Estimate, not a test
Robert BunsenChemist
Cox rated him 165 for ages 17 to 26, 1 point above 164. Cox's childhood rating for him was 150.
How rare is an IQ of 164?
Very rare: about 1 person in 100,799 scores 164 or higher, which puts it almost exactly at the one-in-a-hundred-thousand mark and at the 99.999th percentile. In the UK, a perfect bell curve would predict only about 690 people at this level.
99.999thpercentile
1 in 100,799score 164 or higher
Exceptionally giftedlevel of giftedness
164IQ scoreTop 0.00099%
164 on the IQ bell curve
At 64 points above the mean of 100 (4.27 standard deviations), 164 sits where the curve has almost flattened onto the axis. Only 0.00099% of people score here or higher; on the left chart that group is the barely visible orange edge.
164 is where the curve crosses one in a hundred thousand: a single person in a town of 100,000.
Reading an IQ of 164
One in a hundred thousand is easier to picture than a percentile with five nines in it. It is about one person in a full Wembley Stadium, which holds 90,000. Worldwide, the bell curve predicts about 81,500 people at 164 or above.
What happens to people this rare? The best long-term evidence comes from studies of young people identified by talent searches rather than IQ tests. They don't map exactly onto IQ scores, but they show that extreme early reasoning ability is linked with unusual adult achievement, and also that the paths people take vary enormously.
How many people have an IQ of 164?
How big a group do you need before someone in it is likely to score 164? About 100,799 people. Watch the crowd grow to that size.
A crowd of 100,799 people
100,799
One dot per person, and on average only one of them, shown in orange, scores 164 or more.
People scoring 164 or higher, by population
| Worldwide (8.2 billion people) | about 81,500 |
| India | about 14,500 |
| United States | about 3,390 |
| United Kingdom | about 689 |
| Canada | about 413 |
| Australia | about 274 |
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 164?
Entry to a high-IQ society depends on a percentile, which each one turns into a score per accepted test. Measured under supervision, 164 meets 5 of the 6 bars; the next, Mega Society, needs about 171.
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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 average160met
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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 164?
The adult Wechsler test and the Stanford-Binet 5 both stop at 160, so neither can give a 164. To report a score this high, a psychologist needs an extended scale, such as the WISC-V extended norms (to 210) or the Stanford-Binet 5 Extended IQ (to 225), shown in the bars below.
Why so uncertain? Because a test compares you with its norm sample, and the WAIS-IV sample had 2,200 adults. The bell curve expects about 0.02 of them at 164 or higher. With nobody in the sample anywhere near this level, the number comes from the shape of the curve, not from comparison with real people.
There is measurement error too: a professional report would give a range of about 159 to 169 around a 164. With so few people ever measured at this level, the true uncertainty is larger still. Online results are far 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.
Converting an IQ of 164 between scales
The number attached to a result depends on the scale's standard deviation. Near 164, switching scales can add or remove dozens of points for exactly the same rank.
164standard scale (SD 15), used by Wechsler tests and on this page
168older Stanford-Binet scale (SD 16)
202Cattell scale (SD 24), used by some older and online tests
So a "164" isn't always a 164. On the Cattell scale it corresponds to about 140 on the standard scale; on an SD 16 scale, about 160. Why IQ scales differ.
Who has been rated near an IQ of 164?
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.
Thomas Babington MacaulayHistorian and politician
Cox rated him 165 for ages 17 to 26, 1 point above 164. Cox's childhood rating for him was 180.
Samuel Taylor ColeridgePoet and critic
Cox rated him 165 for ages 17 to 26, 1 point above 164. Cox's childhood rating for him was 175.
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.
What happened to children who were 1 in 10,000
The Study of Mathematically Precocious Youth identified 320 young people before age 13 whose mathematical or verbal reasoning put them in the top 1 in 10,000, and followed them for nearly three decades. By age 38, the researchers reported, many held leadership positions in business, health care, law, universities and science and technology.
That group was selected at a level corresponding to roughly 156 on the IQ scale, so a 164 is about ten times rarer still. The researchers stressed that "identifying truly profound human potential... requires assessing multiple cognitive abilities", not a single number.
Source: Kell, H. J., Lubinski, D. and Benbow, C. P. (2013), "Who rises to the top? Early indicators", Psychological Science, 24(5), 648–659.
What does an IQ of 164 mean?
An IQ of 164 means a confirmed reasoning level found in about one person in a hundred thousand of the same age. It is in the "exceptionally gifted" band. Like every score, it describes performance on tests, not drive, creativity or character, which shape what people go on to do.
Where 164 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 164 is from other milestones
18 points above the Triple Nine and ISPE bar (146)a score of 164 is about 109 times rarer than 146
4 points above the ceiling of most professional tests (160)a score of 164 is about 3.2 times rarer than 160
7 points below the Mega Society's one-in-a-million level (171)reaching 171 is about 9 times rarer than 164
16 points below the start of the profoundly gifted band (180)reaching 180 is about 206 times rarer than 164
4.27 standard deviations above averageaverage is 100 and one standard deviation is 15 points
IQ 164 compared with nearby scores
| IQ | Percentile | Rarity | Level |
|---|---|---|---|
| 160 | 99.9968th | 1 in 31,574 | Exceptionally gifted |
| 162 | 99.9982nd | 1 in 55,938 | Exceptionally gifted |
| 164 | 99.999th | 1 in 100,799 | Exceptionally gifted |
| 166 | 99.99945th | 1 in 184,756 | Exceptionally gifted |
| 168 | 99.9997th | 1 in 344,471 | Exceptionally gifted |
Your questions about a 164 IQ
Is 164 a high IQ?
Yes. 164 is a very high IQ: about 1 person in 100,799 scores this high or higher, which puts it at the 99.999th 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 does 164 IQ mean?
It means a result 64 points, or 4.27 standard deviations, above the average for your age. On the levels used by gifted education researchers, 164 is exceptionally gifted (160–179).
Is 164 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. 164 is very rare, yet achievements, not test scores, are what usually earn the word genius.
Can an online IQ test show a score of 164?
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 164 from nearby scores. A supervised Wechsler or Stanford-Binet assessment is needed to confirm it.
What is an IQ of 164 on the Cattell scale?
About 202. 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 164 is only about 140 on the standard scale.
Is 164 IQ one in a hundred thousand?
Almost exactly. On the standard bell curve, about 1 person in 100,799 scores 164 or higher, so it sits right at the one-in-a-hundred-thousand mark, the 99.999th percentile.
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 164 by combining several kinds of task. Learn more about processing speed, fluid vs crystallized intelligence, abstract reasoning, spatial reasoning and verbal reasoning, or try the free pattern recognition test.
Many famous IQ figures are guesses. See what is really known about Bill Gates' IQ, Elon Musk's IQ, Garry Kasparov's IQ, Terence Tao's IQ, Einstein's IQ, Isaac Newton's IQ, Nikola Tesla's IQ and Stephen Hawking'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 164 needs a supervised professional test.
Take the free IQ testPortraits are pencil-style sketches by Assessivo, based on: Thomas Babington Macaulay after Sir Francis Grant, public domain. Samuel Taylor Coleridge after Washington Allston (1814), public domain.