What is Hillary Clinton’s IQ?
Plausible and unsourced: the 140 has no test behind it, and the 182 that turns up beside her name is her husband’s figure from a 2001 hoax.
No IQ test result has ever been published for Hillary Clinton, so her IQ is not on record. What is documented — a National Merit Scholarship finalist rank reported in her 1965 school newspaper, an honors thesis graded A at Wellesley, a Yale law degree — supports an estimated IQ of about 130–145, a range that contains the circulating 140.
Hillary Clinton’s estimated IQ
- National Merit Scholarship finalist at Maine South High School, class of 1965; the school newspaper described finalists as the upper half of one percent of high school seniors, chosen from qualifying-test scores. She also graduated in the top five percent of her class.
- B.A. in political science from Wellesley College, 1969, with honors; her senior honors thesis on the community organizer Saul Alinsky earned an A after an oral defense in May 1969.
- J.D. from Yale Law School, 1973, with service on the board of the Yale Review of Law and Social Action and a fourth year at the Yale Child Study Center.
- Named one of the 100 most influential lawyers in America by The National Law Journal in 1988 and again in 1991, after becoming the first woman made a full partner at the Rose Law Firm in 1979.
No IQ, SAT or LSAT score has been published for her, and the National Merit result is a reported rank, not a number, so none of this is a measurement. Honors, degrees and careers reflect effort, opportunity and judgment as well as ability; Riot IQ’s 2026 review (Dr. Russell T. Warne) concludes only that her record supports a level well above average, and this range is that judgment put into numbers.
- Born
- October 26, 1947, Chicago, Illinois
- Education
- Maine South High School (1965); Wellesley College, B.A. political science, 1969, with honors; Yale Law School, J.D. 1973
- Documented tests
- National Merit Scholarship finalist rank reported in 1965. No IQ, SAT or LSAT score published
- Legal recognition
- The National Law Journal’s 100 most influential lawyers in America, 1988 and 1991
- Public office
- U.S. Senator from New York, 2001–2009; 67th Secretary of State, 2009–2013
- 2016
- Democratic Party’s presidential nominee, the first woman nominated by a major U.S. party
- Circulating IQ figure
- 140, with no test, examiner or date cited
- Estimated range here
- 130–145 (achievement and academic record)
What an IQ of 130–145 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 Hillary Clinton is
Hillary Diane Rodham was born on October 26, 1947 in Chicago and grew up in suburban Park Ridge, Illinois. She graduated from Maine South High School in 1965 in the top five percent of her class and was voted Most Likely to Succeed. At Wellesley College she majored in political science and, as president of the Wellesley College Government Association, became the first student to address the college’s commencement, on May 31, 1969, when Senator Edward W. Brooke was the main speaker. Some accounts call her that class’s valedictorian; NBC News reported in 2007 that she was not. She was an honors student, and her senior honors thesis on the community organizer Saul Alinsky, “There Is Only the Fight…: An Analysis of the Alinsky Model,” earned an A after an oral defense that May.
She entered Yale Law School in the fall of 1969, served on the board of the Yale Review of Law and Social Action, took her J.D. in 1973 and stayed a fourth year at the Yale Child Study Center. She met Bill Clinton at Yale. In 1974 she worked on the House Judiciary Committee’s impeachment inquiry staff in Washington, then moved to Arkansas to teach criminal and constitutional law at the University of Arkansas School of Law in Fayetteville, where she also ran a legal services clinic; she married Bill Clinton there on October 11, 1975. Yale Law School gave her its Award of Merit in 2013, which it describes as its highest honor.
In 1977 she helped found Arkansas Advocates for Children and Families, the year President Jimmy Carter appointed her to the board of the Legal Services Corporation. In 1979 she became the first woman made a full partner at the Rose Law Firm in Little Rock. The National Law Journal named her one of the 100 most influential lawyers in America in 1988 and again in 1991, and Wellesley’s 2003 Alumnae Achievement Awards page lists her as chair of the board of the Children’s Defense Fund from 1986 and of the American Bar Association’s Committee on Women in the Profession in 1987.
She was First Lady from 1993 to 2001 and, in 2000, became the first First Lady elected to the U.S. Senate. She took her seat for New York on January 3, 2001, was re-elected in 2006, and resigned on January 21, 2009 to become the 67th Secretary of State, serving until February 1, 2013 under President Barack Obama. On July 26, 2016 the Democratic National Convention nominated her for president, making her the first woman named the presidential nominee of a major U.S. party. Her books include It Takes a Village and Other Lessons Children Teach Us, whose audio recording won a 1997 Grammy Award, Living History (2003), Hard Choices (2014) and What Happened (2017).
By Elora Mercer, Celebrity Research WriterFigures checked by Leon Falkner, Data & Research AnalystReviewed by Aarav Vardhan, Editor-in-Chief · Last reviewed August 2026
Hillary Clinton: 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.
- 1947Born in Chicago on October 26; grows up in Park Ridge, Illinois.
- 1965Graduates from Maine South High School in the top five percent of her class; a National Merit Scholarship finalist, per the school newspaper of February 26.
- 1969Graduates from Wellesley College with honors in political science; on May 31 becomes the first student to address its commencement.
- 1973Takes her J.D. at Yale Law School.
- 1974–75Works on the House Judiciary Committee’s impeachment inquiry staff, moves to Arkansas to teach law, and marries Bill Clinton on October 11, 1975.
- 1979Becomes the first woman made a full partner at the Rose Law Firm in Little Rock.
- 1988First of two National Law Journal listings among the 100 most influential lawyers in America; the second follows in 1991.
- 2001Takes her U.S. Senate seat for New York on January 3; a July e-mail hoax that gives Bill Clinton an IQ of 182 does not include her.
- 2009Sworn in as the 67th Secretary of State on January 21; serves until February 1, 2013.
- 2016Nominated for president by the Democratic National Convention on July 26, the first woman nominated by a major U.S. party.
Where the 140 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.
What is the IQ of Hillary Clinton? Search the question and the same number keeps coming back: 140. It is stated flatly on celebrityiqs.com, which files it under “Politician” and says its scores are for entertainment only; on iqtesta.com, which calls it a genius-level score; and in a Christian Post roundup of June 16, 2012 that mentions it in a side note, set against the 137 it gives her husband. None of the three names a test, an examiner or a date; each simply repeats the figure. A score around 140 would put someone in roughly the top 0.4 percent of the population (what an IQ of 140 means), which is exactly the kind of claim that needs a test behind it. The one thing that has been measured is opinion: YouGov’s poll of 2,280 U.S. adult citizens, published in November 2025, gave her a net perceived-IQ score of +22, the share rating her IQ above average minus the share rating it below, which records reputation, not ability. How numbers like this usually arise is covered in where celebrity IQ numbers come from.
The number that does trace to a hoax belongs to her husband. The July 2001 “Lovenstein Institute” e-mail ranked twelve presidents from Franklin D. Roosevelt to George W. Bush; History News Network’s reproduction of it gives Bill Clinton 182 and George W. Bush 91 and covers presidents only, so the list itself cannot be the source of a figure for her. The two names still collide in search. Answers.com carries a page titled “What is Hillary Clinton’s IQ score?” whose first answer cites the hoax’s 182 for “Clinton” and continues with “his” IQ: an answer about Bill filed under a question about Hillary. A search for the IQ of Hillary Clinton can therefore hand back a number that a joke assigned to someone else. For presidential IQ rankings in general, see US presidents ranked by IQ.
The peer-reviewed alternative to a hoax does not reach her either. Dean Keith Simonton’s 2006 study in Political Psychology estimated IQ for all 42 presidents from Washington to George W. Bush, which is why the IQ of Bill Clinton has a published range, 136–159, and his wife’s has none from that source. Riot IQ’s 2026 review makes the same point and adds that her SAT and LSAT results have not been made public. The two Clinton pages therefore agree on what matters, that no test score exists for either. Their ranges differ because their evidence does, a published study for him and a documented academic record for her, not because any source ranks one above the other; hers overlaps his from 136 to 145. The same record-based method puts Barack Obama, the president she served under as Secretary of State, at 130–145 on a record that includes the presidency of the Harvard Law Review, and Margaret Thatcher at 135–150. Placed beside them, Hillary Clinton’s estimated IQ level is a band, not a point.
The nearest thing to a test result is an old one. BuzzFeed News, drawing on the Maine South school newspaper Southwords of February 26, 1965, reports that she was a National Merit Scholarship finalist; the paper described finalists as the upper half of one percent of high school seniors, first picked as semifinalists on National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test scores. The report gives no score. Half of one percent sits about 2.6 standard deviations above the mean, roughly 139 on the standard deviation-15 scale if the test were a perfect measure of general ability. It is not, and an extreme result on one test is expected to sit nearer the middle on another (regression to the mean), which is why the range here starts at 130 rather than 139. The other tests on record are professional: in summer 1973 she passed the Arkansas bar examination and was not among the 551 of 817 candidates who passed the District of Columbia’s. These are achievement tests, not IQ tests, and a licensing exam that about a third of candidates did not pass that summer is a weak signal about general ability in either direction.
How we read a number →Confirms that May 31, 1969 was the first year a student addressed Wellesley’s commencement (Senator Edward W. Brooke was the main speaker) and that President Ruth M. Adams introduced her as a political science major and a candidate for the degree with honors. The 2003 alumnae-awards page confirms The National Law Journal listings in 1988 and 1991.
Birth on October 26, 1947 in Chicago; B.A. 1969 and J.D. 1973; 1974 impeachment inquiry staff; Senate service from January 3, 2001 to January 21, 2009; sworn in as 67th Secretary of State on January 21, 2009, term ended February 1, 2013; first First Lady elected to the Senate.
Top five percent of her class and Most Likely to Succeed at Maine South (1965); Yale Law from fall 1969 and the Yale Review of Law and Social Action board; University of Arkansas law teaching and legal services clinic; marriage on October 11, 1975; 1977 Legal Services Corporation appointment; the 1997 Grammy Award and her books.
NBC: a senior honors thesis in political science, graded A after an oral defense in May; she was an honors student but not the class valedictorian. BuzzFeed, reproducing the Maine South newspaper Southwords of February 26, 1965: she was a National Merit Scholarship finalist, a rank the paper put in the upper half of one percent of seniors.
Summer 1973: 817 people took the District of Columbia bar exam and 551 passed; Hillary Rodham was not one of them, and she passed Arkansas’s, as her 2003 memoir Living History recounts.
Estimates IQ for the 42 chief executives from George Washington to George W. Bush only, so no scholarly estimate exists for her; the study behind the 136–159 range on the Bill Clinton page.
Twelve presidents, Franklin D. Roosevelt to George W. Bush, with Bill Clinton at 182 and George W. Bush at 91; no entry for Hillary Clinton or any non-president. The Museum of Hoaxes traces the joke to linkydinky.com; Wikipedia records The Guardian repeating it on July 19, 2001.
Source of the uncited 140. celebrityiqs.com lists it with an entertainment-only disclaimer; iqtesta.com calls it a genius-level score with no source or date; the Christian Post gives it in one unattributed sentence beside a reported 137 for Bill Clinton; the Answers.com page titled “What is Hillary Clinton’s IQ score?” answers with the hoax’s 182 for Bill.
YouGov’s two online surveys of 2,280 U.S. adult citizens (October 27 to November 1, 2025) gave her a net perceived-IQ score of +22: what people think, not a measurement. Riot IQ finds no traceable source for the 140, no published IQ, SAT or LSAT result, and no scholarly estimate.
We looked for an IQ, SAT or LSAT score in every page above, in the 2001 “Lovenstein Institute” list and in Simonton’s presidents-only study, and none contains one. The National Merit standing is reported as a rank, not a score, and the 1973 bar results are pass or did-not-pass outcomes.
The sources behind our estimate
The figures that circulate for Hillary Clinton, what we were able to confirm, and where the two diverge.
The Hillary Clinton IQ score most often given is 140. It appears as a bare number on celebrity-IQ listing sites and in one sentence of a 2012 Christian Post roundup, where it is set against her husband’s reported 137.
We found no published IQ test result for Hillary Clinton, and no page that states the 140 names a test, an examiner or a date. celebrityiqs.com lists “IQ: 140” in a table and says its scores are for entertainment only; iqtesta.com calls it a genius-level score with no source; the Christian Post’s June 16, 2012 roundup gives it in a side note with no attribution. Riot IQ (Dr. Russell T. Warne, August 16, 2026) looked for an origin and found none. She is also absent from the 2001 “Lovenstein Institute” list: History News Network’s reproduction names twelve presidents, Franklin D. Roosevelt to George W. Bush, and no one else.
The circulating 140 sits inside the range her record supports, so it is plausible, and plausible is all it is: no test, date or examiner stands behind it, and unlike her husband’s 182 it does not come from the 2001 hoax list. Usually the documented record supports a lower range than the number that circulates; here the record does not push the number down, it simply cannot confirm it.
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.
Hillary Clinton — frequently asked
What is Hillary Clinton’s IQ?
Hillary Clinton’s IQ is unknown: no IQ test result has ever been published for her, and the 140 that circulates online cites no test. Her documented record, from a National Merit Scholarship finalist place in 1965 to a Wellesley honors thesis and a Yale law degree, supports an estimated IQ of roughly 130–145.
Is Hillary Clinton’s IQ 140?
No published test confirms it. The 140 appears on celebrity-IQ sites and in a 2012 Christian Post roundup with no test, date or examiner behind it, and one of those sites calls its own scores entertainment. It falls inside the 130–145 range her record supports, so it is plausible, but plausible is not measured.
Did Hillary Clinton ever take an IQ test?
No record of an IQ test exists: no result has been published or reliably reported for her. The tests that are documented are different ones, the qualifying test behind her 1965 National Merit finalist standing and the 1973 bar exams. No SAT or LSAT score appears in the sources checked.
How does Hillary Clinton’s estimated IQ compare with Bill Clinton’s?
Neither has a test score. Bill Clinton’s estimated range on this site is 136–159, drawn from a peer-reviewed 2006 study of presidents; Hillary Clinton was outside that study, so her 130–145 is inferred from her academic record. The ranges overlap from 136 to 145, and no source ranks one above the other.
Is Hillary Clinton’s IQ 182?
No. The 182 belongs to her husband, Bill Clinton, in a fabricated 2001 “Lovenstein Institute” ranking of twelve presidents that has no entry for her. At least one question-and-answer page titled “What is Hillary Clinton’s IQ score?” repeats the 182 in an answer about Bill. No published test result exists for either Clinton.
Was Hillary Clinton a National Merit Scholar?
She was a National Merit Scholarship finalist at Maine South High School in the class of 1965, according to BuzzFeed News, which cites the school newspaper. That paper described finalists as the upper half of one percent of seniors, chosen from qualifying-test scores. Her score has not been published, and the sources checked do not say whether she won a scholarship.
Did Hillary Clinton pass the bar exam?
In summer 1973 she passed the Arkansas bar exam and was not among the candidates who passed the District of Columbia’s: 551 of 817 passed that summer, according to PolitiFact. She wrote about both results in her 2003 memoir Living History. A single licensing result says little about IQ.
How does my IQ compare with Hillary Clinton?
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
More politics
Photograph by Vladimir Smirnov / TASS, CC BY 4.0. Cropped from a wider photograph; background removed for the portrait above. · Official White House photograph by Emily J. Higgins (2026), public domain. Background removed for the portrait above. · Portrait by Gilbert Stuart (the Williamstown portrait, his copy of the Athenaeum portrait, in the Clark Art Institute), public domain.
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