What is JD Vance’s IQ?
A Yale law degree is real. The “140” built on top of it is one commentator’s guess about a score nobody has ever released.
Vance graduated Ohio State summa cum laude and earned a JD from Yale. The “140+” attached to him online is a magazine writer’s inference from an admissions range, not a score he has ever released.
JD Vance’s estimated IQ
- B.A., political science and philosophy, Ohio State University, 2009, summa cum laude.
- J.D., Yale Law School, 2013.
- Author of Hillbilly Elegy (2016), a #1 New York Times bestseller.
- US Marine Corps, 2003–2007, including a deployment to Iraq as a public-affairs Marine.
No IQ or standardized test score has ever been published for Vance, and his LSAT score has never been released. This range is inferred from a completed, honors-level academic record, not from any test.
- Born
- August 2, 1984, Middletown, Ohio
- Education
- B.A., Ohio State University (2009, summa cum laude); J.D., Yale Law School (2013)
- Military service
- US Marine Corps, 2003–2007; deployed to Iraq
- Notable book
- Hillbilly Elegy (2016), #1 New York Times bestseller
- Current role
- Vice President of the United States (since January 20, 2025)
What an IQ of 120–135 actually means
Set the claim aside for a moment. If someone genuinely scored in this range, here is what that would represent.
Average is 100 by construction, and about two-thirds of people fall between 85 and 115. Take the test to place your own score on this scale.
| Score range | Classification | Share of people | What it indicates |
|---|---|---|---|
| 85 – 114 | Average | ~68% | The range most people fall into. |
| 115 – 129 | Above average | ~13.6% | Roughly one person in seven. |
| 130 – 144 | Gifted | ~2% | The threshold most high-IQ societies use. |
| Above 144 | Highly gifted | ~0.1% | Figures above this range are extrapolated from the curve rather than measured. |
Percentages are approximate and describe a normal distribution. The same number means different things on tests with different standard deviations.
Thirty questions gives you a measured position on this exact scale — your score, your percentile and the ability breakdown behind it.
Find out in 30 minutes →Who JD Vance is
James David Vance was born August 2, 1984, in Middletown, Ohio. He enlisted in the US Marine Corps in 2003 at nineteen, served as a public-affairs Marine, and deployed to Iraq for roughly six months in 2005–2006 before being discharged in 2007 as a Corporal.
He enrolled at Ohio State University that year, graduating in 2009 with a B.A. in political science and philosophy, summa cum laude. He then attended Yale Law School, earning his J.D. in 2013, where he held a citation-checking staff position on the Yale Law Journal and was mentored by professor Amy Chua. After a clerkship for Judge David Bunning in Kentucky, he worked in venture capital, co-founding Narya Capital in 2019.
His 2016 memoir, Hillbilly Elegy, reached #1 on the New York Times bestseller list and was adapted into a 2020 film. He was elected US Senator from Ohio in 2022 and inaugurated as Vice President of the United States on January 20, 2025.
By Elora Mercer, Celebrity Research WriterFigures checked by Leon Falkner, Data & Research AnalystReviewed by Aarav Vardhan, Editor-in-Chief · Last reviewed August 2026
JD Vance: the documented record
The estimate above rests on this record. Every entry here is a matter of public fact, which is more than can be said for the number itself.
- 2003Enlists in the US Marine Corps.
- 2005–2006Deploys to Iraq as a public-affairs Marine.
- 2009Graduates Ohio State, B.A. political science and philosophy, summa cum laude.
- 2013Earns a J.D. from Yale Law School; clerks for Judge David Bunning.
- 2016Publishes Hillbilly Elegy, which reaches #1 on the NYT bestseller list.
- 2019Co-founds Narya Capital.
- 2022Elected US Senator from Ohio.
- 2025Inaugurated as Vice President of the United States.
Where the 134 figure came from
Following a claim back to its first appearance is the part almost nobody does — and it is what most people are actually asking.
134 is the figure most often repeated for Vance, from sites that describe their own numbers as estimates built from “academic credentials and writing ability” rather than from a test. A separate, more specific claim — that his IQ is “likely north of 140” — comes from a 2016 magazine piece reasoning backward from Yale Law School’s typical admitted-student LSAT range. That is an inference about the school’s admissions pool, not a report of Vance’s own score, which has never been released.
The documented record instead is academic: a Bachelor’s degree from Ohio State completed summa cum laude in 2009, and a Juris Doctor from Yale Law School in 2013 — one of the most selective law schools in the country by admissions statistics. One commonly repeated detail is worth correcting on its own terms: campaign biographies have described him as “Editor of the Yale Law Journal,” but reporting on his actual role there describes a staff position doing citation-checking, not a senior editorship — a smaller distinction than the title implies, and a useful example of exactly the kind of inflation this site exists to check.
No test score changes hands anywhere in this record. What is real is two completed degrees, one of them from a highly selective program, and a widely read book. What is inferred is everything past that.
How we read a number →Confirms J.D., class of 2013.
Describes his Yale Law Journal role as a staff, citation-checking position.
Biographical and career timeline.
Source of the “north of 140” inference from Yale Law’s LSAT admissions range.
Source of the self-described, uncited 125–135 estimate.
Neither has ever been released by Vance or independently documented.
The sources behind our estimate
The figures that circulate for JD Vance, what we were able to confirm, and where the two diverge.
Estimate sites cluster around 134; a 2016 magazine piece separately inferred “north of 140” from Yale Law’s admissions range.
No IQ or standardized test result has been published for Vance. The “140+” figure rests on reasoning from Yale Law School’s admitted-student LSAT range rather than from any score Vance has released — his own LSAT result has never been made public.
The higher end of the spread is not a claim about Vance’s own test result at all — it’s an inference from what other admitted students at his school typically scored.
Want a number that does hold up? Every figure on this page is somebody’s claim. Take the 30-question test and get a percentile you can check rather than a figure you have to trust.
JD Vance — frequently asked
What is JD Vance’s IQ?
No test result has ever been published. Estimate sites cluster around 134, describing their own numbers as inferences rather than scores.
Did JD Vance graduate summa cum laude from Ohio State?
Yes — a B.A. in political science and philosophy, 2009.
Was JD Vance an editor of the Yale Law Journal?
He held a staff position doing citation-checking rather than a senior editorship; descriptions of him as its “editor” overstate the role.
What did JD Vance do in the Marine Corps?
He enlisted in 2003, served as a public-affairs Marine, and deployed to Iraq for about six months in 2005–2006.
Where does the “140+” figure for JD Vance come from?
A 2016 magazine article inferred it from Yale Law School’s typical admitted-student LSAT range — not from any score Vance has released himself.
Has JD Vance ever released his LSAT or an IQ score?
No — neither has been made public in any source checked for this page.
How does my IQ compare with JD Vance?
You can find out in about fifteen minutes. The IQ Metrics assessment is 30 questions, scored on the same 100-mean scale used throughout this page, so your result and the estimate above are at least expressed in the same units — one measured, one inferred. Once you have a number, the leaderboard shows where it would sit, and how we score and norm it explains the benchmarking.
Where does this estimate come from?
From the documented record rather than a test — the method is named above and set out in full under how we read a number. Compare it against the other politics profiles, starting with Thomas Jefferson.
- Take the 30-question IQ test — get a measured score and percentile of your own
- Average IQ by country — how the scale behaves across populations
- How IQ Metrics scores its assessment — the method behind our own number
- More on how IQ testing works — reliability, error and what a score can and cannot say
- More politics profiles — same field, same method
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Photograph by Yousuf Karsh, Ottawa, 1941 — public domain in Canada and the United States; the Library and Archives Canada scan is CC BY 2.0. · Photograph by Rob Bogaerts, Nationaal Archief, CC0. Background removed for the portrait above. · Photograph by Raimond Spekking, CC BY-SA 4.0. Background removed for the portrait above.
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