What was Jim Morrison’s IQ?
Documented: a UCLA film degree, a famously wide reading list and two books of poems. Not documented: any test behind the 149.
Jim Morrison’s IQ is not on record: the 149 attached to him, usually with a “top 0.1%” label, names no test, no tester and no date. What is on record is a UCLA film degree, a year at Florida State, published poetry and the lyrics on The Doors’ debut album, which support an estimated IQ of roughly 125–140.
Jim Morrison’s estimated IQ
- Completed a bachelor’s degree in UCLA’s film program (1965 according to Wikipedia, 1966 according to the UCLA Film & Television Archive) after studying at Florida State University in 1962–63.
- A heavy reading record: Wikipedia calls him a voracious reader from an early age, and a senior-year English teacher is quoted as saying he read as much as, and probably more than, any student in the class.
- Primary lyricist of The Doors; he wrote the lyrics of early songs such as “Moonlight Drive” and “Hello, I Love You”, and the second verse and part of the chorus of “Light My Fire”.
- Self-published two volumes of poetry in 1969, later combined as The Lords and the New Creatures, and recorded the poems that became the 1978 album An American Prayer.
No test result for Jim Morrison has been published, so this is an inference from a completed degree, a wide reading record and a body of lyrics and poems. Those show verbal and creative ability far better than reasoning, speed or memory, which is why the range is wide. The circulating 149 sits just above the top of it and cannot be checked, so it is not used.
- Born
- December 8, 1943, Melbourne, Florida
- Died
- July 3, 1971, Paris, France
- Field
- Music (lead vocals, lyrics), poetry
- Education
- George Washington High School, Alexandria, Virginia (1961); Florida State University (1962–63); bachelor’s degree, UCLA film program (1965 per Wikipedia, 1966 per the UCLA Film & Television Archive)
- Known for
- The Doors; lyrics of “The End”, “Moonlight Drive” and “Hello, I Love You”
- Poetry
- The Lords and the New Creatures (Simon and Schuster, 1970); An American Prayer (album, 1978)
- Honors
- Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (1993) and Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award (2007), both with The Doors
- Circulating IQ
- 149 (no test, tester or date published)
What an IQ of 125–140 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 Jim Morrison was
James Douglas Morrison was born on December 8, 1943, in Melbourne, Florida, and graduated in June 1961 from George Washington High School in Alexandria, Virginia. He attended St. Petersburg Junior College and, in 1962, transferred to Florida State University in Tallahassee, where a 2025 WCTV report on FSU archivists says he studied from 1962 to 1963, enrolled in the College of Arts and Sciences, with courses that included Philosophy of Protest and Collective Behavior and Essentials of Acting. An FSU public relations film released in 1964 features him. He then moved to UCLA and completed a bachelor’s degree in its film program, dated 1965 by Wikipedia and 1966 by the UCLA Film & Television Archive.
Reading is the best-documented part of the record. Wikipedia calls him a voracious reader from an early age and says he discovered Friedrich Nietzsche while still an adolescent; it names William Blake, Arthur Rimbaud and Charles Baudelaire among the poets who drew him, and William S. Burroughs, Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg among his influences. A senior-year English teacher is quoted there, citing the Hopkins and Sugerman biography No One Here Gets Out Alive (1980), as saying he read as much as, and probably more than, any student in the class. That is a teacher’s recollection, not a test, but it fits a verbally strong profile without measuring it (reading and IQ).
Morrison was the lead vocalist and primary lyricist of The Doors, formed in Los Angeles in 1965 with keyboardist Ray Manzarek, guitarist Robby Krieger and drummer John Densmore. Their debut album, The Doors, was released on January 4, 1967, on Elektra Records and closes with “The End”, whose lyrics Morrison initially wrote. He wrote early lyrics such as “Moonlight Drive” and “Hello, I Love You”; “Light My Fire” was principally written by Krieger, with Morrison writing the second verse and part of the chorus, and songwriting on it was credited to the whole band. In 1969 he self-published two volumes of poetry, The Lords / Notes on Vision and The New Creatures, later combined as The Lords and the New Creatures, which Open Library lists in a 1970 Simon and Schuster edition. An American Prayer appeared first as a privately printed poetry book in 1970; the poems he recorded in 1969 and 1970 were set to music by the other three Doors for the album of that name in 1978.
The group honors belong to the band, not to one member. The Doors were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1993, with Morrison, Manzarek, Krieger and Densmore listed as inductees, and the Hall’s page describes his lyrics as Beat-inspired and as blurring rock lyrics and poetry. The Recording Academy announced The Doors as Lifetime Achievement Award recipients in 2007. L.A. Woman, released on April 19, 1971, was the last album to feature him during his lifetime and peaked at number nine on the Billboard 200. Morrison died on July 3, 1971, in Paris, France.
By Elora Mercer, Celebrity Research WriterFigures checked by Leon Falkner, Data & Research AnalystReviewed by Aarav Vardhan, Editor-in-Chief · Last reviewed August 2026
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Jim Morrison: 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.
- 1943Born December 8 in Melbourne, Florida.
- 1961Graduates from George Washington High School in Alexandria, Virginia, in June.
- 1962–63Transfers to Florida State University in Tallahassee and studies there in the College of Arts and Sciences.
- 1965–66Completes a bachelor’s degree in UCLA’s film program (the year is 1965 on Wikipedia, 1966 at the UCLA Film & Television Archive); The Doors form in Los Angeles in 1965.
- 1967The Doors, the band’s debut album, is released on January 4 and closes with “The End”.
- 1969–70Self-publishes two poetry volumes in 1969; the combined The Lords and the New Creatures is listed with a 1970 Simon and Schuster edition.
- 1971Dies on July 3 in Paris, France.
- 1978An American Prayer, his recorded poems set to music by the other Doors, is released on November 17.
- 1993The Doors are inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
- 2007The Doors are announced as Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award recipients.
Where the 149 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.
The Jim Morrison IQ score of 149 has a long trail of repetition and no visible origin. English Wikipedia says that at George Washington High School in Alexandria, Virginia, he kept a grade average of 88 and “tested in the top 0.1% with an IQ of 149”, and footnotes the passage to a Washington Post article of July 17, 1980. This page has not verified that article, so what it says about the score is unchecked. The other pages that state the number add nothing to it: the Brooklyn Bowl blog presents it as plain fact, The Swinging Sixties site says he took an IQ test and ranked in the top 0.1%, and an EarlyGame feature of July 3, 2026 cites unnamed sources. None names a test, an examiner, a school record or a date.
The two numbers in that sentence can be checked against each other, and they agree only on one kind of scale. On the modern scale, where one standard deviation is 15 points, an IQ of 149 is about 3.3 standard deviations above the mean: roughly the top 0.05%, or about one person in 1,800. The top 0.1% line sits near 146 on that scale but near 149 on a scale with a standard deviation of 16, the convention the Stanford–Binet adopted in its third edition in 1960 (why 15 and 16 give different numbers). That fit would suit a mid-century school test, but it does not identify one, and a score quoted without its test and its scale cannot be set beside a modern score near 150.
The direction of the error matters too. Sourced records on this site almost always support a lower range than the circulating figure, and Morrison’s does as well: a bachelor’s degree, a transfer between universities and a heavy reading record describe a strong student, not a measured outlier. A single score from a teenager’s school test carries a margin of error of several points, and extreme scores tend to move toward the average on retest (regression to the mean). The pattern is the usual one for this section: a vivid biography acquires a round-looking number, and the number then travels without its paperwork (how celebrity IQ numbers originate).
Other musicians here show the same gap from different directions. John Lennon, another 1960s rock lyricist, carries a circulating 165 against a profile range of 108–120 built on a documented school record. Brian May (140–155) sits higher because his estimate rests on a completed doctorate. Morrison’s documented record falls between them: a completed bachelor’s degree, no graduate degree in the sources checked, and a body of work that shows verbal range more than any other ability.
How we read a number →Dates and places, schools, UCLA degree (1965), reading and influences, the English teacher’s remark, the 1969 poetry volumes, and the sentence stating the 149 with its Washington Post footnote (July 17, 1980). Wikidata confirms Q44301 is the American singer and poet, 1943–1971.
Formation in 1965, debut album January 4, 1967, songwriting credits, Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award (2007), L.A. Woman release and chart peak, An American Prayer (1978).
Inducted 1993; lists Jim Morrison, John Densmore, Ray Manzarek and Robby Krieger; describes his Beat-inspired lyrics.
Names The Doors among the 2007 Lifetime Achievement Award recipients for the 49th Annual Grammy Awards.
Says Manzarek graduated with a master’s and Morrison with a bachelor’s degree, both in 1966, and lists his work on student films.
Says he studied at FSU from 1962 to 1963 in the College of Arts and Sciences, lists courses from his transcripts, and dates an FSU public relations film featuring him to 1964.
Lists a 1970 Simon and Schuster edition by Jim Morrison.
States that the third edition (1960, Form L-M) used a mean of 100 and a uniform standard deviation of 16, the scale on which a 149 is about the top 0.1%.
Each repeats the 149 or the top 0.1% claim; none names a test, an examiner or a date.
No test name, administering body, school record or score report for the 149 appears in any page opened for this profile; the Washington Post article that Wikipedia cites has not been verified here.
The sources behind our estimate
The figures that circulate for Jim Morrison, what we were able to confirm, and where the two diverge.
149, usually written as an IQ that put him in the top 0.1% while he was at George Washington High School in Alexandria, Virginia. On English Wikipedia it is paired with a grade average of 88. It also appears on a music-venue blog, on a 1960s-history site and, as of July 2026, in an entertainment-news feature.
Every page that states the figure gives it without a test name, an examiner, a school record or a date. English Wikipedia places it in his high school years and footnotes the passage to a Washington Post article of July 17, 1980, “The Jim Morrison Story: Behind Closed Doors”, which this page has not verified, so what it says about the score is unchecked. The Brooklyn Bowl blog states the score as fact with no source, The Swinging Sixties site says he took a test and landed in the top 0.1% without naming it, and an EarlyGame feature of July 3, 2026 attributes the number to unnamed sources. No score report, school record or biography page opened for this profile shows the test itself.
The circulating number sits 9 points above the top of the range the record supports. That is a smaller gap than on many profiles in this section, which makes the missing paper trail the real issue: 149 is not impossible for a very strong student, but a plausible number is not a measured one.
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.
Jim Morrison — frequently asked
What is Jim Morrison’s IQ?
No IQ test result for Jim Morrison has been published. The figure that circulates is 149, described as a “top 0.1%” score from his high school years, but no page names a test, an examiner or a date. This page estimates 125–140 from his documented degree, reading and writing.
Where does Jim Morrison’s IQ score of 149 come from?
English Wikipedia states it and footnotes a Washington Post article dated July 17, 1980; blogs and entertainment sites then repeat it. None of the pages opened for this profile shows a score report or names the test, so 149 remains a reported figure, not a measured one.
Did Jim Morrison take an IQ test, and what was his IQ score?
He is said to have taken one at George Washington High School in Alexandria, Virginia, but no test name, score report or school record has been published. A school test may well have existed; a documented result is not on record in any source opened for this page.
Is Jim Morrison smart? Was Jim Morrison intelligent?
The documented record shows a strong student and an unusually wide reader: a UCLA bachelor’s degree in film, coursework at Florida State University, two self-published books of poems in 1969, and lyric credits on The Doors’ debut album. Those show verbal and creative ability, not a score.
Does Jim Morrison have a high IQ or is he a genius?
A genius label needs a test, and none exists. The estimated Jim Morrison IQ range here is 125–140, which on a 15-point scale runs from about the top 5% to about the top 0.4%. It is an inference from his record, not something he is known to have scored.
Did Jim Morrison graduate from college?
Yes. He earned a bachelor’s degree in UCLA’s film program after studying at Florida State University in 1962–63. Wikipedia dates the degree to 1965, while the UCLA Film & Television Archive says 1966, so the exact year is disputed even though the degree is not.
How does Jim Morrison’s estimated IQ compare with John Lennon’s or Brian May’s?
On this site Morrison’s estimated range of 125–140 sits above John Lennon’s 108–120 and mostly below Brian May’s 140–155, which rests on a completed doctorate. All three are estimates inferred from public records, not test scores, and each carries its own named weakness.
How does my IQ compare with Jim Morrison?
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 musicians profiles, starting with Brian May.
- 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 musicians profiles — same field, same method
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1974 Apple Records / Capitol Records press photograph by Bob Gruen, public domain (published without a copyright notice). Background removed for the portrait above. · Portrait © David J. Cable / Arcadia Photographic UK, CC BY-SA 2.0. The background-removed portrait above is a derivative work and is likewise offered under the same licence. · Photograph by Raph_PH, CC BY 2.0. Background removed for the portrait above.
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