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Schwarzenegger’s page attracts a specific number — 135 — repeated on trivia sites with no cited source, while the one credential he actually completed, a university degree finished by correspondence while he was still competing, rarely gets mentioned at all.
None of this is a cognitive test. The degree was completed through a non-selective, self-paced programme rather than a competitive admission, and both business success and executive politics correlate with intelligence only loosely. The range here reflects a genuinely broad, self-directed record — not a score.
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 →Arnold Schwarzenegger was born in Thal, Austria, in 1947 and began weight training at fifteen. He won the Mr. Universe title at twenty — the youngest winner up to that point — and moved to the United States in 1968, going on to take seven Mr. Olympia titles between 1970 and 1980.
Alongside bodybuilding he built a bricklaying business with fellow competitor Franco Columbu and began investing in Los Angeles real estate and apartment buildings in the early 1970s, well before Pumping Iron (1977) and Conan the Barbarian (1982) made him a movie star. By his own account, he was a millionaire from real estate before his acting career paid him meaningfully at all.
He was elected Governor of California in the 2003 recall election that removed Gray Davis, was re-elected in 2006, and served until 2011 — the only Austrian-born governor in the state’s history.
By Elora Mercer, Celebrity Research WriterFigures checked by Leon Falkner, Data & Research AnalystThe 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.
Following a claim back to its first appearance is the part almost nobody does — and it is what most people are actually asking.
Schwarzenegger’s number does a specific kind of work: it exists mainly to contradict the “dumb muscleman” stereotype his own early film roles helped build. That makes it a corrective figure as much as a factual one, and corrective figures are exactly the kind that get invented rather than measured.
What is actually documented cuts a different way than either the caricature or the corrective number. He left secondary school in Austria for compulsory military service and a bricklaying apprenticeship, then built the University of Wisconsin–Superior degree years later, one exam at a time, around a training and film schedule most students would not attempt. That is a real credential, earned the slow way, and it is the part of the record the trivia sites skip.
The pattern echoes Dolph Lundgren, another action star whose real academic record — a chemical engineering master’s and a Fulbright scholarship — is better documented and more impressive than anything a “genius bodybuilder” listicle credits him with, and considerably harder evidence than a bare number with no source.
How we read a number →Completed through the university’s self-paced, examination-based curriculum for non-traditional students, built up over several years around his competition and filming schedule.
His own account of the bricklaying business, the early real-estate investments and the Wisconsin degree.
Two full terms as Governor of California, spanning the 2008 financial crisis.
Source URLs and first-appearance date pending audit.
No original test, study or named source could be located behind the figure.
No school, military or clinical test result for Schwarzenegger appears in any source we could find.
The figures that circulate for Arnold Schwarzenegger, what we were able to confirm, and where the two diverge.
135 is the figure most often attached to him on “smartest bodybuilders” and “celebrity IQ” list pages, essentially always with no source given.
We found no record of Arnold Schwarzenegger ever taking a standardized IQ test. The 135 figure functions as shorthand for “smarter than the action-hero stereotype suggests” more than a documented score — it appears on lists with his name and no citation, the same way similar figures attach themselves to other bodybuilders-turned-actors.
A thirty-three-point spread with the same absence of a source behind each number — the low end usually attached to the “meathead” caricature, the high end to lists eager to make the opposite point.
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.
No test result has ever been published. 135 is the figure most often repeated online, with no source given. Our 120–135 range is inferred from his academic and career record, not from a test.
Yes. He completed a B.A. in international marketing and business administration from the University of Wisconsin–Superior in 1979, through a self-paced, examination-based programme, while still competing and filming.
Yes. He ran a bricklaying business with fellow bodybuilder Franco Columbu and invested in Los Angeles real estate and apartment buildings starting in the early 1970s, and describes himself as having been a millionaire from real estate before his film career paid off.
Two terms, from the October 2003 recall election through 2011, governing through the 2008 financial crisis.
No original source could be located. It appears on “smartest bodybuilders” and celebrity-IQ list pages without citation, most plausibly as a corrective to the “dumb muscleman” stereotype rather than as a reported score.
Similar in shape to Dolph Lundgren: an action star whose real, checkable academic and business record is more substantial — and better documented — than any number a trivia list assigns him.
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.
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 actors profiles, starting with Natalie Portman.
Portrait © Matthew Yohe, CC BY-SA 3.0. The background-removed portrait above is a derivative work and is likewise offered under the same licence. · Portrait © Debbie Rowe / The Royal Society, CC BY-SA 3.0. The background-removed portrait above is a derivative work and is likewise offered under the same licence. · Portrait by Christopher Smith, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services — a work of the U.S. federal government, public domain. Background removed for the portrait above.
Thirty questions, scored against general-population benchmarks. Your score, your percentile, your ability breakdown and a printable IIF certificate.
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