What does a 143 IQ say about you?
Yes. An IQ of 143 is exceptionally high, well inside the top 1% of the population. It is beyond the entry level of Mensa and Intertel.
Where 143 sits on the bell curve
An IQ of 143 is 43 points above the average of 100, or 2.87 standard deviations. It is higher than about 99.8% of people of the same age, shown by the shaded area below. This is the far right tail of the curve, where only a few people in every thousand score.
On other IQ scales, the same result would be about 146 on a test with a standard deviation of 16, such as older editions of the Stanford-Binet, and 169 on the Cattell scale, which uses 24. Why scales differ.
IQ 143 meaning: a closer look
With an IQ of 143, you are ahead of about 99.8% of people, roughly one in 482. That is 43 points, almost three standard deviations, above average. In a school of 1,000 pupils, you might expect two to score this high. At these heights, the difference between neighbouring scores is mostly measurement noise rather than a real difference in ability, so 143 is best read as "around the low to mid 140s".
High-IQ children's cortex: a later peak, then faster thinning
A 2006 study in Nature led by Philip Shaw at the US National Institute of Mental Health followed 307 children and teenagers with repeated MRI scans. The researchers grouped them by IQ, with a "superior" group scoring 121 to 149. In a frontal area, the cortex of the superior group started relatively thin, thickened for longer and peaked at about 11.2 years, compared with 8.5 for the high group and 5.6 for the average group. It then thinned faster. The authors concluded that how the cortex changes relates more closely to intelligence than its thickness at any one age.
A 143 IQ sits inside that superior range, but this is group-level research, not a scan you can read off a score. About 4 in 10 children were scanned only once, and IQ was estimated from short versions of the Wechsler tests. The study cannot show whether the longer growth period causes higher intelligence or reflects it. What it does suggest is that bright brains are not simply bigger or thicker: an IQ of 143 is linked, on average, with a different timing of cortical development.
Source: Shaw et al. (2006), "Intellectual ability and cortical development in children and adolescents", Nature, 440, 676 to 679.
What 143 looks like among real people
If you lined up 100 people of your age, all or nearly all of them would score lower than 143. You would need a group of about 482 people to expect one person scoring this high or higher. The orange dot marks your place in the line.
In a school of 1,000 pupils, you would expect only about 4 to score 140 or higher.
How precise is a score of 143?
No IQ test measures to the exact point. On a professional test, a result of 143 usually comes with a likely range of about five points either way: 138 to 148. That range runs from the 99.4th to the 99.9th percentile, all within the very superior range.
Most tests have very few people in their norm groups at this level, so scores here are the least precise on the scale and can differ noticeably between tests.
On the Assessivo test, 143 is the score for 35 correct answers out of 36. How our score is worked out.
So if you scored 143 once, a retest on another day could reasonably land anywhere from 138 to 148. Online tests are less precise still, so treat any online result as a rough estimate.
IQ 143 and mental age in children
Early IQ tests for children worked with a "mental age", the age whose typical performance a child matched. The IQ was that mental age divided by the child's real age, times 100. Turned around, the formula shows what a score of 143 would have meant for children of different ages: working ahead of their years.
| Real age | Mental age at IQ 143 |
|---|---|
| 5 | 7 years 2 months |
| 7 | 10 years |
| 9 | 12 years 10 months |
| 11 | 15 years 9 months |
| 13 | 18 years 7 months |
The same 143 stands for a gap of about 2 years 2 months at age 5 but 5 years 7 months at 13, because the formula scales with age. That is one reason it broke down for teenagers and adults, whose test performance stops rising every year. Today's tests compare you with people of the same age instead, so a mental age is only a way to picture a child's score, never a description of an adult.
What an IQ of 143 means for you
It sits near the top of the very superior band, which runs from 130 to 145.
- You likely handle complex, abstract problems with an ease that very few people share.
- Scores this rare are hard to measure exactly, so a single result is best read as "very high", not as a precise number.
- Research on very able people finds that ability keeps helping even at the top, but interests, effort and opportunity still shape what people achieve.
How far 143 is from other levels
Famous names reported near 143
Very few famous people have published IQ scores, and most numbers online are invented. These are the ones with a documented report or a published estimate. Each is labelled so you can see what kind of figure it is.
Rated by psychologist Catharine Cox in 1926 from records of his early life: about 135 for childhood (to age 17) and 145 for ages 17 to 26. Estimates like these are rough, and he never took an IQ test.
Published estimate, not a test · Cox, Genetic Studies of Genius, Vol. II (1926)
Rated by psychologist Catharine Cox in 1926 from records of his early life: about 145 for childhood (to age 17) and 145 for ages 17 to 26. Estimates like these are rough, and he never took an IQ test.
Published estimate, not a test · Cox, Genetic Studies of Genius, Vol. II (1926)
Rated by psychologist Catharine Cox in 1926 from records of his early life: about 115 for childhood (to age 17) and 145 for ages 17 to 26. Estimates like these are rough, and he never took an IQ test.
Published estimate, not a test · Cox, Genetic Studies of Genius, Vol. II (1926)Portraits are pencil-style sketches by Assessivo, based on: Immanuel Kant after Johann Gottlieb Becker (1768), public domain. Benjamin Franklin after Joseph-Siffred Duplessis (about 1785), public domain. Martin Luther after Lucas Cranach the Elder (1528), public domain.
How 143 compares with nearby scores
Want a score that isn't listed, or the share of people between two scores? Try the IQ calculator.
| IQ | Percentile | Classification | Score this high or higher |
|---|---|---|---|
| 133 | 99th | Very superior | 1 in 72 |
| 138 | 99.4th | Very superior | 1 in 177 |
| 143 | 99.7th | Very superior | 1 in 482 |
| 148 | 99.9th | Very superior | 1 in 1,455 |
| 153 | 99.9th | Very superior | 1 in 4,873 |
Questions about an IQ of 143
What percentile is an IQ of 143?
An IQ of 143 is at about the 99.7th percentile, which means it is higher than about 99.8% of people of the same age.
Is 143 a high IQ?
Yes. 143 is a high IQ by any common definition, in the top one percent of the population.
Can an IQ of 143 get into Mensa?
On most tests, yes. Mensa accepts people who score in the top 2% on an approved, supervised test, which is 130 or above on tests that use a standard deviation of 15. Online test scores are not accepted.
How common is an IQ of 143 or higher?
About 0.21% of people score 143 or higher, roughly 1 in 482. In a stadium of 50,000 people, about 104 would score at this level or above.
Is a 143 IQ brain physically different?
Not in any way you could spot on a single scan. A study of 307 young people found that children with IQs from 121 to 149 had a frontal cortex that thickened for longer and peaked later, around age 11, before thinning faster. These are averages across groups, and the study cannot say whether this timing causes high intelligence.
What mental age is an IQ of 143?
Under the old ratio formula, a 9-year-old with an IQ of 143 would perform like a typical child of about 12 years 10 months, roughly 46 months ahead. The idea only works for children: an adult who scores 143 simply did better than most adults of the same age on the test.
Is an IQ of 143 a genius IQ?
In everyday use, 140 or more is often called genius level, but no professional test uses the word. It is an exceptionally high score.
How rare is an IQ above 140?
About 4 people in 1,000 score 140 or higher, roughly 1 in 260. That is on the standard scale with a standard deviation of 15.
Can an online test measure an IQ of 143?
Not reliably. Few online tests have enough very hard questions or the data to tell 140 from 145. A supervised professional test is the only way to confirm a score this high.
For the very top of the scale, see the highest IQ in the world, and for the benchmarks, what is a good IQ score?. Every score range is in the IQ range chart.
An IQ test arrives at a score like 143 by combining several kinds of task. Learn more about verbal reasoning, processing speed, fluid vs crystallized intelligence, abstract reasoning and spatial reasoning, or try the free pattern recognition test.
Many famous IQ figures are guesses. See what is really known about Terence Tao's IQ, Einstein's IQ, Isaac Newton's IQ, Nikola Tesla's IQ, Stephen Hawking's IQ, Bill Gates' IQ, Elon Musk's IQ and Garry Kasparov's IQ.
What would you score?
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