What is Caitlin Clark’s IQ?
“Basketball IQ” describes her passing. A Caitlin Clark IQ score is a different thing, and nobody has published one.
No Caitlin Clark IQ score has ever been published, and no figure that circulates traces to a test, a date or a named examiner. What is documented is a 3.64 grade-point average in marketing, two Academic All-America Team Member of the Year awards and 1,144 career assists at Iowa — and “basketball IQ,” the coaching phrase for how she reads a court, which is not a test score.
Caitlin Clark’s estimated IQ
- Named the College Sports Communicators Academic All-America Team Member of the Year for Division I women’s basketball in both 2022–23 (3.60 grade-point average) and 2023–24 (3.64), majoring in marketing; the 2023 announcement called her the first Iowa student-athlete to receive the award, and the 2024 one the seventh player to win it in back-to-back seasons.
- An honors student in the University of Iowa’s Tippie College of Business — a marketing major with a communication studies minor, on the Dean’s List but, in her own words, without “a 4.0” — while playing a full Division I schedule.
- Led NCAA Division I in assists in 2021–22 (8.0 a game), 2022–23 (8.6) and 2023–24 (8.9) and finished with 1,144 career assists alongside 3,951 points: a sustained record of passing decisions, which is what “basketball IQ” describes, not an intelligence measurement.
- Taken first overall by the Indiana Fever in the 2024 WNBA Draft, led the league with 8.4 assists a game as a rookie, and averaged 22.3 points and 8.3 assists in the 2026 season, according to WNBA.com.
These anchors are grades in a business major and passing statistics, and neither is a validated stand-in for an intelligence test: a grade-point average reflects effort and course choice as well as ability, and assists depend on teammates and system. No SAT, ACT or other standardized score appears in any source we found, so the range is a sketch built from public records, not an estimate of a number that was never measured.
- Born
- January 22, 2002; raised in West Des Moines, Iowa
- Field
- Basketball — point guard, Indiana Fever (WNBA), as of October 2026
- High school
- Dowling Catholic High School, West Des Moines
- College
- University of Iowa, 2020–2024 — marketing, Tippie College of Business (B.B.A., 2024)
- Academic honors
- Academic All-America Team Member of the Year, 2022–23 (GPA 3.60) and 2023–24 (3.64)
- College records
- 3,951 career points, the Division I record for men and women; 548 three-pointers; 1,144 assists
- Honors
- Naismith and Wooden national player of the year, 2023 and 2024; 2024 WNBA Rookie of the Year
- Published IQ test
- None; no SAT or ACT result published either
What an IQ of 115–130 actually means
Set the claim aside for a moment. If someone genuinely scored in this range, here is what that would represent.
| 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 Caitlin Clark is
Caitlin Clark was born on January 22, 2002, in Iowa and grew up in West Des Moines, where she played for the All Iowa Attack AAU program from sixth grade and then at Dowling Catholic High School. She finished at Dowling Catholic with 2,547 points, the fourth-most in Iowa five-on-five history, set a state single-game record with 13 three-pointers as a junior, was twice named Iowa Gatorade Player of the Year and was ranked the fourth-best player in her class by ESPN. She was selected for the McDonald’s All-American Game and the Jordan Brand Classic in 2020, though both were canceled because of COVID-19, and had committed to Iowa on November 12, 2019, choosing it over offers from Iowa State and Notre Dame.
At the University of Iowa (2020–2024) she studied in the Tippie College of Business, majoring in marketing with a minor in communication studies; Tippie described her as an honors student on the Dean’s List, and quoted Cathy Zaharis, an emeritus professor of practice in finance, calling her “a really smart person” — an opinion, not a measurement. The College Sports Communicators named her its Division I women’s basketball Academic All-America Team Member of the Year in 2023 (3.60 GPA) and 2024 (3.64), the latter her third first-team selection. CNN lists her degree as a B.B.A. in marketing, 2024.
On the court she was Big Ten Player of the Year in 2022, 2023 and 2024, won three straight Big Ten Tournaments (2022–2024) as most outstanding player, and took both the Naismith and the John R. Wooden national player-of-the-year awards in 2023 and 2024. Iowa reached the national championship game in both seasons, losing 102–85 in 2023 and 87–75 to South Carolina in 2024. She passed Kelsey Plum (3,527 points) for the Division I women’s scoring record on February 15, 2024, and on March 3, 2024 passed Pete Maravich of LSU (3,667) to become the Division I career scoring leader among men or women, finishing with 3,951 points, 548 three-pointers and 1,144 assists. Iowa retired her No. 22 on February 2, 2025.
The Indiana Fever selected her first overall in the 2024 WNBA Draft on April 15, 2024. She led the WNBA with 8.4 assists a game as a rookie, became the first rookie in league history to record a triple-double (July 6, 2024, against the New York Liberty) and was named 2024 WNBA Rookie of the Year in a near-unanimous vote. As of October 2026 she is a point guard for the Fever, who finished their 2026 season on October 1 with a loss to the Las Vegas Aces in Game 3 of a first-round series; WNBA.com lists her season averages at 22.3 points and 8.3 assists.
By Elora Mercer, Celebrity Research WriterFigures checked by Leon Falkner, Data & Research AnalystReviewed by Aarav Vardhan, Editor-in-Chief · Last reviewed August 2026
.jpg){kind=link}
Caitlin Clark: 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.
- 2002Born January 22; grows up in West Des Moines, Iowa.
- November 12, 2019Commits to the University of Iowa out of Dowling Catholic High School.
- 2022Unanimous Big Ten Player of the Year; wins the first of three straight Big Ten Tournaments as most outstanding player; leads Division I with 8.0 assists a game.
- 2023Wins the Naismith and Wooden awards and the first of two Academic All-America Team Member of the Year honors (3.60 GPA); Iowa loses the national championship game, 102–85.
- February 15, 2024Passes Kelsey Plum (3,527) for the NCAA Division I women’s career scoring record.
- March 3, 2024Passes Pete Maravich (3,667) as the Division I career scoring leader among men or women.
- April 2024Finishes with 3,951 points after the April 7 title game; repeats the Naismith, Wooden and Academic All-America honors (3.64); taken first overall by the Indiana Fever on April 15.
- October 3, 2024Named WNBA Rookie of the Year after leading the league with 8.4 assists a game.
- February 2, 2025Iowa retires her No. 22 jersey.
- October 1, 2026The Fever’s 2026 season ends with a 94–83 loss to the Las Vegas Aces in Game 3 of a first-round series; Clark averaged 22.3 points and 8.3 assists during the season.
Why no figure circulates
Following a claim back to its first appearance is the part almost nobody does — and it is what most people are actually asking.
Caitlin Clark’s IQ has no origin story because there is no number to trace. Searches for “Caitlin Clark IQ,” “Caitlin Clark IQ score,” “Caitlin Clark IQ level” and “what is Caitlin Clark’s IQ” returned writing about her basketball IQ and no test, date or examiner, and none of the celebrity-IQ lists in those results assigned her a score. That is unusual: most names in this section carry a figure repeated from site to site, and where celebrity IQ numbers come from is usually a quiz, a listicle or nothing at all.
Caitlin Clark’s basketball IQ is the phrase that does circulate, and it describes something real that is not a test score. Basketball IQ is a coaching, broadcasting and fan term for reading a game: anticipating where a pass should go, recognizing a defense, deciding quickly. In Clark’s case it attaches to specific moments. When Iowa beat UConn 71–69 in the 2024 Final Four, Sports Illustrated headlined a late-game inbound play, in which she bounced the ball off an opponent’s back to take a full second off the clock, a “High IQ Move.” A year later the same outlet quoted her on her passing: “I would say it’s my IQ,” she said, adding that she can see things about to happen on the court before they do. Her words and the headline are about basketball decisions; neither is a psychometric result.
The reason to keep the two apart is the one that applies to every athlete on this site. A player’s decisions are drawn from thousands of hours inside one game, which is closer to domain expertise than to what an IQ test samples — reasoning on unfamiliar problems — and how far the two overlap is a question for research, not for a highlight reel; see whether intelligence is limited to IQ and the difference between executive function and IQ. Assists, awards and records show she is exceptional at one task. They do not convert into points on a scale whose average is 100, and a page that claims they do has replaced something documented with something invented.
What the documented record supports is an above-average-to-high band typical of accomplished college graduates, not a genius-level figure. A 3.60 and then a 3.64 grade-point average in a business major, kept up through a full Division I schedule, is the strongest checkable signal here, and it is why the floor of the range is 115 rather than 105. The range of 115–130 overlaps those of Michael Jordan (115–135) and LeBron James (105–120) and sits below Bill Bradley’s 135–150, which uses the same achievement-and-academic-record method. For what a score near that band means, see what an IQ of 125 means; for a number of your own, a timed, normed instrument such as the IQ Metrics test is the only route, because nothing in a stat line replaces one.
How we read a number →Names Clark the Division I Team Member of the Year in both seasons: 3.60 GPA, marketing (2023, first Iowa student-athlete to receive it) and 3.64 GPA, marketing (2024, seventh to repeat; third first-team selection). Division I team’s collective GPA that year was 3.77.
Marketing major with a communication studies minor, honors student, Dean’s List but not the President’s List; Clark: “I don’t have a 4.0”; emeritus professor Cathy Zaharis: “a really smart person.”
Hometown West Des Moines; two-time Iowa Gatorade Player of the Year; first overall pick of the Indiana Fever.
Guard, 6-0, born Jan 22, 2002, college Iowa, 2024 draft round 1 pick 1; current-season averages of 22.3 points and 8.3 assists; career 20.2 points and 8.4 assists.
3,951 career points; Maravich’s 3,667 and Plum’s 3,527; 1,144 assists and 548 three-pointers; led the nation in assists three straight seasons; the 87–75 title-game loss on April 7.
The two places “IQ” attaches to her: a late-game inbound play in the 71–69 Final Four win over UConn, and her own words “I would say it’s my IQ” on passing. Both are basketball usage, not test results.
B.B.A. in marketing, University of Iowa, 2024; record dates of February 15 and March 3, 2024; draft on April 15, 2024; Rookie of the Year on October 3, 2024; first rookie triple-double on July 6, 2024; No. 22 retired February 2, 2025.
Orientation and cross-check: Wikidata Q106298476 is the American basketball player born January 22, 2002; Dowling Catholic totals; season-by-season assists; Naismith and Wooden winners for 2022–23 and 2023–24.
Las Vegas won the deciding first-round Game 3 by 94–83; the Fever were seeded sixth. Establishes her status as of October 2026.
No IQ, SAT, ACT or other cognitive test result for Caitlin Clark appears in any biography, official record or coverage we found. Searches for “Caitlin Clark IQ,” “IQ score” and “IQ level” returned basketball-IQ coverage only.
The sources behind our estimate
The figures that circulate for Caitlin Clark, what we were able to confirm, and where the two diverge.
No specific IQ number for Caitlin Clark turned up under searches for “Caitlin Clark IQ,” “Caitlin Clark IQ score” and “Caitlin Clark IQ level,” and none of the celebrity-IQ lists that surfaced named her. What circulates is the phrase “basketball IQ”: writers, broadcasters and fans use it for her passing and late-game decisions, and Clark herself was quoted in an April 2025 Sports Illustrated article on her passing as saying “I would say it’s my IQ.”
There is no published IQ test result for Caitlin Clark, and no number attached to her that cites a test. The searches returned coverage of her basketball IQ: Sports Illustrated’s April 2024 write-up of a late-game inbound play and its April 2025 piece on her passing. No SAT or ACT result is published in any source we found either. Her academic record is real and checkable: the College Sports Communicators named her Academic All-America Team Member of the Year in 2023 and 2024.
With no circulating figure there is nothing to compare against, so these two numbers are only the ends of our own range: Caitlin Clark’s estimated IQ on this page is a band of 115–130 inferred from public records. The useful contrast is with Michael Jordan’s page, which starts from an unsourced 154 and falls to 115–135; Clark’s starts from no number at all, and the documented record lands in a similar band.
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.
Caitlin Clark — frequently asked
What is Caitlin Clark’s IQ?
No IQ test result for Caitlin Clark has been published, so her IQ is not known. Our estimated range is 115–130, inferred from her documented academic record — two Academic All-America Team Member of the Year awards, with 3.60 and 3.64 grade-point averages in marketing — and not from a measured score.
What is Caitlin Clark’s IQ score according to the internet?
There is no credible one. Searches for “Caitlin Clark IQ score” and “Caitlin Clark IQ level” return coverage of her basketball IQ and no test, date or examiner.
What is Caitlin Clark’s basketball IQ?
“Basketball IQ” is a coaching and fan term for decision-making and court vision, not a test score. Clark’s is documented in her passing: she led NCAA Division I in assists in 2021–22, 2022–23 and 2023–24, finished with 1,144 college assists, and led the WNBA with 8.4 assists a game as a rookie.
Is basketball IQ the same thing as an IQ score?
No. Basketball IQ describes sport-specific reading of a game — anticipating passes, recognizing defenses — built through years of repetition. An IQ score comes from a standardized test of reasoning on unfamiliar problems. A player can be excellent at the first with no published result on the second, as with Caitlin Clark.
Is Caitlin Clark smart?
Her record says yes in the ways it can be checked. She was the Academic All-America Team Member of the Year in 2023 and 2024 with 3.60 and 3.64 grade-point averages in marketing at Iowa, and a Tippie professor called her “a really smart person.” That is an academic record, not an IQ test.
Did Caitlin Clark take an IQ test, the SAT or the ACT?
No IQ test, SAT or ACT result for her has been published in any source we found. Her documented measures are academic: a 3.64 grade-point average in marketing in her final season at Iowa and the Academic All-America honors earned with it. Such scores are usually private unless the student shares them.
How does Caitlin Clark’s estimated IQ compare with Michael Jordan’s?
The ranges overlap: 115–130 for Clark and 115–135 for Michael Jordan on this site. Both rest on documented achievement and a college degree — Clark’s marketing degree from Iowa, Jordan’s geography degree from North Carolina — rather than on a test, and neither player has a published IQ result.
How does my IQ compare with Caitlin Clark?
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 athletes profiles, starting with Magnus Carlsen.
- 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 athletes profiles — same field, same method
More athletes
Michael Jordan
Photograph by Joshua Massel, cropped by Commons user Quadzilla99, CC BY-SA 2.0. · Photograph by Erik Drost, CC BY 2.0. The background-removed portrait above is a derivative work offered under the same licence. · Photograph by Przemysław Jahr, CC BY-SA 3.0. Cropped; background removed for the portrait above.
_(cropped2).jpg){kind=link}
An estimate is an inference.
Yours can be measured.
Thirty questions, scored against general-population benchmarks. Your score, your percentile, your ability breakdown and a printable IIF certificate.
Find your IQ score now! →