IQ 176

176 is 5.07 standard deviations above the mean. On a bell curve that works out to about 1 in 4.9 million people, which would mean about 14 in the UK and about 1,600 worldwide. The bell curve is a model, though, and at this height it is doing most of the work.

Major individually administered adult tests typically report full-scale scores up to about 160. A reported number above that usually comes from extended norms, a different scale or extrapolation.

Some tests publish extended norms above 160 for exceptional children. These rest on very small samples and on modelling, so they are best treated as rough rankings.

A 176 almost never comes from a modern, supervised adult test. It usually comes from somewhere like this:

• Ratio IQ. Early childhood tests divided mental age by real age. A 6-year-old solving puzzles like a typical 10.6-year-old got a ratio IQ of 176. Modern deviation IQs do not work this way.
• Unnormed online quizzes. A test with no norm data can print any number. Very high outputs usually say more about the scoring than the person.
• Repetition without a source. Numbers attached to celebrities are often copied from site to site with no test report behind them.

42 of the historical profiles on this site carry an estimate of 160 or more, and 4 reach 176 or higher. Isaac Newton and Leonardo da Vinci are the classic examples. Their numbers are retrospective judgements based on their work, not test scores.

Estimates this high mostly reflect how extraordinary the achievement was. That is a different thing from how someone would perform on a timed reasoning test.

If IQ follows the standard bell curve, 0.00002% of people score 176 or higher. Here is what that share means across whole populations:

Compare the neighbours: 171 or higher is about 1 in 904,000, 176 or higher is 1 in 4.9 million, and 181 or higher is 1 in 30 million. Each point up here adds roughly 42% to the rarity.

What your 176 could really be. No test is precise this far out. Even a 5-point error band, from 171 to 181, spans a rarity gap of about 33 times, so the exact number matters much less than "very far above average".

Which scale was it on? Most modern tests use a standard deviation of 15, which is what this page assumes. If your 176 came from a test using an SD of 16, it is about 171 on the SD 15 scale. From an SD 24 scale, used by some Cattell-style reports, it is about 148.

Nobody famous has a verified IQ in most cases, and retrospective estimates are only made for a narrow group.

Our historical estimates start at 115, so nobody sits close to 176. That is not because famous people score higher. Estimates are only attempted for people with extraordinary records, which leaves ordinary scores unrepresented.

Nearby scores and the round-number landmarks, so you can see how quickly the percentile changes around 176. Every row links to that score's page.