Thomas JeffersonThird US president
Cox rated him 150 for ages 17 to 26, the same as this page's score. Cox's childhood rating for him was 145.
Is an IQ of 150 genius level?
There is no official genius score, but 150 is the number most often given one. An IQ of 150 is higher than about 99.96% of people, roughly 1 in 2,331, and it is well above the level where early IQ tests first used the word genius.
99.957thpercentile
1 in 2,331score 150 or higher
Highly giftedlevel of giftedness
150IQ scoreTop 0.043%
Where 150 sits on the bell curve
An IQ of 150 is 50 points above the average of 100, or 3.33 standard deviations. That is so far into the right-hand tail of the bell curve that the people scoring this high barely show up: about 0.043% of the population, the orange sliver below.
150 is three and a third standard deviations above average, a point most people only meet as a round number in lists of famous minds.
A closer look at an IQ of 150
150 is the score internet lists love. It is round, it sounds impressive, and it is attached to dozens of celebrities who have never published a test result. The real figure behind it is less dramatic but more interesting: about 1 person in 2,331 scores this high, or roughly 3.5 million people worldwide.
Among historical figures, the psychologist Catharine Cox estimated scores near 150 for Leonardo da Vinci and Thomas Jefferson, based on records of their youth. Those are estimates made in 1926, not test results, and Cox herself warned that thin records pull them down.
How many people have an IQ of 150?
On the bell curve, about 1 person in 2,331 scores 150 or higher. The animation builds a crowd until you would expect to find one.
A crowd of 2,331 people
2,331
Each dot is one person. In a crowd this size, on average, just one would score 150 or above: the orange dot.
People scoring 150 or higher, by population
| Worldwide (8.2 billion people) | about 3,520,000 |
| India | about 628,000 |
| United States | about 147,000 |
| United Kingdom | about 29,800 |
| Canada | about 17,900 |
| Australia | about 11,800 |
Population: World Bank, total population, 2025. Counts assume the same bell curve in every country and are rounded. Real tests can't sort people this finely, as the next sections explain.
Which high-IQ societies accept an IQ of 150?
High-IQ societies set entry as a percentile, then print the matching score for each test they accept. A supervised 150 would meet 4 of the 6 bars; the next, Prometheus Society, needs about 160.
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MensaTop 2% (98th percentile) on an approved, supervised test130met
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IntertelTop 1% (99th percentile); lists a Wechsler full-scale IQ of 135135met
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Triple Nine Society99.9th percentile; lists a WAIS full-scale IQ of 146146met
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International Society for Philosophical Enquiry99.9th percentile; lists a WAIS-III or WAIS-IV full-scale IQ of 146146met
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Prometheus Society1 in 30,000 (99.997th percentile), four standard deviations above average160not met
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Mega SocietyOne in a million, beyond the range of standard tests171not met
Scores for Mensa, Intertel, Triple Nine and ISPE are the Wechsler figures those societies list or that match their percentile. Prometheus and Mega give only a rarity; the scores shown are the matching points on the standard scale. Prometheus says no test currently being given is approved for its entry. Online test results are not accepted by any of them.
Can an IQ test measure 150?
Most professional tests stop at a full-scale score of 160, so 150 is 10 points below where they stop. The bars show the highest full-scale score each test can report.
Even inside that range, the very top is thinly measured. Tests are scored against a norm sample: for the adult Wechsler test, the WAIS-IV, that sample was 2,200 people aged 16 to 90. On the bell curve, you would expect about 0.94 of those people to score 150 or higher, fewer than one. Scores this high are projected from the shape of the curve rather than compared with many real people.
Every score also carries measurement error. A professional report gives a range, typically about five points either way, so 150 is best read as roughly 145 to 155. Online tests are rougher still; ours reports up to 145. How accurate are online IQ tests?
Sources: WAIS-IV range and norm sample from Canivez (2010), Mental Measurements Yearbook review; Stanford-Binet 5 and its Extended IQ from PRO-ED; WISC-V extended norms from Pearson Technical Report #6 (2019). Striped bars are extended scales, used only when a person hits the normal ceiling.
150 IQ on other scales
The same performance gives different numbers on scales with a different standard deviation, and the gap is widest at the top.
150standard scale (SD 15), used by Wechsler tests and on this page
153older Stanford-Binet scale (SD 16)
180Cattell scale (SD 24), used by some older and online tests
It works the other way too. A 150 quoted from a Cattell-scale test equals only about 131 on the standard scale, and a 150 on an SD 16 test equals about 147. How IQ standard deviations work.
Famous people with an estimated IQ near 150
No historical genius took an IQ test. These figures come from Catharine Cox's 1926 study, which estimated IQs from records of each person's early life, with one rating for childhood and one for ages 17 to 26.
Leonardo da VinciArtist, engineer and inventor
Cox rated him 150 for ages 17 to 26, the same as this page's score. Cox's childhood rating for him was 135.
Source: Cox, C. M. (1926), Genetic Studies of Genius, Vol. II: The Early Mental Traits of Three Hundred Geniuses, Stanford University Press. Cox stressed that thin records pull estimates down. Read more in where the historical genius IQ estimates came from.
Famous people said to have an IQ of 150: real or myth?
Lists of celebrity IQs put many famous names at or near 150. We traced each figure to its earliest source, and none comes from a published IQ test.
MZ
152No evidence of a test
Mark Zuckerberg
No interview, test record or published estimate could be found.
Sources for every claim are listed in our celebrity IQ list.
Where the "genius" label came from
The word comes from Lewis Terman, who adapted the Binet test into the Stanford-Binet. In The Measurement of Intelligence (1916), his classification put "Above 140" in a group he called "'Near' genius or genius", with 120 to 140 as "very superior intelligence".
Terman added a warning that is usually left out: "the boundary lines between such groups are absolutely arbitrary, a matter of definition only." Modern tests dropped the word altogether. The Wechsler scales now describe 130 and above as "very superior" or "extremely high", and no professional report labels anyone a genius. So 150 is not a genius IQ by any scientific rule, only by habit.
Source: Terman, L. M. (1916), The Measurement of Intelligence, Houghton Mifflin.
What does an IQ of 150 mean?
A score of 150 means reasoning at a level reached by about four people in ten thousand. It is "highly gifted" on the levels used in gifted education, and in the top 0.05%. What it doesn't mean is genius in the everyday sense, which is about what someone creates, not what they score.
Where 150 falls among the levels of giftedness
115–129Mildly gifted
130–144Moderately gifted
145–159Highly gifted
160–179Exceptionally gifted
180+Profoundly gifted
Levels and ranges from Gross, M. U. M. (2000), "Exceptionally and Profoundly Gifted Students: An Underserved Population", Understanding Our Gifted. They are a guide for education, not a ranking of people.
How far 150 is from other milestones
20 points above the usual Mensa level (130)a score of 150 is about 53 times rarer than 130
4 points above the Triple Nine and ISPE bar (146)a score of 150 is about 2.5 times rarer than 146
10 points below the ceiling of most professional tests (160)reaching 160 is about 14 times rarer than 150
3.33 standard deviations above averageaverage is 100 and one standard deviation is 15 points
IQ 150 compared with nearby scores
| IQ | Percentile | Rarity | Level |
|---|---|---|---|
| 146 | 99.89th | 1 in 924 | Highly gifted |
| 148 | 99.931st | 1 in 1,455 | Highly gifted |
| 150 | 99.957th | 1 in 2,331 | Highly gifted |
| 152 | 99.973rd | 1 in 3,795 | Highly gifted |
| 154 | 99.984th | 1 in 6,285 | Highly gifted |
Questions about an IQ of 150
Is 150 a high IQ?
Yes. 150 is a very high IQ: about 1 person in 2,331 scores this high or higher, which puts it at the 99.957th percentile. It is above the 130 that most definitions use for a high IQ, and at or above the 146 used by the Triple Nine Society for its 99.9th percentile entry.
Is an IQ of 150 good?
Yes, by any measure. 150 is higher than about 99.96% of people. Remember that a score this high needs a supervised professional test to be confirmed, and that it describes reasoning on a test, not every kind of talent.
Can you join Mensa with an IQ of 150?
Yes. Mensa accepts the top 2% on an approved, supervised test, which is about 130 on the standard scale. A supervised 150 would also meet the bar for Intertel, Triple Nine Society and International Society for Philosophical Enquiry. Online test results are not accepted.
What does 150 IQ mean?
It means a result 50 points, or 3.33 standard deviations, above the average for your age. On the levels used by gifted education researchers, 150 is highly gifted (145–159).
Is 150 a genius IQ?
There is no official genius score. Lewis Terman's early Stanford-Binet labels put scores over 140 in a "near genius or genius" group, but modern tests dropped the word. 150 is very rare, yet achievements, not test scores, are what usually earn the word genius.
What percentage of people have an IQ over 150?
About 0.043% of people score 150 or higher on the standard scale, which is roughly 1 person in 2,331. Scores strictly above 150, from 151 up, take in about 0.034%.
Related: what counts as a good IQ score, the highest IQ in the world, famous people's IQs and the full IQ scale and range chart.
A full IQ score of 150 combines several skills. Our guides explain each one: fluid vs crystallized intelligence, abstract reasoning, spatial reasoning, verbal reasoning and processing speed, or try the free pattern recognition test.
Famous names are often linked to scores like 150, with or without a source. We checked the evidence behind Garry Kasparov's IQ, Terence Tao's IQ, Einstein's IQ, Isaac Newton's IQ, Nikola Tesla's IQ, Stephen Hawking's IQ, Bill Gates' IQ and Elon Musk's IQ.
Curious where you'd land?
The free Assessivo IQ test gives an estimated IQ and percentile in about 25 minutes. It reports scores up to 145; for anything higher, a supervised professional assessment is the only reliable route.
Take the free IQ testPortraits are pencil-style sketches by Assessivo, based on: Thomas Jefferson after Rembrandt Peale (1800), public domain. Leonardo da Vinci after his own red-chalk self-portrait (about 1517), public domain.