes a singular characteristic of intellectual prowess.") The fellowship is a no-strings-attached grant: Each 2000 winner will get $100,000 a year for five years. MacArthur calls the cash a gift of time, because it frees winners from financial constraints on their art, science, or activism. (The $4 billion foundation is the estate of John D. MacArthur, a skinflint who became the second-richest American by selling cut-rate insurance through the mail. His son Rod grabbed control of the trust after John's 1978 death and pushed the genius project.)

The MacArthur has become the United States' most famous philanthropy project not because it rewards stellar people—though it does—but because it's mysterious. Several hundred talent scouts, whose identities are secret, suggest nominees to the selection committee. The committee, whose members are also secret, covertly gathers dossiers on the nominees and selects two-dozen-odd winners. In a nation where self-promotion is a constitutional right, the MacArthur is endlessly frustrating: You can't nominate yourself, you can't nominate a friend, you can't lobby for it if you are nominated. What's an unappreciated genius to do?

Don't fear, the MacArthur is less cryptic than it seems. It can be gamed. You may not be able to guarantee yourself half-a-million bucks and a reputation for brilliance, but you can certainly improve your odds. Here's a how-to guide for becoming a certifiable genius.

Rule No. 1: Live in New York or San Francisco. New Yorkers and San Franciscans act like they're the most interesting people in the world. MacArthur agrees with them. Fully one-sixth of all MacArthurs live in Manhattan, and nearly as many live in the Bay Area. (Six of this year's 25 MacArthurs are Manhattanites, and three are from Berkeley.)

No matter what, don't live in the South. Southerners rarely qualify as geniuses unless they're sensitive writers or colorful advocates for the poor. (This year's only Southern winner is typical: Auburn professor Samuel Mockbee builds houses for poor Alabamans out of old tires and hay bales.) The Great Plains and Rockies are equally inhospitable to genius: You're unlikely to win unless you've started a bank or college on an Indian reservation. Stick to the Northeast and the West Coast.

Rule No. 2: Be a professor. Specifically, be a professor at Harvard or Stanford, where they hand out MacArthurs like candy. If you're a humanities professor, choose Harvard (which has 35 MacArthurs) or University of California, Berkeley (which has 23). Hard scientists should land a job at Stanford (24) or Princeton (20). Physicists at one of those two universities seem to win MacArthurs more easily than tenure. In a pinch, University of Chicago, University of Michigan, Columbia, and New York University are acceptable backups, but avoid Yale! It's got only six geniuses. You'd be better off with Bard College, whose tiny faculty has won four MacArthurs. (As Harvard grads have always suspected, Yale is approximately one-sixth as good as Harvard.)

But it's not enough to be a professor. You also must choose the right specialty. Ancient civilizations win MacArthurs. Revisionist scholars of classical Greece do well, and MacArthur has identified not one, but two geniuses who decipher ancient Mayan glyphs and a third who deciphers ancient Andean knotted mnemonic devices (whatever they may be). Literature, philosophy, and history all win plenty of MacArthurs. Economics is unpromising, unless you study something odd. 2000 winner Matthew Rabin, for example, analyzes the economic implications of procrastination. Physics, math, and computer science are beloved of MacArthur. Chemistry is a lost cause. Environmentalism is a sure winner. Biologists should study evolution, dinosaurs, or primates, and little else.

Rule No. 3: If you don't want to teach college, make art. Preferably in New York: One in 10 MacArthurs is a writer, choreographer, artist, musician, or director in New York City. Again, pick the right specialty. Be a poet or a choreographer. Novelists, painters, and film directors seem underrepresented. Among musicians, jazz is good, and free jazz is even better. Needless to say, no matter what kind of artist you are, be avant-garde.

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David Plotz is Slate's editor. He is the author of The Genius Factory: The Curious History of the Nobel Prize Sperm Bank. You can e-mail him at .
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