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Notes -
many such cases. https://www.prepscholar.com/sat/s/scores/1500-sat-score-is-this-good
Not sure on your point. I wasn’t saying that can get you into any school. But it does seem to be a reasonable IQ level for top American public offices.
Also every school in the top 17 except Cal Tech has per class enrollment of over 1k. So I’m fairly sure being the 20k best SAT score makes you competitive far earlier than the 17th school.
The 20th school is Notre Dame. In the fictional world of the West Wing the POTUS went to Notre Dame which seems to be a reasonable place approximately to start the academic achievement area for smart enough to handle the intellectual rigor of top office.
I guess my point was, 1500 isnt all that special. Theres a lot of other kids with that score, and only a limited number of spots at top universities. Plus, the US system puts a lot more emphasis on things like sports, extracurriculars, legacies, and DEI than raw test scores. So a whole lot of smart kids dont get in to top schools (eg, me) while a lot of not-that-smart kids do.
Special - No.
But IQ 130 level does seem to be the line for smart enough for upper management in the US. Elon Musks had lower SAT scores but when it was harder so he’s probably about 140. A lot of Presidents seem to be around 130. We probably have 600k-1.5 million people around that level. For the pure IQ it seems a good place for the filter. Then other characteristics and experiences matter.
It also does seem to be the area where you start to be filtered into the top schools. And if not your like Honors College at big state school where they don’t have numbers to filter on whether you have the right DEI experience and activities.
Do you have any evidence for your claim that "a lot of presidents seem to be around 130?" I would peg most of them around 115. Smarter than average, but still close enough to average that they can relate to regular people and build up their social skills. I think a lot of very-smart individuals suffer from being alienated from other kids their age and grow up with poor social skills as a result. Or at least, that's what I tell myself... :/
edit: see for example JFK's Harvard application essay: https://archive.is/ss2qE which seems like something a bad student would grind out to try and salvage a C from a class where he understood nothing. Though, as that article notes, he did seem to understand the social importance of going to an elite university, in a way few teenagers fully grasp.
I just have the IQ charts which were trending on Twitter recently. They all seem to indicate 130 area. Kennedy fwiw seems to rank highly. I do not know how to interpret grades from the ‘30s. Seems like most of our Presidential candidates went to Harvard/Yale etc which even for a rich kid isn’t that easy to buy your way in if you are sub 120 IQ.
https://www.usnews.com/news/blogs/data-mine/2015/05/27/poindexter-in-chief-presidential-iqs-and-success-in-the-oval-office
https://thoughtcatalog.com/january-nelson/2021/06/presidents-ranked-by-iq/
That seems totally made up. Especially the way they report it to two decimal places, that's absurd. All we have for most presidents is vague rumors: https://www.powerfulprep.com/searching-for-the-presidents-test-scores/ . But apparently W Bush got a 1200 on his SAT score. It's still easy for him to get in anywhere, he wasn't just "a rich kid" but the son of a soon-to-be-president. Same with Chelsea Clinton and the Obama girls- they get in wherever the hell they want. It's such a stupid corrupt system.
I am seeing Bush took the SAT in 1964.
I am seeing in 1967 a high school drop out rate of 17%.
https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d17/tables/dt17_219.70.asp
For high school graduates it looks like males went to college in 1964 at a 57% rate.
https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d99/d99t187.asp
It looks like in 1969 a 550 verbal SAT score was at 79% of SAT users and at 90% of a national representative sample. Bush was 566. A 650 math SAT was 89% of SAT users for boys. Bush scored 640. That probably puts him around 95% for everyone.
I did a google for top 5% of Americans IQ and it returned 125. This analysis would put George Bush around 123 IQ. The chart I shared before had him at 124.875. The chart seems broadly correct for Bush based on his SAT scores.
I think you forgot to adjust for changes in benchmarks on the SAT. Scores have gone up as the test has gotten easier. Similarly, I believe the average GPA is like 3.8 at Harvard now. B’s and C’s look bad today compared to today’s grading but they would essentially be A’s and A-‘s today.
My analysis points towards Bush being in the 94% based on SAT scores.
I can believe 125 (or thereabouts). I think that's about the sweet spot for political leaders- smarter than average but still relatable. No pausing while they search for the perfect word, they just speak directly.
But I don't believe the other ones, like saying John Quincy Adams was 168.75.
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