George Frideric HandelComposer
Cox rated him 155 for ages 17 to 26, 1 point above 154. Cox's childhood rating for him was 145.
How rare is an IQ of 154?
Very rare: about 1 person in 6,285 scores 154 or higher, which is higher than about 99.98% of people. It is also a number that turns up in celebrity IQ lists, and none of those figures comes from a published test.
99.984thpercentile
1 in 6,285score 154 or higher
Highly giftedlevel of giftedness
154IQ scoreTop 0.016%
How far out on the bell curve is 154?
Plot 154 on the bell curve and it lands 3.6 standard deviations, or 54 points, to the right of the average. The area beyond it, coloured orange below, holds only 0.016% of people, too thin to see without zooming in.
154 is the score where the curve's tail holds fewer people than many small towns.
What makes 154 different
Two famous names are linked to 154 online: the actor Sharon Stone and the actor Lisa Kudrow. One figure was printed in a magazine introduction, the other traces only to discussion threads. Neither is a test score. That pattern is common at this level: the rarer a number, the more often it is borrowed.
The real 154 belongs to about 1.3 million people worldwide, or about 54,000 in the United States. Most of them will never know it, because no one tests adults routinely, and the few who do take a supervised test usually do so for a high-IQ society or a clinical assessment.
How many people have an IQ of 154?
To meet one person scoring 154 or above, you would need, on average, a crowd of 6,285. Here is that crowd, built up step by step.
A crowd of 6,285 people
6,285
Every dot stands for a person. Only the orange one, one in the whole crowd, would be expected to reach 154.
People scoring 154 or higher, by population
| Worldwide (8.2 billion people) | about 1,310,000 |
| India | about 233,000 |
| United States | about 54,400 |
| United Kingdom | about 11,100 |
| Canada | about 6,630 |
| Australia | about 4,390 |
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 154?
Each society below admits a set top slice of the population and lists the score that matches it on the Wechsler adult scale. With a supervised result of 154, you 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 154?
The main clinical tests can report up to 160, 6 points above this score. Below, the highest full-scale result each test is able to give.
The top of the range rests on very little data. Scores are worked out by comparison with a norm sample, and for the WAIS-IV that sample was 2,200 adults. Only about 0.35 of them would be expected at 154 or above, so a result this high is extrapolated from the curve, not matched against people who actually scored it.
There is measurement error too. Psychologists report a likely range rather than a single point, usually about five points each side, which for 154 means about 149 to 159. Online results are rougher, which is why ours stops at 145. Are online IQ tests accurate?
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.
Is 154 the same on every IQ scale?
IQ tests don't all use the same yardstick. A scale with a larger standard deviation turns the same rank into a bigger number, especially this far above average.
154standard scale (SD 15), used by Wechsler tests and on this page
158older Stanford-Binet scale (SD 16)
186Cattell scale (SD 24), used by some older and online tests
Turn it around: if a test using the Cattell scale reports 154, the standard-scale equivalent is just 134. From an SD 16 test, 154 converts to about 151. Check the scale before comparing any high score. IQ standard deviations explained.
Historical figures rated at about 154
The figures below are not test scores. In 1926 the psychologist Catharine Cox rated 301 eminent people from records of their youth, giving each a childhood estimate and a second one for ages 17 to 26.
Wolfgang Amadeus MozartComposer
Cox rated him 155 for ages 17 to 26, 1 point above 154. Cox's childhood rating for him was 150.
Charles DickensNovelist
Cox rated him 155 for ages 17 to 26, 1 point above 154. Cox's childhood rating for him was 145.
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.
Celebrity 154 IQ claims, checked
Search for a 154 IQ and the same famous names keep appearing. Here is what we found when we followed each figure back to where it started.
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.
Elon Musk
No test result has ever been published. The figure circulates on websites without a source.
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.
High-range tests and the societies above 150
Beyond the Triple Nine level, a few societies set even higher bars. The Prometheus Society admits people at "the 99.997th percentile, which equates to '1 in 30,000' (four standard deviations above the norm)", and the Mega Society asks for "the one-in-a-million level". Standard clinical tests can't measure that far, so these societies have relied on older college admission tests and on special untimed "high-range" tests.
The Prometheus Society now states that "there are no tests that are currently being administered and scored" that its membership committee has approved. That tells you how hard it is to measure abilities this rare with confidence. A 154 from an unsupervised online high-range test is an interesting result, not a clinical score.
Sources: Prometheus Society, joining; Mega Society.
What does an IQ of 154 mean?
An IQ of 154 means a supervised test placed you in the top 0.02% for your age. It is "highly gifted" on the levels used in gifted education. If your 154 came from an unsupervised "high-range" test, it is worth knowing how those tests differ from clinical ones before you rely on it.
Where 154 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 154 is from other milestones
24 points above the usual Mensa level (130)a score of 154 is about 143 times rarer than 130
8 points above the Triple Nine and ISPE bar (146)a score of 154 is about 6.8 times rarer than 146
6 points below the ceiling of most professional tests (160)reaching 160 is about 5 times rarer than 154
3.6 standard deviations above averageaverage is 100 and one standard deviation is 15 points
IQ 154 compared with nearby scores
| IQ | Percentile | Rarity | Level |
|---|---|---|---|
| 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 |
| 158 | 99.9944th | 1 in 18,127 | Highly gifted |
154 IQ: common questions
Is 154 a high IQ?
Yes. 154 is a very high IQ: about 1 person in 6,285 scores this high or higher, which puts it at the 99.984th 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.
Can an online IQ test show a score of 154?
Some can show the number, but very few can measure it. Our own test reports up to 145, because a short online test doesn't have enough very hard questions, or enough high scorers in its data, to separate 154 from nearby scores. A supervised Wechsler or Stanford-Binet assessment is needed to confirm it.
What is an IQ of 154 on the Cattell scale?
About 186. The Cattell scale uses a standard deviation of 24 instead of 15, so the same result gives a bigger number. Going the other way, a Cattell score of 154 is only about 134 on the standard scale.
What percentile is an IQ of 154?
An IQ of 154 is at about the 99.984th percentile. Only about 0.016% of people score 154 or higher.
How rare is an IQ of 154?
About 1 person in 6,285 scores 154 or higher, on the standard bell curve. Across the world's population of about 8.2 billion, that would be roughly 1,310,000 people.
Does Sharon Stone have an IQ of 154?
There is no test record. The figure was printed in the introduction to a 1992 Playboy interview, not in her own words, and Mensa said in 2002 that she had never been a member. See our celebrity IQ list for the full trail.
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.
Behind a single score of 154 sit several separate abilities. Read about processing speed, fluid vs crystallized intelligence, abstract reasoning, spatial reasoning and verbal reasoning, or try the free pattern recognition test.
Curious which celebrity IQs near 154 hold up? Read the full stories of Nikola Tesla's IQ, Stephen Hawking's IQ, Bill Gates' IQ, Elon Musk's IQ, Garry Kasparov's IQ, Terence Tao's IQ, Einstein's IQ and Isaac Newton's IQ.
Curious where you'd land?
Our free test takes about 25 minutes and gives an estimated IQ with its percentile. Results go up to 145, so a score like 154 can only be confirmed by a psychologist.
Take the free IQ testPortraits are pencil-style sketches by Assessivo, based on: George Frideric Handel after a portrait attributed to Balthasar Denner (about 1727), public domain. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart after Barbara Krafft (1819), public domain. Charles Dickens after a photograph by Jeremiah Gurney (1867), public domain. Elon Musk sketch adapted from a photo by Gage Skidmore, CC BY-SA 4.0.