GRE to IQ converter

No study has published a correlation between the GRE and an IQ test, so the link used here is an assumption, and this is the least certain conversion of the tests on this site. The ranges are wide for that reason. Use the result for a rough sense of scale, not as a measurement.

Every GRE score (total (v+q) score; switch to the other scores in the calculator), from the same model as the calculator. The likely range covers about four in five people at that score. The last column is the IQ you would get if the GRE measured IQ perfectly, which is the number most other charts show.

Going the other way, this is the GRE score people at each IQ typically get. Scores at the same IQ vary a lot, so the range matters more than the middle figure. Full IQ to GRE chart.

The GRE has been studied heavily, but almost entirely as a predictor of graduate-school performance, not as a measure of IQ. The large meta-analyses by Kuncel, Hezlett and Ones (2001) show that GRE scores predict graduate grades and faculty ratings with corrected correlations around .3 to .4 for grades. That is a different question.

We found no peer-reviewed study that correlates GRE scores with a full IQ battery or a validated general-ability factor. Claims online that the GRE correlates .7 or .8 with IQ trace back to unsourced blog posts. The model here therefore assumes a correlation of about .6 for Verbal, .55 for Quant and .65 for the total, informed by how similar reasoning-and-knowledge tests behave. That is a judgement, and it is labelled as one.

The GRE Quant distribution is heavily bunched at the top. In ETS's 2022 to 2025 data a perfect 170 on Quant beats only about 89% of test-takers, because so many strong (often international) test-takers reach the ceiling. On Verbal a 170 beats about 99%.

That is why a single "GRE to IQ" table misleads. Two people with 168 Quant and 168 Verbal are not equally rare. This converter uses ETS's own percentile tables for each section and only falls back to a statistical approximation for the combined 260 to 340 total, which ETS does not publish percentiles for.

The gap also means a Quant score alone understates a strong candidate, and the estimate for a 170 Quant is lower than for a 170 Verbal. Neither is a claim that verbal reasoning is harder or that verbal people are smarter. It is a comment on how the score distribution looks.

GRE test-takers are college graduates who intend to apply to graduate school. About 263,000 people take it in a typical year, and a large share are international applicants, many of them writing in a second language. That group is above average in ability on average, which is why the model assumes a mean IQ of 112 or 113 for test-takers, not 100.

That assumption pushes every estimate up by roughly ten points compared with a naive conversion from the general population. It is the biggest single assumption in this page, and it is ours, not ETS's.

Mensa once accepted the GRE: 1250 on the old three-part scale before May 1994 and 1875 from May 1994 to September 2001. It accepts no GRE score from the current 130 to 170 scale.

Totals are the sum of Verbal and Quant. The percentile compares you with 2022 to 2025 test-takers, approximated because ETS does not publish percentiles for the total.

There is no official GRE to IQ conversion. ETS does not publish one. What we can do honestly is treat the GRE as a good but imperfect signal of general ability. We place your score among GRE test-takers, assume how able that group is on average, and use the correlation between the two to predict the most likely IQ. Because the correlation is below 1, high and low scores are pulled towards the middle. That is why the estimate comes with a range.

Evidence grade: weak. The percentile tables are official and current. The link between GRE scores and IQ is an assumption, because none has been published. Treat every figure as a rough guide.

Published facts we used

• Verbal: N = 788,021, mean 151.39, SD 8.43. Quant: N = 790,864, mean 157.62, SD 9.90 (ETS, July 2022 to June 2025).
• Verbal and Quant correlate .44 among test-takers (ETS).
• Percentile tables for each section (ETS Table 1B).
• GRE predicts graduate grades at corrected r about .3 to .4 (Kuncel, Hezlett and Ones, 2001). This is not an IQ correlation.

Assumptions we made

• Mean IQ of GRE test-takers: 112 (Verbal), 113 (Quant and total). College graduates who plan graduate study.
• IQ spread among test-takers: SD 12.
• Correlation with IQ among test-takers: .60 (Verbal), .55 (Quant), .65 (total). No published value exists.
• The total (260 to 340) is modelled with a normal curve, mean 309 and SD 15.6 from the section statistics.