IQ 137
An IQ of 137 is higher than 99.3% of people: about 1 in 147.
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- 99.3rd
- Percentile
- 1 in 147
- Score 137 or higher
- Gifted
- Classification
In a school of 1,000, only about 7 pupils would score this high. It is 2.47 standard deviations above the mean.
An IQ of 137 falls in the gifted IQ range, which covers 130 to 139. Find 137 on the IQ chart, or check how rare any score is with the IQ rarity calculator.
The gifted range: what an IQ of 137 means
137 is in what is usually called the gifted range, 2.47 standard deviations above average. You would outscore 99.3% of people, and only about 1 in 147 score this high or higher. It sits 7 points past the 130 mark and 8 short of 145.
At this level the advantage can show as speed and depth with abstract material. Standard explanations may feel slow, and working things out from first principles may feel natural.
The Study of Mathematically Precocious Youth followed children identified in roughly the top 1% of reasoning ability. As adults they earned doctorates, patents and senior roles at rates far above the general population.
The Mensa threshold and 137
Is 137 Mensa level? It is above the line: Mensa's entry point is the 98th percentile on an approved, supervised test, usually quoted as 130 on an SD 15 scale. LifeScore is not affiliated with Mensa, and no online score, including ours, counts for entry.
Other societies set higher bars. Intertel asks for the top 1%, which starts at about 135, and the Triple Nine Society asks for the top 0.1%, about 146. 137 clears the first line but not the second.
Joining a society is optional. The more useful thing a score like this offers is a nudge to seek out harder problems and people who enjoy them.
How 137 can show up in life
What does a 137 feel like from the inside? Accounts vary a lot, but a few themes come up again and again:
- Topics can absorb you for long stretches, and depth may matter more to you than breadth.
- Group work can be frustrating when others need more steps than you do, which makes explaining your reasoning a skill worth building.
- Routine work can get boring fast, so variety and challenge tend to matter.
How many people have an IQ of 137 or higher?
Scoring 137 or higher is a 0.68% share of everyone. Scaled up to whole populations, that works out as:
| Where | Population | IQ 137+ |
|---|---|---|
| UK | 68 million | 460,000 |
| US | 335 million | 2.3 million |
| World | 8.1 billion | 55 million |
In a room of 100 people, you would expect about one person to score 137 or higher.
About 1 in 790 people would score exactly 137, meaning between 136.5 and 137.5 on a continuous scale. In the UK that is about 86,000 people.
These are model estimates: a bell curve applied to whole populations, including children, rounded. They are not census counts, and real test norms differ a little from one test to another.
How rare is an IQ of 137?
An IQ of 137 or higher is 2.4 times rarer than 132 or higher, and 142 or higher is 2.7 times rarer again. At this point on the curve, each extra point makes a score about 21% rarer.
What your 137 could really be. Even a good supervised test has a margin of error of roughly 5 points either side. A true score anywhere from 132 to 142 would be consistent with a 137, which spans the 98.4th to the 99.74th percentile. Short online tests have wider margins.
Which scale was it on? A 137 reported on an SD 16 scale converts to about 135 on the usual SD 15 scale, and one from an SD 24 scale (seen in some Cattell-style results) to about 123. Check which scale your score report used.
Famous people with an estimated IQ near 137
The gifted range is where many retrospective estimates for historical leaders, writers and activists land. These sit near 137, with the figures people look up most listed first. Treat these as informed guesses from biographies rather than results. Each profile sets out what its estimate rests on.
- Winston Churchill's IQ (estimated 135): Prime Minister, WWII. 2 points below IQ 137.
- Catherine the Great's IQ (estimated 140+): Empress of Russia, 18th Century. 3 points above IQ 137.
- Margaret Thatcher's IQ (estimated 140+): UK Prime Minister, 20th Century. 3 points above IQ 137.
- Claude Monet's IQ (estimated 140+): Impressionist Painter, 19th-20th Century. 3 points above IQ 137.
- George Orwell's IQ (estimated 140+): Novelist & Essayist, 20th Century. 3 points above IQ 137.
Also estimated near 137: Hannibal Barca's IQ (estimated 140+), Maya Angelou's IQ (estimated 140+), Theodore Roosevelt's IQ (estimated 145+), Maria Montessori's IQ (estimated 150+), Michael Faraday's IQ (estimated 150+), Richard Wagner's IQ (estimated 150+).
Fictional characters near 137
Fan analysis for fun, based on how each character solves problems on screen or on the page.
- Mike Ross' IQ (fan estimate 138): Suits. 1 point above IQ 137.
- Lisa Simpson's IQ (fan estimate 140): The Simpsons. 3 points above IQ 137.
- Arisu Sakayanagi's IQ (fan estimate 142): Classroom of the Elite. 5 points above IQ 137.
See all historical IQ estimates or all fictional character IQs.
Degrees, universities and jobs around 137
Rough benchmarks from our profiles that sit within a few points of 137. Degree and university figures are estimates derived from admissions-test averages, not measured IQs.
College majors
- MathematicsCollege major135
Universities
- Imperial College LondonLondon, UK138
These are benchmarks, never hiring or admission cutoffs. People well outside these numbers study, get admitted and do these jobs well every year.
137 compared with nearby scores
The scores one and five points either side of 137, plus the round numbers from 100 to 150, side by side. Tap any score for its full page.
What an IQ of 137 looks like on the SAT, ACT and other tests
People with an IQ of 137 typically score about 1500 on the SAT and about 32 on the ACT composite. Scores vary a lot from person to person, so the range shows where about four in five land.
| Test | Typical score | Likely range |
|---|---|---|
| SAT | 1500 | 1300 to 1600 |
| ACT | 32 | 25 to 36 |
| GRE | 329 | 314 to 340 |
| LSAT | 167 | 157 to 176 |
| Wonderlic | 35 | 29 to 41 |
| ASVAB | 98 | 89 to 99 |
Estimates from a regression model with published inputs and stated assumptions. How the conversion works, or convert your own score.
Questions about an IQ of 137
Is 137 a good IQ?
What percentile is an IQ of 137?
Is 137 genius level?
What does an IQ of 137 mean?
How rare is an IQ of 137?
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Next in IQ scores
More in IQ scores
- IQ 140 percentileVery superior, rarer than 1 in 200
- SAT, ACT and GRE to IQConvert a test score to IQ
- IQ 110 percentileHigh average, the top quarter
Related tools
- IQ chartEvery band and what it means
- IQ bell curvePlot a score on the distribution
- IQ rarity calculatorHow rare a score is, as 1 in N
Is your IQ above 137?
See where you land next to 137 with 25 visual reasoning questions.
25 questions · about 12 minutes
Percentiles and counts use a normal distribution with mean 100 and standard deviation 15. Real tests have their own norms, confidence intervals and ceilings, so treat every figure here as an approximation, not a diagnosis. Two tests often give different numbers for the same person: here is why.
By the LifeScore Editorial Team. Reviewed October 2026. Editorial policy