Thomas JeffersonThird US president
Cox rated him 150 for ages 17 to 26, 2 points below 152. Cox's childhood rating for him was 145.
Is 152 a high IQ?
Yes. An IQ of 152 is higher than about 99.97% of people, roughly 1 in 3,795. If you scored 152 once, though, a second test would most likely come out a little lower, for a reason that has nothing to do with you.
99.973rdpercentile
1 in 3,795score 152 or higher
Highly giftedlevel of giftedness
152IQ scoreTop 0.026%
152 on the IQ bell curve
At 52 points above the mean of 100 (3.47 standard deviations), 152 sits where the curve has almost flattened onto the axis. Only 0.026% of people score here or higher; on the left chart that group is the barely visible orange edge.
At 152, you need a crowd of nearly 3,800 people to expect one person at this level or above: more than the 2,200 adults in the WAIS-IV norm sample.
Reading an IQ of 152
A 152 is often a first result rather than a settled one. It might come from a school assessment, a Mensa supervised test or a psychologist's report. Whatever the source, the pattern of retesting is well known: very high scores tend to drift down a little on the next occasion, and very low ones drift up.
None of that makes 152 less rare. About 2.2 million people worldwide would score this high or above, and in a city of one million about 260. It simply means the most accurate summary of one test result at 152 is "very high, probably in the high 140s to mid 150s".
How many people have an IQ of 152?
How big a group do you need before someone in it is likely to score 152? About 3,795 people. Watch the crowd grow to that size.
A crowd of 3,795 people
3,795
One dot per person, and on average only one of them, shown in orange, scores 152 or more.
People scoring 152 or higher, by population
| Worldwide (8.2 billion people) | about 2,160,000 |
| India | about 386,000 |
| United States | about 90,100 |
| United Kingdom | about 18,300 |
| Canada | about 11,000 |
| Australia | about 7,280 |
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 152?
Entry to a high-IQ society depends on a percentile, which each one turns into a score per accepted test. Measured under supervision, 152 meets 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 152?
Each bar is the highest full-scale IQ a test can report. The adult Wechsler test and the Stanford-Binet both stop at 160, so 152 is still inside their range.
Why so uncertain? Because a test compares you with its norm sample, and the WAIS-IV sample had 2,200 adults. The bell curve predicts about 0.58 of them at 152 or higher, less than one person, so the scoring at this level comes from the curve's shape rather than from real high scorers.
Add the usual margin of error, about five points either way, and a result of 152 really means somewhere near 147 to 157. No online test, ours included, can pin down a score this high. What online tests can and can't tell you.
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.
Converting an IQ of 152 between scales
The number attached to a result depends on the scale's standard deviation. Near 152, switching scales can add or remove dozens of points for exactly the same rank.
152standard scale (SD 15), used by Wechsler tests and on this page
155older Stanford-Binet scale (SD 16)
183Cattell scale (SD 24), used by some older and online tests
So a "152" isn't always a 152. On the Cattell scale it corresponds to about 133 on the standard scale; on an SD 16 scale, about 149. Why IQ scales differ.
Who has been rated near an IQ of 152?
Catharine Cox's 1926 study is the source of nearly every historical "IQ". She estimated each person's score from records of their early life, once for childhood and once for ages 17 to 26. None of them sat a test.
Leonardo da VinciArtist, engineer and inventor
Cox rated him 150 for ages 17 to 26, 2 points below 152. 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.
Who is said to have a 152 IQ?
These names are often given an IQ at or close to 152. Not one of the figures is backed by a published test result.
MZ
152No evidence of a test
Mark Zuckerberg
No interview, test record or published estimate could be found.
SS
154Reported, no test shown
Sharon Stone
Printed in the introduction to a 1992 Playboy interview, not in her own words. Mensa said in 2002 she had never been a member.
LK
154No evidence of a test
Lisa Kudrow
The figure traces only to online discussion threads.
Sources for every claim are listed in our celebrity IQ list.
Why high scorers often score lower the second time
Every test score mixes real ability with luck: a good night's sleep, a lucky guess, questions that happened to suit you. When someone scores very high, part of the reason is usually good luck on the day. On a retest the luck evens out, so the score tends to fall back towards the average. Statisticians call this regression to the mean.
David Lohman and Katrina Korb put it plainly in a study of gifted identification: "The tendency of those with high scores on one occasion to obtain somewhat lower scores on a later occasion is one example of regression to the mean." It doesn't mean the first test was wrong, only that the true level is probably a little below the highest number you have seen.
Source: Lohman, D. F. and Korb, K. A. (2006), "Gifted Today but Not Tomorrow?", Journal for the Education of the Gifted, 29(4).
What does an IQ of 152 mean?
Scoring 152 means your reasoning on the day was matched by about one person in 3,800. It is "highly gifted" on the levels used in gifted education. Because of regression to the mean, a single result this high is best confirmed with a second, different test before any big decision rests on it.
Where 152 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 152 is from other milestones
22 points above the usual Mensa level (130)a score of 152 is about 86 times rarer than 130
6 points above the Triple Nine and ISPE bar (146)a score of 152 is about 4.1 times rarer than 146
8 points below the ceiling of most professional tests (160)reaching 160 is about 8 times rarer than 152
3.47 standard deviations above averageaverage is 100 and one standard deviation is 15 points
IQ 152 compared with nearby scores
| IQ | Percentile | Rarity | Level |
|---|---|---|---|
| 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 |
| 156 | 99.9905th | 1 in 10,584 | Highly gifted |
Your questions about a 152 IQ
Is 152 a high IQ?
Yes. 152 is a very high IQ: about 1 person in 3,795 scores this high or higher, which puts it at the 99.973rd 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.
What percentile is an IQ of 152?
An IQ of 152 is at about the 99.973rd percentile. Only about 0.026% of people score 152 or higher.
How rare is an IQ of 152?
About 1 person in 3,795 scores 152 or higher, on the standard bell curve. Across the world's population of about 8.2 billion, that would be roughly 2,160,000 people.
Is an IQ of 152 good?
Yes, by any measure. 152 is higher than about 99.97% 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 152?
Yes. Mensa accepts the top 2% on an approved, supervised test, which is about 130 on the standard scale. A supervised 152 would also meet the bar for Intertel, Triple Nine Society and International Society for Philosophical Enquiry. Online test results are not accepted.
Will I score 152 again on a retest?
Probably not exactly. Very high scores tend to come out a little lower on a second test, because some of the first result was good luck on the day. This regression to the mean is normal and expected; a score in the high 140s or low 150s on a retest would be consistent with a first result of 152.
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.
An IQ test arrives at a score like 152 by combining several kinds of task. Learn more about spatial reasoning, verbal reasoning, processing speed, fluid vs crystallized intelligence and abstract reasoning, or try the free pattern recognition test.
Many famous IQ figures are guesses. See what is really known about Einstein's IQ, Isaac Newton's IQ, Nikola Tesla's IQ, Stephen Hawking's IQ, Bill Gates' IQ, Elon Musk's IQ, Garry Kasparov's IQ and Terence Tao's IQ.
Curious where you'd land?
Try the free Assessivo IQ test: 36 questions, about 25 minutes, and an estimated score up to 145. Confirming a result as high as 152 needs a supervised professional test.
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.