Estimate, not a test
Robert BunsenChemist
Cox rated him 165 for ages 17 to 26, the same as this page's score. Cox's childhood rating for him was 150.
What does an IQ of 165 mean?
An IQ of 165 means a score higher than about 99.99926% of people, roughly 1 in 136,176. Is 165 a high IQ? It is far beyond any common definition. Several famous historical figures were rated at about 165 in a classic 1926 study, though none of them ever sat an IQ test.
99.99926thpercentile
1 in 136,176score 165 or higher
Exceptionally giftedlevel of giftedness
165IQ scoreTop 0.00073%
Where 165 sits on the bell curve
An IQ of 165 is 65 points above the average of 100, or 4.33 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 0.00073% of the population, the orange sliver below.
About 60,000 people worldwide would score 165 or higher on the bell curve, roughly the crowd at a big football match.
A closer look at an IQ of 165
Catharine Cox's 1926 study gave Thomas Babington Macaulay, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, the physicist François Arago and the chemist Robert Bunsen estimates of about 165 for their young adulthood. Interestingly, Macaulay and Coleridge were rated higher still as children, at 180 and 175, while Arago and Bunsen were rated lower.
Those differences come from the evidence, not the people. Cox rated what the surviving records showed at each age, and some lives are much better documented in childhood than in early adulthood, or the reverse. That is why her figures are best read as rough estimates with wide margins.
How many people have an IQ of 165?
On the bell curve, about 1 person in 136,176 scores 165 or higher. The animation builds a crowd until you would expect to find one.
A crowd of 136,176 people
136,176
Each dot is one person. In a crowd this size, on average, just one would score 165 or above: the orange dot.
People scoring 165 or higher, by population
| Worldwide (8.2 billion people) | about 60,300 |
| India | about 10,700 |
| United States | about 2,510 |
| United Kingdom | about 510 |
| Canada | about 306 |
| Australia | about 203 |
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 165?
High-IQ societies set entry as a percentile, then print the matching score for each test they accept. A supervised 165 would meet 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 165?
Not on a standard clinical test. The WAIS-IV and the Stanford-Binet 5 report full-scale scores up to 160, so 165 is 5 points beyond where they stop. Only extended scales built for gifted children reach this far: the WISC-V extended norms go to 210 and the Stanford-Binet 5 Extended IQ to 225.
The deeper problem is evidence. Tests are scored against a norm sample, and 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 0.02 of those people to score 165 or higher, a tiny fraction of one person. Extended scales get around this by using the patterns of children who hit the ceiling, but any score this high is an estimate projected from the curve.
Every score also carries measurement error, typically about five points either way, so 165 is best read as roughly 160 to 170, a range that lies entirely beyond what standard tests report. At these heights, extended-scale scores are also less certain than the margin suggests, because so few people have ever been measured there. Online tests can't reach this level at all; 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.
165 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.
165standard scale (SD 15), used by Wechsler tests and on this page
169older Stanford-Binet scale (SD 16)
204Cattell scale (SD 24), used by some older and online tests
It works the other way too. A 165 quoted from a Cattell-scale test equals only about 141 on the standard scale, and a 165 on an SD 16 test equals about 161. How IQ standard deviations work.
Famous people with an estimated IQ near 165
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.
Estimate, not a test
François AragoPhysicist and astronomer
Cox rated him 165 for ages 17 to 26, the same as this page's score. Cox's childhood rating for him was 145.
Samuel Taylor ColeridgePoet and critic
Cox rated him 165 for ages 17 to 26, the same as this page's score. 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.
How Catharine Cox estimated historical IQs
Cox and her co-raters read biographies, letters and school records for each person, then estimated the IQ that a child, and later a young adult, would need to show the reported behaviour. Each estimate came with a rating of how reliable the records were.
She then found something she called "entirely unexpected": "the more reliable the data the higher the estimate of the IQ". Thin records pulled estimates down, which is why she argued that many of her figures were floors rather than best guesses, and why she published corrected versions alongside them.
Source: Cox, C. M. (1926), Genetic Studies of Genius, Vol. II, Stanford University Press.
What does an IQ of 165 mean?
A confirmed 165 means reasoning at a level found in about seven people in every million of the same age, in the "exceptionally gifted" band. It would meet the entry bar of every major high-IQ society except the Mega Society, which asks for one in a million.
Where 165 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 165 is from other milestones
19 points above the Triple Nine and ISPE bar (146)a score of 165 is about 147 times rarer than 146
5 points above the ceiling of most professional tests (160)a score of 165 is about 4.3 times rarer than 160
6 points below the Mega Society's one-in-a-million level (171)reaching 171 is about 7 times rarer than 165
15 points below the start of the profoundly gifted band (180)reaching 180 is about 152 times rarer than 165
4.33 standard deviations above averageaverage is 100 and one standard deviation is 15 points
IQ 165 compared with nearby scores
| IQ | Percentile | Rarity | Level |
|---|---|---|---|
| 161 | 99.9976th | 1 in 41,937 | Exceptionally gifted |
| 163 | 99.9986th | 1 in 74,930 | Exceptionally gifted |
| 165 | 99.99926th | 1 in 136,176 | Exceptionally gifted |
| 167 | 99.9996th | 1 in 251,738 | Exceptionally gifted |
| 169 | 99.99978th | 1 in 473,383 | Exceptionally gifted |
Questions about an IQ of 165
Is 165 a high IQ?
Yes. 165 is a very high IQ: about 1 person in 136,176 scores this high or higher, which puts it at the 99.99926th 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 is an IQ of 165 on the Cattell scale?
About 204. 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 165 is only about 141 on the standard scale.
What percentile is an IQ of 165?
An IQ of 165 is at about the 99.99926th percentile. Only about 0.00073% of people score 165 or higher.
How rare is an IQ of 165?
About 1 person in 136,176 scores 165 or higher, on the standard bell curve. Across the world's population of about 8.2 billion, that would be roughly 60,300 people.
Is an IQ of 165 good?
Yes, by any measure. 165 is higher than about 100% 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.
Who has an IQ of 165?
No living celebrity has a documented IQ of 165. In Catharine Cox's 1926 study of historical figures, Thomas Babington Macaulay, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, François Arago and Robert Bunsen were rated at about 165 for ages 17 to 26, but those are estimates from records, not test scores.
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 165 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 165, with or without a source. We checked the evidence behind Elon Musk's IQ, Garry Kasparov's IQ, Terence Tao's IQ, Einstein's IQ, Isaac Newton's IQ, Nikola Tesla's IQ, Stephen Hawking's IQ and Bill Gates' 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: Samuel Taylor Coleridge after Washington Allston (1814), public domain.