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Political figures attract more invented IQ numbers than any other category — this is where the documented hoaxes live.
Presidential IQ figures are the single most hoax-prone corner of this subject — invented numbers reached the mainstream press in 2001 and are still repeated. Treat any precise figure for any president with suspicion, including a precise reading of this range.
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 →Jefferson entered college at sixteen, qualified as a lawyer, and drafted the Declaration of Independence at thirty-three. He went on to serve as Governor of Virginia, Minister to France, the first Secretary of State, Vice President and third President.
Outside politics he designed Monticello and the University of Virginia, kept meticulous records on agriculture and weather, read several languages, and assembled a library so substantial that it became the foundation of the Library of Congress. He also enslaved more than six hundred people over his lifetime — a fact the “founding genius” framing tends to omit, and one that belongs in any honest account of the record.
The breadth of that documented output is exactly what historiometric methods respond to, and it is why his name attracts a high estimate. What the method cannot see is how much of it was capability and how much was position, wealth and forced labour.
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.
Following a claim back to its first appearance is the part almost nobody does — and it is what most people are actually asking.
Presidential IQ figures are the most hoax-prone corner of this entire subject, and the clearest case is documented. In 2001 a fabricated table of presidential IQ scores, credited to a non-existent “Lovenstein Institute”, circulated widely. The Guardian published it in July 2001 and retracted it two days later. It resurfaced in the Spanish press in 2007 and still appears in social posts today.
That history should colour how any figure for any president is read — including a figure produced by a legitimate method. If a number is politically useful, it will be invented, and inventions in this space have proven remarkably durable.
Jefferson is among the figures historiometric work has assessed, and the documented record is genuinely extensive: legal training, architecture, an enormous library, decades of correspondence. It is a strong record. It is still not a measurement.
How we read a number →Markedly lower than Newton or Voltaire in the very same table — a useful check on the assumption that eminence and estimate move together.
Fabricated figures attributed to a non-existent body. Published by The Guardian in July 2001 and retracted within two days; resurfaced in Spain in 2007.
6,487 volumes for $23,950. Approved by the House on 26 January 1815 and signed by President Madison on 30 January 1815.
The standard scholarly edition, and the documentary base the estimate reasons from.
The figures that circulate for Thomas Jefferson, what we were able to confirm, and where the two diverge.
The figure that circulates most widely, frequently traced to fabricated presidential IQ tables.
No president has a published, administered IQ result. Jefferson has historiometric estimates from legitimate academic work, but his name also appears in the 2001 hoax table that The Guardian retracted. Any figure quoted for a president needs its provenance checked before it is repeated.
The 138 is a hoax figure from the fabricated 2001 table. It is listed here precisely because it is still in circulation.
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.
He was never tested. Figures attached to him are retrospective historiometric estimates, and the presidential IQ genre in particular has a documented history of fabrication.
A 2001 hoax invented scores for US presidents and credited them to a non-existent institute. The Guardian published it in July 2001 and retracted it two days later; it resurfaced in the Spanish press in 2007 and still circulates.
No administered, published result exists for any of them. Everything in circulation is inference or invention.
He read several, including Latin, Greek and French, and studied others. Contemporary accounts and his own correspondence support this; the specific counts that circulate online vary and are often inflated.
Because they are politically useful and easy to fabricate. The 2001 hoax is the clearest case, and its numbers still resurface in social posts today.
He sold roughly six and a half thousand volumes to the United States in 1815 after the Library of Congress was burned, and that collection became its foundation.
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 politics profiles, starting with John F. Kennedy.
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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